House Republicans move toward climactic vote on Senate's 'fiscal cliff' bill
http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/275101-senate-fiscal-cliff-deal-in-trouble-in-house
By Russell Berman, Erik Wasson and Molly K. Hooper - 01/01/13 08:01 PM
House Republicans moved toward a potentially climactic final vote on "fiscal cliff" legislation Tuesday night, as party leaders determined they did not have the support to amend legislation passed overwhelmingly by the Senate earlier in the day.
The House Rules Committee scheduled an emergency meeting for shortly after 8:10 p.m. to set floor procedures for a vote. The move came after a pair of long closed-door Republican conference meetings, and is a signal that Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) believes there are enough votes to pass the Senate measure without changes.
Earlier in the day, Republicans said they were considering an attempt to amend the Senate measure, but lawmakers said there was no consensus on what to attach to the bill to garner enough GOP support.
The two choices were: amend the bill with spending cuts — likely killing it for the 112th Congress — or vote to adopt the Senate measure and send it to President Obama for his signature.
Rep. Rich Nugent (R-Fla.) said Tuesday night that Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) told rank-and-file members, in response to a direct question, that if the House GOP could not muster enough votes to amend the bill, he would personally vote "yes" on the unchanged legislation. Speakers by tradition rarely vote on the floor, and Boehner has only voted on a handful of bills, generally when he wants to show solidarity with members taking politically difficult votes.
During an evening vote series, members were whipped on an amendment option: attaching a $328 billion spending cut to the Senate deal. That measure passed the House twice in 2012 on party-line votes. It reduced the deficit by $243 billion, left cuts to Medicare in place, and eliminated $72 billion of $109 billion in defense and non-defense spending set for 2013. The Senate throughout 2012 ignored this House measure.
When the stand-alone bill came up for a vote in May, it passed 218-199 with 16 GOP "no" votes. In December, it passed 215-209 with 21 GOP "no" votes. Since that last vote, Rep. Tim Scott (R-S.C.), a "yes" vote, resigned from the House to become a senator.
Sources confirmed that despite conservative grumbling about corporate tax "giveaways" in the Senate bill, tax breaks for corporations are not considered for amendment. The Senate deal contains dozens of "tax extenders" including for clean energy.
If GOP leaders had found there was more than a 217-vote majority within the Republican conference for the amended bill, they were planning to bring it to the floor. If a majority could not be found, leaders planned to put the Senate deal to an up-or-down vote, members said.
While House Republicans broadly oppose the legislation the Senate passed overwhelmingly early Tuesday morning, many of them emerged from their second closed-door meeting of the day believing that, ultimately, the House would approve the measure without amendments.
"That seems to be the sentiment," conservative Rep. John Fleming (R-La.), an opponent of the bill, told reporters.
Inside the meeting, Boehner told lawmakers "there's risk" in killing the deal by amending it and having it die in the Senate, Fleming said.
Senate Democratic aides said Tuesday the upper chamber would not consider an amended bill passed by the House, meaning the current Congress would close without a deal to prevent a painful combination of tax increases and spending cuts.
The House must act on the Senate bill before noon on Thursday, when the 113th Congress begins. Democratic leaders and the White House have called on the Republican majority to bring the measure to an immediate vote.
“There’s probably enough people here who will vote for it that it’ll probably pass,” said freshman Rep. Raul Labrador (R-Idaho), another staunch opponent of the Senate bill. Labrador said "there's no consensus" on what the details of an amendment should look like, and that — combined with the likelihood that the Senate would simply ignore the amended version — would be enough to sink Boehner's plan.
Fleming was even more blunt.
"I would be opposed to the amendment ... because I just think you would just draw this thing out and create more problems and chaos," he said. "Ultimately the Senate would reject it anyway, so I think we need to vote up-or-down on the Senate version."
Fleming clarified that he would vote "no" on the Senate-passed bill.
Rep. Steven LaTourette (R-Ohio) said the GOP amendment would cut $328 billion and mirrors the defense sequester measure that has already passed the House.
LaTourette predicted that a vote on the Senate bill would not attract a majority of the majority. He said it would probably get 150 Democratic votes and the support of only 70 Republicans.
Boehner could risk the wrath of conservatives if he allows the Senate measure to pass the House with mostly Democratic votes. “He just can’t do that politically,” Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho) said.
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