Boehner seeks to smooth waves after House ruckus

While House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) sought Friday to move on from a floor dispute that erupted on the House floor Thursday night, his deputy and many rank and file members stood ready to fight what several lawmakers described as an unprecedented violation of House rules.

“What happened last night disenfranchised minority members but disenfranchised members of the majority as well that voted for that measure,” Boehner said in a speech on the floor.

{mosads}The GOP leader indicated he would offer a privileged resolution to appoint a select committee to look into what occurred when Rep. Michael McNulty (D-N.Y.) gaveled a vote in favor of the majority when in fact the minority believed it had won, gaveling in favor of Democrats on a motion to recommit to bar illegal immigrants from receiving federal funds in the agriculture spending bill. House Democrats requested an Ethics Committee investigation into the events.

As Boehner called for comity and urged members to move on, GOP lawmakers on the floor sat silently.

“What happened last night, happened last night,” Boehner said.

However a more fiery speech given by Minority Whip Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) was met with a loud cheer from his colleagues on the House floor.

“The remedy for the House to solve this problem was to let the vote stand,” Blunt said. “You lost the vote, I didn’t hit the gavel, I didn’t speak over the clerk who was trying to read the final vote, the chair did … a week of violations of the principles of the House culminated last night in such an excessive way that Republicans walked off the floor and it was a deserved walk out and I’m ashamed of the House.”

Another member expressed disappointment in Boehner for bringing members to the floor at 9 a.m. and not putting up a fight.

“You don’t bring your troops to battle and then try to [forge] a compromise,” said the GOP member.

McNulty took to the floor Friday morning to apologize for his action.

“I want to express regret that I gaveled the vote too early,” McNulty said and apologized for his role in the confusion that rocked the House floor last night.

McNulty gaveled the motion to recommit closed at 214 to 214, when the final vote tally on the board was 213 to 215 after Florida Republican Reps. Mario Diaz Balart, Lincoln Diaz Balart and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen changed their votes from a “no” to a “yes.”

“We went to the front of the House [to change our votes],”Rep. Mario Diaz Balart said, adding that the board had changed to the count of 213 to 215 in favor of the motion to recommit, and that the gavel went down but McNulty hadn’t seen the change.

“It stayed there for several minutes …then the votes started to change again,” he said, causing the vote to flip. “That’s when there was the meltdown.”

Diaz Balart said of McNulty, “It wasn’t done in malice that’s why he apologized.”