What Is Brian Fitzpatrick Thinking???
His strategy is...something...
First off, I’ve updated my summary of the health care bill (H.R. 6703) the House is considering today to reflect the Congressional Budget Office analysis released yesterday. That summary is available here.
But the main news today involves Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA) and a handful of his colleagues signing a discharge petition offered by House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), purportedly to get a vote on a three-year extension of enhanced Obamacare subsidies. (I say “purportedly” for a reason—read on to find out.)
Put aside for a moment the policy arguments against the extension—that it will perpetuate fraud, continue subsidies for people making several hundred thousand dollars per year, and so on. On the sheer politics of it, Fitzpatrick’s move doesn’t make sense on any number of levels:
Makes Jim McGovern “Speaker for a Day:” The discharge petition Fitzpatrick et al. signed is NOT for an Obamacare subsidies bill. Instead, it demands a vote on a rule (H.Res. 780) for considering an entirely separate bill. I haven’t read that separate bill (H.R. 1834) in its entirety, but it doesn’t have Obamacare subsidies language in it, either—instead, it discusses things like a congressional time capsule, domestically made U.S. flags, and myriad other topics completely unrelated to Obamacare. The rule makes in order “an amendment in the nature of a substitute…dated at least one day before the day of consideration of H.R. 1834, if submitted by the ranking minority member of the Committee on Rules,” Rep. Jim McGovern (D-MA). In other words, the discharge petition Fitzpatrick et al. signed allows Rep. McGovern to swap out his “shell” bill with another bill, and bring it to the House floor for a vote. That “other” bill could be an Obamacare subsidies extension—but it could just as easily be another impeachment of President Trump, or anything else Rep. McGovern and Democratic leaders want.
Faces Long Senate Odds: The Senate just rejected a three-year “clean” extension of Obamacare subsidies last week. For the Jeffries bill to pass, at least eight Senate Republicans will have to switch their votes—a highly uncertain prospect, at best.
Debate in a Presidential Year: As previously noted, even if the Jeffries bill gets enacted into law (a highly uncertain proposition), a three-year extension would result in this issue becoming ripe again in the fall of 2028. After the controversies of the last several weeks, any Republican who wants this issue to dominate the final weeks of that year’s presidential campaign should have his head examined.
Democrats Will Attack Fitzpatrick Regardless: I mentioned this point in my book: In 2017, Brian Fitzpatrick voted against House Republicans’ “repeal-and-replace” efforts—yet Democrats still attacked him during the mid-term elections on pre-existing conditions:
“The [Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee] really crosses the line here. Fitzpatrick bucked his party to vote against one of the President’s top priorities, the repeal of Obamacare, specifically because he was concerned about the impact on people with pre-existing conditions. His reward? Being attacked for selling his constituents out on the issue because of his minor procedural votes….You would think Democrats would at least applaud him for his courage, but apparently that’s not how the game is played these days.
By signing Democrats’ discharge petition, Fitzpatrick and his colleagues surrendered all of their leverage—and if past is prologue, their reward will be more political attacks from Democrats next year.
Many terms come to mind for this strategy—Forrest Gump had a particularly catchy phrase—but “smart” isn’t necessarily one of them…