It’s going to be pretty tough to win back control of the House of Representatives. It’s definitely doable, but we don’t have much cushion. We need to win 25 seats and there are probably no more than about 35 Republican-held districts where we have a well-funded and credible candidate who has a real shot at victory. But John Boehner is doing everything he can think of to convince the American people that he’s terrible at his job and needs to be replaced. The latest fiasco is the Farm Bill. This is a bill that normally passes with absolutely no difficulty every five years. And that’s what happened in the Senate, where 16 Republicans joined with the Democrats to pass a bill back in June.
In the House Agriculture Committee, a version of the Farm Bill passed 35-11 in July. That’s the definition of bipartisan. Yet, Speaker Boehner says he doesn’t have the votes to pass the bill so he doesn’t want to have a vote at all. Since the five-year Farm Bill expires on September 30th, it’s kind of important that the House gets something done, so they’re talking about a 3-month or 1-year extension. Farmers are starting to freak out, which is why some Republicans have signed onto something called a ‘discharge petition.’ Basically, if a majority of congresspeople sign it, it forces a vote on the Farm Bill. It is not normal for members of the majority party to sign discharge petitions. It’s an open act of defiance. There’s no risk that a majority will sign the petition and force a vote, but it makes Speaker Boehner look bad.
And why shouldn’t he look bad? This is a Speaker who couldn’t convince his own caucus to pay our bills on time until a credit rating agency downgraded our nation’s AAA credit rating. Now he can’t pass a farm bill that sailed through the Senate and his own Agriculture Committee. You can’t blame the president for this. You can’t blame the Democrats. All the blame lies with the lunatic Republicans in the House. They need to be voted out so that we can have a government that works again. Period.
