Dem
51
GOP
49
It's also been a couple of weeks since we had a story about the House Republican Conference, and their silly stunts. Perhaps, in honor of David Letterman, we should call them "Stupid Republican Tricks." In any case, there are members of the House who just can't stand to be out of the headlines for too long. And so, now that everyone's back in Washington, it was time to, well, waste some more of everyone's time.
The House GOP's latest efforts have been focused on AG Merrick Garland. They don't care about Garland, per se, but the Freedom Caucusers and their ilk desperately want the tapes from the investigation conducted by former special counsel Robert Hur. Particularly after Joe Biden's debate performance, they believe that those tapes will be the "smoking gun" that proves to the American people that Biden is no longer capable of serving as president.
The latest scheme to compel surrender of the tapes involves "inherent contempt," which means that not only would House Republicans find Garland in contempt of Congress for ignoring their subpoena, but they would also enforce the ruling by themselves. One possibility was to actually send the sergeant-at-arms of the House to arrest Garland, and to drag him back to the Capitol, to be imprisoned for as long as it takes. However, that approach hasn't been used in a century, would run into serious logistical difficulties (like Garland's security detail), would make the GOP look like violent people with dictatorial impulses, and would invite the Democrats to avail themselves of the same privilege the next time a Republican is in the White House.
As an alternative, Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL) came up with a cash-based approach. The basic idea is that Garland would be fined $10,000 a day by the House for every day he failed to turn over the tapes. Ostensibly, this would put enormous pressure upon the AG, given his salary of $221,400 (i.e., 22 days' worth of fines). In reality, all that would be accomplished is to trigger a lawsuit or six, in which Garland would point out that Biden has already asserted executive privilege over the tapes.
Yesterday, Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) brought the measure to the floor of the House for a vote, and it failed, 210-204, with 4 Republicans crossing the aisle to vote with the Democrats. Luna says she's going to bring it up for a vote again, because some Republican members had to leave early, and so weren't around for the vote. The Representative is confident it will pass on the second go-round.
For those who are interested, the math here is... tight. If every Republican is present, and every Democrat is present, and four Republicans again cross the aisle, then the final vote would be 217-216 against, and the measure would fail. That said, it's possible one of the four who crossed the aisle did so in order to preserve their right to bring the legislation up again, in which case the final vote would be 217-216 for, and the measure would pass. It's also possible that one or more of the Republicans who absented themselves did so tactically, to avoid having to take a position on the issue. There's no way to be sure. All we can say is that, at least for now, this particular Stupid Republican Trick has failed. (Z)