Updated, 10:00 PM
House Republican leaders have delayed a pivotal vote on Speaker John Boehner’s proposal to cut the deficit and raise the federal debt ceiling, suggesting they may still be scrambling for votes after three days of whipping wavering members. Laena Fallon, a spokeswoman for House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, said the vote will take place later this evening.
In the push to nudge the GOP majority over the 217-vote threshold required to pass the bill, Boehner and his deputies have been pressing House Republicans, a few dozen of whom remain publicly undecided or undeclared, to back Boehner’s Budget Control Act, which they cast as the best option on the table for the GOP. With 240 Republicans in the House and few if any Democrats expected to vote for the measure, the leadership can only spare 23 defections. Unofficial whip counts compiled by media outlets suggest GOP leaders may not yet have the votes, and Republicans may be using the extra time to make a final sell to recalcitrant members.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has said the Senate will take up and table the Boehner bill if the House passes it. “The Senate stands ready to defeat the Boehner plan whenever House Republicans can get their act together,” Adam Jentleson, Reid’s spokesman, wrote on Twitter.
The question is when that will be. After a series of clock-eating votes to christen post offices, the House went into recess, followed by the Senate. With the timing of the vote still up in the air, members have been told not to wander too far from the floor. Up to 20 House Republicans, including many of the ones still on the fence, crammed into Republican Whip Kevin McCarthy’s suite on the first floor to eat pizza and submit to some additional arm-twisting. “I think the Speaker’s done a very good job,” said Tim Scott, who is nevertheless one of at least four freshmen from South Carolina who say they plan to vote no — perhaps deciding that Boehner’s wrath is preferable to that of Jim DeMint. Lawmakers have streamed in and out of the office for hours, tailed closely by a pack of reporters trying to stay abreast of the changing whip count. McCarthy’s spokeswoman, Erica Elliott, denied a report that House leaders plan to send the bill back to the Rules Committee for additional tweaks, thus postponing the vote overnight. But for now, Boehner and his deputies are clearly at least a vote short.
