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Quirky ‘Queen of the Hill’ Rule Could Solve GOP Budget Impasse (latest leadership trick)
rollcall.com ^ | 3/23/15 | Matt Fuller

Posted on 03/24/2015 5:39:03 AM PDT by cotton1706

Republicans are breaking out their procedural rulebooks for the House budget resolution, with leadership getting creative to appease defense hawks who want additional spending and conservatives who are apt to reject more military dollars that aren’t offset.

The House Rules Committee Monday set up a series of votes this week on six budget proposals: The one reported out of committee, the version reported out of committee with an additional $2 billion for Overseas Contingency Operations, a leaner Republican Study Committee budget, a House Democratic Caucus budget, a proposal from the Progressive Caucus, and one from the Congressional Black Caucus.

The budget with the $2 billion additional defense dollars is the one House leadership ultimately wants to see adopted. That proposal will be the final vote in the series.

Here’s how the process works: the budget that gets the most votes is the one that wins. In congressional parlance, it’s called “Queen of the Hill.”

GOP leaders had to get funky with the rule after the Budget Committee reported out a bill without the additional $2 billion that Republican members of the House Armed Services Committee said was critical to their support. It seemed like the Rules Committee would just include self-executing language — making a bill with the amendment to the base text — but conservatives balked. They threatened to vote down any rule that simply added money without an offset for that expense and without a real vote.

Now that Republicans have found a way to thread the needle, allowing votes on the alternatives, conservatives may be more willing to see the budget — even if it is one with more defense spending — across the finish line.

(Excerpt) Read more at blogs.rollcall.com ...


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: elections
The latest trick: if the conservatives thwart a leadership priority in committee, they'll just have the rules committee pass what they want, because the votes are stacked. Boehner himself has five votes (meaning his vote counts five times) and I think McCarthy has several as well.
1 posted on 03/24/2015 5:39:03 AM PDT by cotton1706
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To: cotton1706

Also, don’t forget that Boehner booted those that voted against him OFF the rules committee.


2 posted on 03/24/2015 5:40:35 AM PDT by cotton1706 (ThisRepublic.net)
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To: cotton1706
We can trust the EXEMPT. [/s]

"At the foundation of our civil liberties lies
the principle that denies to government officials
an exceptional position before the law and which
subjects them to the same rules of conduct
that are commands to the citizen."

Justice Louis D. Brandeis

3 posted on 03/24/2015 5:45:22 AM PDT by Diogenesis ("When a crime is unpunished, the world is unbalanced.")
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