So, you are a political junkie, but you have no idea about obscure parliamentary tricks of the House? Never fear. Today, the Republicans pulled out a motion to instruct in order to provide some cover for their endangered Northeastern and Upper Midwestern congresspersons.
A group of 25 moderate House Republicans — most of them affiliated with the Northeast/Midwest-heavy GOP labor caucus — have penned a letter to Maj Leader John Boehner seeking a vote to increase the minimum wage before the August recess.
Boehner has no intention of raising the minimum wage, so he pulled a neat little trick. Here’s (.pdf) a description of the ‘motion to instruct’.
Instruct Conferees. The result of a motion to instruct conferees is a formal vote of the House to tell its conference committee members how they should resolve an issue. Under House precedents, the right to offer a motion to instruct conferees is the prerogative of the minority. There are three situations where such a motion may be offered: 1) after the House decides to go to conference but before House conferees are named (only one such motion is in order); 2) 20 calendar days and 10 legislative days after conferees have been named if a conference report has not been filed; and 3) as a part of a motion to recommit a conference report with instructions.
This last opportunity does not exist if the Senate has already acted on the conference report. Motions to instruct conferees are not binding. There is no point of order against a conference report that does not follow a House-passed motion to instruct.
Motions to instruct are debated under the hour rule. A Member would say: Mr. Speaker, I offer a motion to instruct.
Bada Bing.
By a margin of 260-159, the House this afternoon passed a non-binding “motion to instruct” procedure in support of upping the minimum wage to $7.25 per-hour. Though symbolic, the vote allows the vulnerable GOPers to point to an actual vote matching their promises. All the endangered GOPers on the letter voted ‘yea,’…
This is, of course, total horseshit. If the blogosphere is good for anything, it is good for sniffing out horseshit. Don’t let anyone tell you that these ‘moderate’ Republicans just voted to increase the minimum wage. They got a free vote that has no consequences…that will not persuade the House conferees to do shit, because the dumb vote IS NOT BINDING.
This is a version of “I voted for the minimum wage before I refused to allow it to be voted on at all.”
