In a vote of 228 to 201, Speaker Boehner and the House of Representatives passed their third bill aimed at staving off a partial government shutdown at midnight Tuesday. The legislation includes a one-year delay of the Obamcare individual mandate, as well as a provision that subjects certain lawmakers and administration officials to the ACA.
The bill now heads to the Senate, where Senator Reid has assured its demise, in a vote that is expected around 9:30 p.m. ET. Depending on vote timing, Capitol Hill insiders say that the whole process is expected to take as little as 15 minutes, keeping with what Reid has attempted to do this entire time, which is leave the House Republicans with a hot potato in the final hour.
This House CR contains a provision that would delay the the Obamcare individual mandate by one year, as well as the inclusion of the Vitter amendment, which subjects members of Congress, members of the president’s administration, and other government members to the same requirements the general American public is subjected to under Obamacare.
Though the House’s third CR cleared the chamber, the passage was not without a fight, and it came from squishy Republicans who chose to ally themselves with Democrats. With the threat of a partial government shutdown looming, so-called conservative members who once campaigned on their positions to support a repeal or replacement of Obamacare began to get weak in the knees as the clock moved closer to midnight.
Shortly before the bill’s final vote series, Representative Peter King R-NY – a vocal critic of the Tea Party conservatives – voiced his concern in the midst of the mounting pressure on House Republcans.
“If we didn’t stop (the back and forth), we’re not going to stop (Obamcare). Now we’re off to just hopefully get a clean CR in time,” he said. “If this were a secret ballot, we’d have three-fifths or two-thirds voting to end all this. There’s just a lot of pressure on people right now. On this (vote), it was particularly hard because it looks like if you’re voting no, you’re voting to protect a privileged class.”
I say there is a three-fifths or two-thirds chance that Rep. Peter King will be a Democrat before the decade is out.
