Duh.
I can't believe I have to write another one of these.
Well, I'll tell you this much: I'm not waiting around for them to post their damn schedule. It could be 3 a.m. before they get around to that, for all I know! And they really were talking about it taking that long to finish up the day's business.
Why? Because the House Republican leadership was unable to determine just what that business was going to be. They didn't want to agree to the Senate's version of the payroll tax cut extension bill, but they also don't want to deal with the backlash of voting it down. So the word is, they'll vote on a motion to disagree with the Senate's amendment and request a conference, instead.
That's not really all that convoluted or unusual, despite the chatter last night and this morning. It could be considered something of a cop-out in that there's no direct vote on rejecting the Senate's version outright. But even if there were, under normal procedure you would only bother going on record in disagreement if you intended to use that as a stepping stone from which to request a conference. So in that sense, this is pretty routine.
Where this departs from standard procedure is that usually a conference is requested between two houses that have a genuine interest in ironing out a compromise, whereas this particular request for a conference appears to be motivated by something quite different, though no one can actually tell what that something is. After all, the Senate's version of the bill is the compromise position. The compromise was to pass a short-term, two-month extension in order to buy time to talk things over some more. And yet the House's response to the Senate's offer of further negotiations is, at least formally, "No! We want further negotiations!"
So you can see where things are likely to get a little hairy. Basically, the Senate has said they want to sit down and talk over their differences with Republicans in the House, and the Republicans are hanging their hats on the claim that a perfectly good reason to let the tax cut expire is that they prefer to have different people sit down in a different room to talk things over. And the best way they could think of to show you they're serious about this is to raise taxes on 160 million working families just as their credit card bills from the holidays come due.
Nice!
You'd have better luck finding "bipartisan compromise" with a case of herpes.
UPDATE: Here's the House floor schedule:
THE NIGHTLY WHIP: MONDAY, DECEMBER 19, 2011
TOMORROW’S OUTLOOK
On Tuesday, the House will meet at 9:00 a.m. for legislative business.
First votes expected: 10:30 – 11:30 a.m.
Last votes expected: 3:00 – 4:00 p.m.
“One Minutes” (5 per side)
H.Res. 502 – Rule providing for consideration of the Senate amendments to H.R. 3630 - to provide incentives for the creation of jobs, and for other purposes, H. Res. 501 - expressing the sense of the House of Representatives regarding any final measure to extend the payroll tax holiday, extend Federally funded unemployment insurance benefits, or prevent decreases in reimbursement for physicians who provide care to Medicare beneficiaries, and for other purposes (Rep. Scott - Rules)
Motion that the House Disagree to the Senate Amendments to H.R. 3630 - Middle Class Tax Relief and Job Creation Act of 2011 and Request a Conference with the Senate (One Hour of Debate)
Democratic Motion to Instruct Conferees on H.R. 3630 - Middle Class Tax Relief and Job Creation Act of 2011 (One Hour of Debate)
H.Res. 501 - Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives regarding any final measure to extend the payroll tax holiday, extend Federally funded unemployment insurance benefits, or prevent decreases in reimbursement for physicians who provide care to Medicare beneficiaries (Rep. Price - Ways and Means) (Subject to a Rule)
Postponed Suspensions (4 Votes):
- Senate Amendment to H.R. 2056 - To instruct the Inspector General of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation to study the impact of insured depository institution failures, and for other purposes (Rep. Westmoreland - Financial Services)
- Senate Amendment to H.R. 1801 - Risk-Based Security Screening for Members of the Armed Forces Act (Rep. Cravaack - Homeland Security)
- Senate Amendment to H.R. 1059 - To protect the safety of judges by extending the authority of the Judicial Conference to redact sensitive information contained in their financial disclosure reports, and for other purposes (Rep. Conyers - Judiciary)
- Senate Amendment to H.R. 515 - Belarus Democracy and Human Rights Act of 2011 (Rep. Smith (NJ) - Foreign Affairs)