27 Feb 2013 3:14 pm
BREAKING: House Republicans Backing Down On Violence Against Women Act After nearly a year of resistance that has damaged them politically with women voters, House Republicans have found a clever way to back down on the reauthorization of an expanded Violence Against Women Act, aides confirmed to TPM late Tuesday. The original plan was for the Republican majority in the House to pass its version of the Violence Against Women Act reauthorization and then go to conference conference committee with the Senate. The Senate has already overwhelmingly passed a more aggressive bill, with protections for LGBT, Native American and undocumented women that have been at the heart of the dispute with House Republicans. But all that changed Tuesday night. The Rules Committee instead sent the House GOP’s version of the Violence Against Women Act to the floor with a key caveat: if that legislation fails, then the Senate-passed version will get an up-or-down vote. The big admission implicit in this latest move is that House GOP leaders don’t believe they have the votes to pass their version of the bill but that the Senate version is likely to pass the chamber. So this way they’ll give House conservatives the first bite at the apple as a way of saving face and still resolve an issue that has hurt them politically. Here’s how Democrats expect it to play out. After the House finishes debating the GOP-version of the bill on Wednesday and Thursday, it will get a vote, but will fail to muster enough votes for passage due to conservative and Democratic opposition. So the Senate-passed bill will get a vote instead, and Democrats as well as a faction of more moderate Republicans will carry it to victory. Then it will go straight to President Obama’s desk for his signature. Looks like the old Hastert rule is out the window. Boehner can't control his caucus, and needs to rely on Democrats to get anything done, even something like VAWA which has always had bi-partisan support. The majority of the majority is a governing principle used by Republican Speakers of the House of Representatives since the mid-1990s. Under the majority of the majority doctrine, the Speaker of the United States House of Representatives will not allow a vote on a bill unless a majority of the majority party supports the bill.This is sometimes referred to as the Hastert Rule. Boehner also ditched the Hastert rule twice in January, on both the Fiscal Cliff and the Hurricane Sandy Relief bills. Looks like it's becoming a habit.