There is a dirty little secret about John Boehner's House that the American people don't understand...yet. For all of the show votes repealing Obamacare, setting up Benghazi panels, and proposing tea party pipe dream legislation that will never become law, only a few important, relevant votes have been taken in John Boehner's House. But every once in a while the House had to act in order avert catastrophe. These instances include the debt ceiling votes, continuing resolutions, the farm bill, the transportation bill, ect. These are routine, mundane votes that most Americans don't care about, but they are the fundamental reason we have a congress.
The dirty little secret is that in order to pass these critical bills, John Boehner had to rely on the help of one person ... Nancy Pelosi. Look at the congressional record and you will find that all of the votes for legislation that actually had a snowballs chance in hell of becoming law, the vast majority of the aye votes came from Democrats. Follow below the fold for why this is important and how the calculus has changed...
The dirty little secret is that Boehner never had 218 republican votes he could control. 144 Republicans voted against ending the government shutdown. Despite adding members in last week's election, he still doesn't have nearly enough republicans to pass any meaningful legislation without Democratic help.
You may ask why this is important. The GOP has both the house and Senate, so they can pass their agenda. But realize that Boehner has a big problem. Because Democrats no longer run the Senate, Pelosi has no reason to play ball anymore. So Boehner will have to scramble to find enough Republicans interested in being involved in a functioning government. Take that government shutdown vote. He got a grand total of 87 republicans to vote "yea." He needs 218. So he needs 131 more votes. Can you imagine how red meat conservative legislation will need to be in order to attract those votes? Especially when those reps believe they have a mandate to move to the far right?
So here is Boehner's problem (and its a doozy): Given the need to pass some legislation, he needs that legislation to pass a less conservative Senate and not be vetoed. He no longer has the option of passing bills with majority Democratic support. You may say that Dems could fold and bail him out, but relying on Democratic votes would guarantee his removal as speaker. So he needs to attract conservative support, but doing so would jeopardize the bill's chance of passing the less conservative Senate, not to mention the president's veto pen.
Boehner's dirty little secret will determine the course of the country over the next 2 years. There will be shutdowns and failed impeachment hearings, and veto after veto after veto.
Stay thirsty, my friends