Well, now they’ve done it. Congressional Republicans took a right turn at Main Street and hit the gas quite a while ago, but I had no idea they would actually vote against motherhood.
On Wednesday afternoon, the House had just voted, 412 to 0, to pass H. Res. 1113, “Celebrating the role of mothers in the United States and supporting the goals and ideals of Mother’s Day,” when Rep. Todd Tiahrt (R-Kan.), rose in protest.
“Mr. Speaker, I move to reconsider the vote,” he announced.
Rep. Kathy Castor (D-Fla.), who has two young daughters, moved to table Tiahrt’s request, setting up a revote. This time, 178 Republicans cast their votes against mothers.
It has long been the custom to compare a popular piece of legislation to motherhood and apple pie. Evidently, that is no longer the standard. Worse, Republicans are now confronted with a John Kerry-esque predicament: They actually voted for motherhood before they voted against it.
Even the original sponsor of the Mothers’ Day resolution, Nebraska’s Jeff Fortenberry (R), voted against his own bill.
The problem isn’t that 178 Republican lawmakers suddenly decided they no longer like mothers — though, with this bunch, one never knows — but rather that the House GOP has decided they prefer procedural tactics to allowing the chamber to function.
House Minority Leader John Boehner, asked why 178 Republicans (including him) switched their votes to oppose the resolution, said, “Oh, we just wanted to make sure that everyone was on record in support of Mother’s Day.”
Except, they all voted against the resolution in support of Mother’s Day. Only congressional Republicans could be this dense.
Indeed, it doesn’t generate a lot of headlines, in large part because no one really expects responsible governing from House Republicans anymore anyway, but Boehner & Co. have decided to bring the chamber’s ability to function to a slow crawl of late. As Boehner whined yesterday, he feels justified using delay tactics because it’s “time for Democrats and Republicans to work together.”
To induce this working together, Boehner decided to stop the House from working at all. As House Democrats tried to pass legislation to ease the mortgage crisis on Wednesday, Republicans served up hours of procedural delays, demanding a score of roll call votes: 10 motions to adjourn, half a dozen motions to reconsider, various and sundry amendments, a motion to approve the daily journal, a motion to instruct and a “motion to rise.”
The high point came just after 6 p.m., when, after one of the motions to adjourn, 61 members lined up to change their votes, one by one. Forty-six went from aye to no, while 15 changed from no to aye. The maneuver ate up 28 minutes in all — and caused an eruption by Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, who accused the minority of a “filibuster by vote changing.”
“I know that probably all of you did polls on that and focus groups on whether or not you should vote aye or nay,” Hoyer mocked. “What just happened is not appropriate for the House for either side, to simply use a device of changing votes, of voting late, of lining up in the aisle and coming down every 30 seconds or so with one more vote.”
But the dilatory maneuvers continued, and the Democrats finally announced that they would postpone the vote on the mortgage bill until Thursday, thereby pushing a war spending bill to next week.
And with that, House Republicans were delighted.
As for the GOP’s opposition to moms, I wouldn’t be surprised if this little stunt comes up during the fall campaigns. Dems might not necessarily base an entire ad on a resolution vote, but I could imagine a Dem candidate saying, “Rep. Smith spends most of his time in Washington saying, ‘No.” No to quality healthcare, no to bringing the troops home, Smith even voted against Mother’s Day. Isn’t time we said no to Rep. Smith?”
