House Republicans vowed to maintain pressure on the Democratic majority despite Majority Leader Steny Hoyer’s (D-Md.) decision to deny a GOP alternative to their non-binding Iraq resolution this week.
On Sunday, after Hoyer announced on NBC’s "Meet the Press" that it was "not necessarily our plan" to allow the minority to offer an alternative resolution on the House floor next week, Minority Leader John Boehner’s (R-Ohio) office sent out a flurry of releases decrying the decision and challenging Hoyer and other members by demanding they not "renege" on an earlier pledge to allow Republicans to provide their own resolution.
Without the ability to offer a resolution, the GOP leadership has focused its attacks on what may occur during the upcoming debate over the emergency war supplemental, implying that the Democratic resolution is simply the first step in a larger plan to limit funding for the war. One of the proposed Republican alternatives, offered by Rep. Sam Johnson (R-Texas), would require members to pledge not to cut off funding. Republicans have been quick to point out that the legislation they have offered, unlike the Democratic resolution, is binding.
"This resolution is the first step in the Democrats’ plan to cut off funding for American troops who are in harm’s way, and their leaders have made this abundantly clear," Boehner said in a release yesterday. "If Democrats are serious about supporting our troops, they will allow Republicans to offer a substantive alternative that binds the Congress to an unwavering and unambiguous commitment to fund the American men and women who wear our uniform."
Democratic leaders have said repeatedly that they have no intention of cutting off funding for the war. Despite their drumbeat, Republicans will likely lose at least 30 of their own members’ votes to the Democratic resolution; these members include Rep. Walter Jones (R-N.C.), who is cosponsor.
Jones is expected to speak in favor of the resolution on the House floor, according to his spokeswoman.
For the last several weeks, Republican leadership characterized the Democratic resolution, which expresses disapproval for President Bush’s planned troop "surge," as a non-binding political ploy, a familiar allegation that echoed through the House chamber on the other side of the aisle in 2004, 2005 and 2006.
Speaking on the floor during a March 17, 2004 debate over a resolution relating to the liberation of the Iraqi people, then-Minority Whip Hoyer said, "This resolution should have simply expressed the support of this House for our armed forces now in harm’s way … regrettably, however, the majority has handled this resolution in a manner which inevitably led to division.
"On a matter of the highest national importance, the majority has undermined the democratic process in this House, treated those who hold different views with disdain, and created a bludgeon where it should have built a bridge," he added.
In June 2006, as the House prepared to debate a resolution characterized by Democrats as an affirmation of Bush’s Iraq policy, then-Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) decried the Republican decision to close the rule on the Iraq debate and criticized the majority for its failure to allow a Democratic alternative to the GOP resolution.
"It’s really unfortunate, as the president contends that we are fighting for democracy in Iraq, that we can’t have democracy on the House floor. No open rule. No amendments. No Democratic alternative allowed," Pelosi said.