Ok, I suppose this has been the case leading up to the shutdown as well, but at least it involved actual bills being passed and sent to the Senate. On the first day of the government shutdown House Republicans decided they would not only vote on these DOA piecemeal bills (to open just tiny pieces of the government one at a time), but apparently to purposely lose that vote.
From TPM:
The vote on the veterans affairs bill was 264 to 164, on the District of Columbia bill was 265 to 163, and on the national parks and museums bill was 252 to 176. All three proposals needed a two thirds majority of the chamber to pass.
...
After the vote, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) told TPM that House GOP leadership knew the bills were going to fail.
"We were told that that's what they were going to do," Cantor said. "To employ some sort of scorched-earth strategy."
A House Democratic aide told TPM that their side believes Republicans took the unusual procedural route because otherwise Democrats would have had a chance to put a clean spending bill on the floor, which they believe would pass. House leadership has refused to put a clean bill on the floor.
House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) told TPM that the House would bring the legislation up Wednesday under regular order, which would only require a majority vote.
So... they tried to pass this legislation that isn't going to work anyway in a fashion that they knew wouldn't even pass the House? I feel like I heard practically nothing today on a way out of the shutdown... So here we are, shutdown, hundreds of thousands of people out of work, important government services unavailable, the government losing millions of dollars a day, and the GOP is sitting around setting up votes that not only are already DOA in the Senate, but can't even pass the House? And that's all they did today and then went home? Wtf? Why isn't this being harped on?