On Monday, the House of Representatives cut short their August recess and returned to Washington. With Speaker Nancy Pelosi leading the charge, this only meant one thing for conservatives: bad news!
The chamber returned early to pass the Budget Resolution, which was passed earlier this month by the Senate. Its passage kicks off drafting in both the House and Senate for a $3.5 TRILLION budget reconciliation bill that will be passed sometime in September. Of more importance, the passage of the Budget Resolution allows for the Senate to pass the final budget bill with a 50-vote threshold!
While no House Republicans voted for the measure, Pelosi had trouble unifying her own caucus.
It all began a few weeks ago when a group of about 10 moderate Democrats said that they would not vote for the Budget Resolution unless the $1 trillion infrastructure package was brought to the Floor first. Pelosi and her team knew this for weeks, but seemingly brushed off the demands. Leadership did not start negotiations with the moderate group of Democrats, led by Representative Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) until Monday evening. While the group initially insisted upon a vote on the infrastructure package, they folded by Tuesday, only getting a date of September 27th to vote on the bill.
But, the drama did not end there. While the budget resolution did pass with unified Democratic support, the progressive caucus decided to make a stink about not supporting the upcoming infrastructure bill unless the moderates support the upcoming budget reconciliation package! This is a doozy to keep track of and September is sure to be interesting!
Yet, before the House left to resume the last few days of August recess, they also passed H.R. 4, or the John Lewis Voting Rights Act. As we’ve previously reported, H.R. 4 is essentially no different than H.R. 1, the For the People Act. It’s simply a federal power grab of state-conducted elections. The federal government would control the laws and procedures of elections in all 50 states. This means that laws regarding voter identification, voter roll cleanups, citizen-only voting, and poll watching could be stricken by D.C. politicians. States would have to ask permission from the Department of Justice to pass their own voting laws. If you thought the November 2020 election was a disaster, this would make every election just as corrupt.
Thankfully, H.R. 4 has almost a zero chance of being passed in the Senate. Unlike the budget reconciliation deal, it cannot be passed with a 50-vote threshold! So, why did Pelosi push for this bill’s passage? For show! There’s a large march planned for August 28th in D.C. to stand up for “voting rights.” It’s truly telling of the Democrat’s agenda when this is made a priority rather than dealing with the border crisis and Afghanistan.