The House leadership is having difficulty getting the 218 votes they need to pass the supplemental spending bill for Iraq. They have postponed the vote until tomorrow. According to The Hill, the following Dems are in the no column.
Dan Boren (Okla.) (leaning no)
Danny Davis (Ill.) (leaning no)
Keith Ellison (Minn.) (leaning no)
Dennis Kucinich (Ohio)
Sheila Jackson Lee (Texas)
Barbara Lee (Calif.)
John Lewis (Ga.)
Jim Marshall (Ga.)
Pete Stark (Calif.)
Edolphus Towns (N.Y.)
Lynn Woolsey (Calif.)
Jim Marshall and Dan Boren oppose the bill because it has benchmarks. The rest of them oppose the bill because the benchmarks are non-binding. Pete Stark has never voted for a war appropriation in his 35 years in Congress.
Those refusing to commit one way or the other represent the largest bloc in Congress.
The argument for voting against the bill is threefold. If you are a Republican, you don’t want to embarrass the President and you don’t want to provide any momentum for the Out of Iraq caucus.
If you are a conservative Dem, you might be afraid of your constituents’ opinion of ‘tying the President’s hands during wartime’.
And if you oppose this war and want it to end as soon as possible, funding the war doesn’t seem like the best way to accomplish your goals.
Therefore, the strongest opposition to the bill is coming from the left and right flanks. I don’t really have anything to say to the right flank. Reps like Boren and Marshall are beyond reason. They know their districts, but I think 1) this is a vote of conscience worth losing your seat over, and 2) being for this war is not going to be a winner in 2008. They see it their way, so be it.
But for the Out of Iraq caucus…
This is a vote of conscience. If you haven’t voted for any Iraq appropriations so far, that’s consistent…don’t contradict your conscience. But if you are thinking strategically about the best way to end this war, consider the following.
Rep. Maurice Hinchey (D-N.Y.) also said members have been told that if the bill fails, Democratic leaders would submit a bill with the president’s request that would pass with the help of Republicans.
“If this doesn’t pass, whatever we do pass is going to be much weaker,” Hinchey said.
The importance of this point cannot be underestimated. If the Democrats cannot pass this supplemental, they will rewrite the bill so that the votes used to pass it are primarily Republican. One way or the other, Congress is going to pass a supplemental bill.
As it stands, the House bill is stronger than the Senate bill. Passing the House bill and then refusing to weaken it in conference would put us in a position of strength. We could hold out on funding the Iraq War until the Senate Republicans cave in and allow the non-binding benchmarks.
But, if we fail to pass this bill in the House, the opposite will happen. The House will be under pressure to strip the non-binding benchmarks, or weaken them. And the sad fact is, there is no stomach in Congress for refusing to fund the troops in Iraq by failing to submit any supplemental at all, or by repeatedly offering bills that cannot achieve passage.
If there is to be a showdown, where we have a bill that the Republicans are refusing to support, we need to have a bill that has passed one House of Congress. Given that option, we’d rather have the House Bill.
It’s true that you don’t end a war by funding it. But Congress is not ready to cut off funding. It’s still possible that there will be a showdown over the supplemental. But, if there is a showdown, it has to be the Republicans that are responsible for a failure to pass the bill. It can’t be simply a matter of the Democrats refusing to offer a bill.
While it is theoretically possible to refuse to offer a bill, it is not in the cards. The Democrats would then find themselves in the position of having to pass laws to allow the Pentagon to move around money and spend it for purposes other than for what it was originally appropriated. They would still have to pass something. They can’t stonewall. And, they will therefore pass a supplemental appropriation bill of one type or another, eventually. Defeating this bill will only assure that the eventual bill is much more to the GOP’s liking.
And, again, passing the House bill will work in our favor if the Republicans filibuster in the Senate. Passing the House bill with non-binding benchmarks, and then standing firm in conference, will put pressure on the Senate to allow non-binding benchmarks in the final bill.
It’s the best we can do right now.
