Divided Dems head home sans tax vote

The fractures in the House Democratic Caucus burst into the open on
Wednesday after party leaders decided against a last-minute vote on
expiring tax cuts.

Thirty-nine Democrats — most in tight election races — broke ranks to oppose a motion to adjourn the House before acting on the George W. Bush-era tax rates scheduled to sunset at year’s end.

{mosads}The vote came after House Republican Leader John Boehner (Ohio) declared that a vote to adjourn for the campaign trail was akin to “a vote to raise taxes.”

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) was forced to cast a rare vote that accounted for the margin of victory for Democrats, who prevailed 210-209 on the motion.

House leadership aides insisted they had anticipated Boehner’s maneuver, but the tightness of the vote clearly caught Democrats off guard. The vote was held open for several minutes as Democrats scrambled to cobble together a majority. The 39 Democrats who voted against adjournment included most of the party’s most politically vulnerable members and three who are seeking higher office: Reps. Charlie Melancon (La.), Joe Sestak (Pa.) and Brad Ellsworth (Ind.).

“There’s still work to be done,” Rep. Gene Taylor (D-Miss.), who voted against adjourning, said in explaining his decision. He added that the unfinished business included more than just the expiring tax cuts.

Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.) said he decided to vote against adjournment before Boehner’s floor speech. “I think we should deal with the tax cuts before we leave,” Connolly said.

The procedural measure allowed Democrats to act on a flurry of bills before breaking more than a week earlier than scheduled for the final five-week sprint to the midterm elections.

Debate over the expiring tax cuts loomed over the pre-election session from the outset, and House leaders waited until the very end to officially confirm what most in Washington had expected:  The House would delay a tax vote until a lame-duck session.

While the Senate announced last week it would not act before November, Pelosi held the option open until Thursday morning, when she informed freshman Democrats that the House would follow suit.

“Given the fact that the Senate Republicans insist on holding middle-class tax relief hostage to try and get budget-busting breaks for the top 2 percent, we’ll take the fight to the election,” said Rep. Chris Van Hollen (Md.), assistant to the Speaker and chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

Democratic leaders have pledged to enact a permanent extension of the tax cuts for Americans earning less than $250,000 per year, but they want to let the current rates for the top income brackets expire. Republicans and some centrist Democrats want at least a temporary extension of all the tax cuts.

And while liberal Democrats wanted to vote on the middle-class tax cuts before the election, many centrist and vulnerable members urged party leaders to delay the vote.

Pelosi and Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), who had earlier split on the timing of the vote, jointly told first-term lawmakers about the final decision on Thursday, saying they were unified on the issue, a House leadership aide said.

A Democratic lawmaker said the two leaders urged members to deliver the message to their constituents that “the one thing that unites us all is we’re going to extend middle-class tax cuts.”

{mosads}The freshman members were told that they could take their own positions on whether they support a temporary extension of the tax rates for the wealthy, a possibility that Pelosi and Hoyer notably did not rule out, the lawmaker said.

Republicans seized on the decision to punt the vote. Boehner tried to frame the procedural motion to adjourn as a referendum on the tax cuts.
Members who voted to adjourn were “putting their election above the needs of your constituents,” Boehner said in a floor speech. “Vote no on this adjournment resolution. Give Congress the chance to vote on extending tax rates.”

Following the vote, Pelosi’s office criticized Boehner’s speech, saying it did not contain productive solutions to help aid the economic recovery.

“After listening to House Republican Leader John Boehner’s speech on the House floor today, it is clear that Americans face a choice: keep moving America forward —or return to what Republicans themselves call the ‘exact same’ agenda of failed ideas that favored corporate special interests, pushed us to the brink of economic disaster and left the middle class and small businesses struggling,” a release from her office reads.

After the procedural motion, the House passed bills to extend healthcare benefits to first responders at Ground Zero on 9/11, to confront Chinese currency manipulation and the Intelligence Authorization Act, as well as dozens of non-controversial measures.

Lawmakers planned to stay at the Capitol into Wednesday night and Thursday morning, if necessary, to complete work on a stopgap measure to fund the government after Sept. 30. The funding bill, known as a continuing resolution, was the last piece of must-pass legislation Congress needed to address before recessing for the midterm elections.
 
Jay Heflin contributed to this report.