Perspectives; Thoughts; Comments; Opinions; Discussions

Posts tagged ‘Safe Act’

What’s House Speaker Johnson’s Next Move in Spending Fight?


By: Bradley Devlin | September 19, 2024

Read more at https://www.dailysignal.com/2024/09/19/whats-house-speaker-johnsons-next-move-spending-fight/

House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)

It’s back to the drawing board for House Speaker Mike Johnson.

On Wednesday, the House failed to pass the continuing resolution spending bill, with the SAVE Act attached, that would have funded the federal government beyond the end of the fiscal year ending Sept. 30 and through March.

Wednesday evening’s vote failed 202-220. Three Democrats—Reps. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez of Washington state, Jared Golden of Maine, and Donald Davis of North Carolina—joined 199 Republicans in voting for the stopgap spending bill. Perez’s and Golden’s seats are among the most vulnerable for Democrats in the upcoming election cycle.

Despite those Democratic votes, Republican defections—14 “no” votes and two “present” votes—ultimately resulted in the measure’s failure.

“Now we go back to the playbook. We’ll draw up another play, and we’ll come up with a solution,” Johnson said after the continuing resolution failed. “I’m already talking to colleagues about their many ideas. We have time to fix the situation. And we’ll get right to it.”

Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky, was one of the Republicans who voted “present” on Johnson’s continuing resolution. “The [Safeguard American Voter Eligibility] Act is a good thing that seeks to prevent illegals from voting, but it’s not worth keeping our country on a collision course with insolvency,” Massie wrote in a tweet, explaining why he withheld his support from Johnson’s plan. “If the speaker would put a one-year CR on the floor instead of a six-month CR, an automatic 1% cut to spending would kick in on April 30th. We should do that, but too many Republicans in Congress don’t want to cut spending.”

Johnson is left with little time and few options. Just 12 days remain before government funding runs out in fiscal 2024 and a government shutdown ensues—a scenario especially dangerous politically on the eve of a presidential election. Now that the six-month continuing resolution with the SAVE Act attached has failed, Johnson could double down and attempt to attach some sort of immigration or election integrity concession to the continuing resolution that’s popular enough with the GOP conference to pass through the House on Republican votes alone.

The more likely scenario, however, is pivoting to a “clean” continuing resolution with a March deadline, thereby empowering the next Congress to determine government spending levels and make government spending a major issue in the final weeks of the election cycle.

The rightward flank of Johnson’s party—some of whom reject ever voting for a continuing resolution on principle and others who care more about passing the SAVE Act than funding the government—likely would be very unhappy with that scenario. The speaker would have to rely on a coalition of mostly Democrats and middle-of-the-road Republicans to pass the government funding mechanism out of the House.

Yet another instance where the speaker has to rely on mostly Democratic votes to get legislation out of the House could severely harm his prospects of continuing to lead the House GOP moving forward.

It has been reported that Johnson is talking with former President Donald Trump on the House GOP’s next steps.

Nevertheless, even Johnson’s detractors in this scenario might be pleased to avoid another Christmastime omnibus negotiated by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., who has once again put Johnson in a three-on-one situation vis-à-vis the other major congressional leaders, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and House Minority Leader Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y.

“One thing you cannot have is a government shutdown. It would be politically beyond stupid for us to do that right before the election, because certainly we’d get the blame,” McConnell told members of the media Tuesday.

“I’m for whatever avoids a government shutdown, and that’ll ultimately end up, obviously, being a discussion between the [Senate] Democratic leader and the speaker of the House,” McConnell added.

Schumer was quick to make use of McConnell’s talking points in a Sept. 17 speech on the Senate floor. “I urge [Speaker Johnson] to drop his current plan, and to work together to reach a bipartisan agreement with the other leaders—Leader McConnell, Leader Jeffries, and myself, as well as the White House. We do not have time to spare,” he said.

With Johnson’s hand seriously weakened, Schumer has decided to play his. The New York Democrat is taking the first procedural step toward passing a mechanism to fund the government. “I will file cloture on a legislative vehicle that will enable us to prevent a Trump shutdown, in the event Speaker Johnson does not work with us in a bipartisan, bicameral manner,” Schumer said on the Senate floor.

But if Schumer has his way, the next funding deadline would be December, not March, which would mean the current Congress could seek to hamstring a future Republican House, Senate, and Trump administration from enacting policy changes once in office.

Rep. Ralph Norman, R-S.C., was among the members who voted for Johnson’s continuing resolution with the SAVE Act attached. In an email to The Daily Signal, Norman wrote, “the worst thing we can do is a CR through December and give the checkbook directly to Schumer for a year-end, lame duck omnibus.”

“Right now, everything is up in the air,” Norman added. “We will see how strong Speaker Johnson will stand against the Senate, right up against a possible government shutdown.”

Category:

Political

Tagged with:

Iraq Vet Slams Legislators Over NY SAFE Act: “My Right Trumps Your Dead! I Earned It In Blood!”


by http://freedomoutpost.com/2013/07/iraq-vet-aaron-weiss-slams-ny-safe-act-before-legislators-my-right-trumps-your-dead-i-earned-it-in-blood/#ixzz2Xw2FWMu8

Aaron Weiss, an Iraq combat veteran and law enforcement officer, spoke to the motion to repeal New York’s SAFE Act at the Dutchess County Legislature back in March of this year. Weiss, from Poughkeepsie, took to the podium and denounced the sweeping measures of the tyrants in New York asking them “Why is dead children your battle cry?”

Weiss said that he had attended the previous meeting in regards to the resolution to repeal the massive gun control law known as the NY SAFE Act, signed into law earlier this year by Governor Andrew Cuomo. His attendance at the first meeting was simply to hear what everyone had to say. He remained silent, but not on this day.

“I heard some shocking things from some people and some legislators,” Weiss said of the previous meeting. “They said it took a lot of courage to pass the SAFE Act. Apparently, my definition of courage differs from yours.”

“You see,” Weiss continued, “if it was really so courageous a bill, and it took so much courage to pass it, then why was it done in the middle of the night when no one could see it or read it? That’s not courage. That’s a mafia style sit-down to divvy up what’s good for the bosses.”

“Courage,” he added, “is taking the right and true course of action, not the politically expedient one and anyone who is proud of this law must also be proud of the PATRIOT Act, the TSA (Transportation Security Agency), imprisoning Japanese citizens in World War II, since all these actions were spurred on by emotional fear and rammed through in the name of public safety.”

He then took a direct shot at all the anti-Second Amendment politicians who used the tragedy of Sandy Hook to advance their agendas.

“Another issue is the insistence of certain people to stand on the graves of dead children and challenge those that disagree to say it to the parent’s faces,” he blasted. “Well, I, for one, will pick up that gauntlet.”

“First off, why is ‘dead children’ your battle cry?” Weiss asked passionately. “You didn’t say anything about the hundreds of Chicago children being killed and for some reason you only screamed when it happens to wealthy white ones.”

“And yes, I’ll say to anyone’s face,” Weiss added, “my right is more important than your dead, because I fought for it first hand. I washed the blood of my friends out of my Humvee and I picked up their mangled bodies and I fought day in and day out.”

Weiss was visibly emotional recalling his military service and the deaths of fellow soldiers on the battlefield.

“I did more things than people can imagine,” he said. “So, yeah, my right trumps your dead.”

“I earned it in blood!” Weiss proclaimed. “I gave up a lot for this country, including my youth, and better men than me gave up a whole lot more so that all of you, myself included, could enjoy the rights that are guaranteed to us in our Constitution and Bill of Rights.”

“We didn’t go through all of that to come back home and watch you surrender what we fought for happen based on the demented acts of a couple of mad men,” he chided.

He then closed out his comments by addressing the legislators who were specifically going to vote against the repeal resolution. He said that he understood that they would vote based on “some misguided sense of the public good.” However, he questioned, as a law enforcement officer, their true resolve.

In Weiss’ words, “Since voting to take away someone’s rights is totally different than being asked to enforce it, I want you to consider this. If you support the SAFE Act so whole heartedly, are you willing to stand with law enforcement members who lead from the front to enforcement? What I mean by that is if a constituent of yours feels so alienated by this law and the manner in which it was passed and they refuse to comply with it, are you willing to stack up on their front door and go in first?”

“I bet if a clause was in this bill that required you, the elected leadership, our elected leaders to go in the door first, I bet you would not be so steadfast,” he said in a forceful conclusion.

Those listening erupted in applause as a call came up, “Can we have some quiet in the chambers please so that we may continue on.”

This is what it’s going to take, more people not being silent or just sitting behind the keyboard griping, but going before their legislatures and giving voice to your grievances against them for their tyrannical moves. Aaron Weiss is taking the stand that patriots of the past have taken. Will you?

Category:

Political

Tagged with:

Tag Cloud