It did seem odd. Last week, House GOP leaders announced that a bi-partisan bill that would loosen Bush’s restrictions on stem cell research would get a floor vote this year. Why would Hastert and DeLay agree to a vote on a bill that they oppose, the religious right hates, and that might embarrass the White House? Bob Novak explained it’s because it was the only way to pass a budget.
House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert agreed to schedule the vote for this summer only after Rep. Michael Castle of Delaware, leader of a small band of liberal House Republicans, threatened to withhold votes on the closely contested budget resolution just before the recess began. Hastert asserted he was not yielding on stem cell research to save the budget, but that was the reality inferred by shocked conservatives.
This explains a lot. The stem-cell deal was reached on March 16; the budget vote was March 17. Hastert faced disgruntled lawmakers on the right and left flanks of his party and couldn’t afford to lose Castle and his half-dozen allied moderates. The party’s far-right base may have been outraged by the stem-cell deal, but Hastert’s head count was right — the budget passed by four votes.
Still, once this bill starts getting near the House floor, it’s going to be a very big deal.
The stem cell swap changes the climate on an issue menacing Republican solidarity. With Hastert removing the House roadblock, legislation funding human embryos for medical research could pass both the House and Senate despite opposition from Republican leaders and the White House. Bush almost certainly would have to cast his first veto.
We’ll have a divided GOP, corporate business interests siding with Dems for a change, a nearly united Dem front, progressive advocacy gearing up for the vote, and religious right activists going apoplectic. All the while, the first veto of Bush’s presidency would be looming in the background.
Pass the popcorn.