Showing posts with label Mick Mulvaney. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mick Mulvaney. Show all posts

Wednesday, July 29, 2015

House conservative seeks John Boehner's ouster

North Carolina Rep. Mark Meadows had heard from leading conservatives that trying to oust Speaker John Boehner right now was a bad idea.

Reps. Mick Mulvaney (R-S.C.) and Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), fierce and frequent critics of leadership, thought the move was ill-advised. Some of Meadows’ friends didn’t even see it coming. But just before 6 p.m. Tuesday — a day before the House was set to leave town for its five-week summer recess — Meadows offered a motion to vacate the chair, an extraordinarily rare procedural move that represents the most serious expression of opposition to Boehner’s speakership. If the motion were to pass — most Republicans say it will be hard to cobble together the votes — Boehner would be stripped of the speaker’s gavel, potentially plunging the House of Representatives into chaos.

GOP leaders were taken completely by surprise. Meadows, a second-term Republican, hadn’t even asked for a meeting with Boehner or other top Republicans to air his gripes.
Until now, the North Carolina Republican had taken small steps to undermine Boehner — he voted against procedural motions and against Boehner for speaker. Now he’s declared all-out war, and he could quickly find out how many people are willing to back him up.

Meadows, however, didn’t go as far as he could have. A motion to vacate the chair — last attempted roughly a century ago — is typically considered a privileged resolution. In that format, the House would hold a vote within two legislative days. Meadows, however, chose not to offer it in that form, which he said was a sign that he wanted a discussion.

GOP leadership allies said the move suggests Meadows is trying to steal the spotlight as Congress leaves for its break. He denied that but said a vote was unlikely before the August recess.




Monday, June 15, 2015

How South Carolina’s Congressmen Voted On “Obamatrade”

How South Carolina’s Congressmen Voted On “Obamatrade”

The U.S. House of Representatives cast a pair of critical votes on Friday related to president Barack Obama‘s crony capitalist trade push (a.k.a. “Obamatrade“).
The result?  A mixed bag … leaving the future of this massive deal (which would impact up to forty percent of the world’s economy) up in the air.

The first vote was on a so-called “trade adjustment assistance” (TAA) provision favored by Democrats as part of the Pacific Rim pact.  This measure – which says all you need to know about the secretive deal – would have created a costly new government program aimed at helping American workers who lost their jobs as a result of Obamatrade’s passage.
That provision failed by a 302-126 margin.
Five of South Carolina’s seven congressmen – Jeff DuncanTrey GowdyMick MulvaneyTom Rice and Mark Sanford – voted against this provision.  Only two of them – Jim Clyburn (the lone Democrat in the delegation) and Joe Wilson – voted for it.
The next vote addressed whether to give Obama’s administration so-called “trade promotion authority” (TPA, or “fast track” negotiating authority) to conduct the trade deal.  This provision would let Obama continue drafting the agreement in secret – forbidding Congress from debating it, amending it or even overseeing it once it had been approved.
That measure passed by a narrow 219-211 margin.
Unfortunately, only three South Carolina congressmen – Clyburn, Duncan and Mulvaney – voted against this provision.
The rest of the delegation – including so-called “conservatives” Trey Gowdy and Mark Sanford – voted for it.  Their votes were critical, too.  Had all of the Palmetto State’s so-called “conservative” delegation opposed this provision, then the chamber would have deadlocked.

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