Massachusetts Congressman Jim McGovern may force the House of Representative to debate and vote as early as this week on bringing troops home from Iraq and Syria.
McGovern’s resolution would, instead of authorizing the ongoing operations, require Obama to “bring all troops within 30 days” from those two countries, a McGovern spokesperson tells me. Frustrated by the House’s failure to consider President Obama’s war authorization bill (Authorized Use of Military Force, or AUMF), McGovern exercised a procedural option earlier this month, that would have forced his resolution to the floor on June 23rd. But, according to McGovern press secretary Abraham White, on Friday the Rules Committee agreed to allow the debate and vote under normal procedure. The committee will decide the details at its Tuesday afternoon meeting, which means the House might be debating the troops’ future as soon as Wednesday.
New England Says No To Obama
Democrats in the House of Representatives dealt President Obama a stinging rebuke last week when they rejected his request for the authority to expedite a controversial Pacific trade agreement, officially known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).
Normally Obama-friendly representatives from New England stampeded the measure, shouting “Hell, no!” to the leader of their party in the process. Every House Democrat from Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island voted to block the path to TPP. The only New Englanders who stood by the President were Connecticut Democrats Jim Himes and John Larson, and New Hampshire Republican Frank Guinta.
When it comes to TPP, there is no longer any middle ground. Obama, and Republican leaders in Congress, believe that America will do better selling services overseas if it has stricter controls over the manufactured items it imports. Organized labor and liberals are just as certain that this deal is as bad as — or worse than – NAFTA, and will cost the US even more blue-collar jobs.
Friday’s remarkable events were not the final act of the drama. The House is scheduled to replay and reconsider last week’s action this week, probably sometime Tuesday or Wednesday. Or, in another scenario being discussed, the next scene will shift back to the US Senate, with the pressure then falling on a group of moderate Democrats there including moderates Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire.
Technically, the House Democrats voted against Obama on something they like: worker assistance programs. But Democrats seized on that vote as their way to kill the bigger goal of the legislation – fast-track-authority for TPP – which narrowly passed in a separate vote, but which needs the assistance program to match the version that passed in the Senate.
Many expected the worker assistance vote to be close also. It wasn’t. Republicans who oppose the program – including Bruce Poliquin of Maine – combined with Democrats trying to kill the overall deal, for a 126–302 defeat. It was a much wider margin than most anticipated, and came after Obama came to the Capitol Friday morning to make a last-minute pitch – but also after Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi announced she would vote no.
House Speaker John Boehner, who is pushing for passage, nevertheless made a procedural move to allow a new vote on the worker-assistance program this week.
Somehow, Boehner and Obama would need to flip 90 votes or so to succeed. Some could come from Democrats giving in; some could come from Republicans willing to hold their nose and vote for the program they dislike, to save the trade deal they do want.
Initial conversations I’ve had don’t suggest much hope for those votes to come from New England.
Some of the area’s members of Congress, including Joe Kennedy, waited until Friday to declare their intent to vote against the bill, but the only one whose decision was really considered in doubt was Seth Moulton, of Salem. He was lobbied intensely from the outside by labor groups and progressives to vote against the trade bills – and from within, he was personally lobbied by Senator Elizabeth Warren, Moulton told me recently, during an interview for a Scrum podcast.
Moulton announced his decision on Twitter shortly after noon Friday, just before final floor debate began on the bills. With hopes waning of flipping those House Democratic votes, other procedural options are being considered. One would send the House and Senate versions to conference committee, where the Senate version would be stripped of the worker-assistance program.
Essentially, that would require the Senate to find a filibuster-proof 60 votes for the House version. Specifically, Obama could lose no more than five of the 13 Democrats who helped him stop the filibuster last month. Shaheen, who was one of those 13, would find herself back in the spotlight.
That might be a tough slog, but as positions have hardened on this issue, it might be the best he’s got.
Moulton Bill Clears Committee
Congress is a tough place for legislation these days, let alone a bill sponsored by a freshman Democrat. So it’s pretty impressive that govtrack.us is giving Seth Moulton a 24 percent chance of getting his small business loan bill made into law.
That’s the odds the site is showing after the Committee on Small Business voted unanimously to send Moulton’s bill to the full House, with a favorable recommendation.
The Microloan Modernization Act would make it easier for businesses to get access to capital through the Small Business Administration (SBA). One of its targets is the so-called “25/75” rule, which limits the extent to which micro lenders can assist potential new lenders. Moulton says that the rule affects the Merrimack Valley Small Business Center, in Lowell, which provides loans to entrepreneurs of up to $50,000. The SBA itself requested the elimination of the 25/75 rule, in its most recent annual report to Congress.
The bill would also increase aggregate loan limit caps, extend repayment periods, and authorize SBA to extend lines of credit to small businesses.
Small-business access to capital is a popular issue, politically, especially in smaller “gateway cities” that lie in Moulton’s district, such as Amesbury, Gloucester, Lynn, Peabody, and Salem. One of Scott Brown’s biggest successes as US Senator was on a crowd funding bill, signed into law in 2012, designed for much the same purpose.
Moulton’s bipartisan bill has two co-sponsors from each party, and now the blessing of a House committee.
He had less success on Thursday, however: his motion to recommit the Defense appropriations bill, to change some of the spending priorities, failed 186–240.
Collins and Ayotte Again
Another study of bipartisanship has, no surprise, found New England Republicans leading the aisle-crossers.
The Washington Post on Friday showed the members of Congress who have voted against their own party the most so far this year. Susan Collins of Maine tops the list among Senate Republicans, with New Hampshire’s Kelly Ayotte second.
The Post also found that both Collins and Ayotte have been even more likely to vote against the majority of their fellow Republicans in close votes, when it mattered most.
No area Democrats made the lists, of the top 10 of each party, in both the House and Senate.
Social media photo of the week
It was a big week for class visits to the Capitol; here, Somerset Middle Schoolers with Joe Kennedy III.
