Give it back, John.
Speaker John "
there's no deal" Boehner finally yielded to House Democrats and the saner members of his caucus, holding a vote to pass a "clean" bill that funds the Department of Homeland Security through September 30. The bill passed, 257-167, with Democrats providing a boost of 182 votes. Not a single Democrat voted against the bill.
With the conclusion of this Homeland Security debacle, two things have become clear: 1) the House Democratic Caucus under the leadership of Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi has the ability to dictate policy by remaining disciplined and cohesive; 2) the House crazy caucus will ensure the relevance of Pelosi and House Democrats.
What brought us to the point of considering this bill was a brilliant strategic move by Pelosi and Minority Whip Steny Hoyer to rally against Boehner's feckless attempt last Friday to pass a bill that funded Homeland Security for only three weeks. Theoretically, that would have given his caucus time to figure out how they could finally unite and turn back President Obama's 2014 immigration actions. But Pelosi denied Boehner the votes to make that possible—losing only 12 members of her caucus in the effort to kill the bill, while Boehner lost fully 52 of his members in his attempt to approve the measure.
After that vote failed, Pelosi later encouraged her caucus to vote for the one-week funding bill, saying it would ensure a vote on the clean bill this week. Here's the closing line of her "Dear Colleague" letter last Friday:
Your vote tonight will assure that we will vote for full funding next week.
Boehner
flat-out rejected the notion Monday that some sort of deal was made.
Whatever the case, Pelosi's assertion proved correct, her caucus remained united, and now we'll get to see if the Republicans have any agenda at all beyond shutting down the government.