The ABC's of Minority Rule. How did the Tea Party pull off the shutdown and can they do it again? They did, can, and are.

  Is defunding or delaying the Affordable Care Act (ACA), aka Obamacare, worth shutting down the government?  Polls are showing 72% of Americans do not believe it is.   The polls were   taken before the marketplace exchanges were opened October 1  that gave  consumers a  hands on chance to separate fact  from GOP fear hyping fiction. Many consumers liked what they saw.  In the first three days of a six months enrollment period, 10,000 opened accounts  to get insurance  with the Colorado administered exchanges.

 A  minority  group of around 40 Tea Party  House members were able to engineer the shutdown. How did they pull it off and  can they do it  again?  Thanks   to the Hastert rule and gerrymandering they did,  can,  and are . They are adding to their  surrender terms by refusing to increase the debt limit. Failure to raise the debit limit  threatens  to undermine   our nation’s economy  by   leading to  default on  payments for bills already obligated and  due .

  The 250 furloughed BLM , National Park,  federal conservation, and Forest Service employees are only some of the victims in Grand County. Their families lost buying power. Businesses  had also  hoped the last days of the tourist season, fall colors and elk rut viewing, would bring in some money  but the tourist season’s end  is already upon us.

 If the entire House of Representatives had been  allowed to vote, a   resolution to reopen and fund the government without  defunding the ACA  would have  passed right away. However  a  minority group in  the GOP caucus,  the Tea Party, was   determined to use the strategy of linking the issue of  continuing to fund the  government to  defunding or delaying the ACA. This  kept any “clean” bill, one  without reference to  the ACA,  from being  voted upon  by  the entire House. How far they will go on the debt limit threat is yet to be seen.

 One culprit that allows this to happen    is a rule of  the  GOP caucus in the House of Representatives, the Hastert Rule.  Unless the majority of the House GOP caucus agrees, a bill will not come up for a vote of a whole House . This rule  keeps   a coalition of moderate Republicans and Democrats from joining together to vote  for  a bill a faction of the GOP opposes.   GOP Speaker  John Boehner  chose to   invoke the Hastert Rule, some observers charge, because if he did not , the Tea Party would keep him from   being  re- elected Speaker again.   

  Another  culprit is the recent  redistricting process   that  enabled state legislatures dominated by the GOP   to gerrymander Congressional district boundaries  to make more districts overwhelmingly Republican in a general election.  These “safe” districts mean that any  member of the GOP running for Congress  who does not follow  the Tea Party’s line  could face a challenge from them  in a primary battle.  The implied or real  threat was enough to give the Tea Party additional votes of House members  who may not have  been in 100% agreement with a shutdown,  making the Tea Party the majority in the House  GOP caucus.

Knowing in advance that the Senate Democrats and the President would stop or veto any bill that   defunded,  delayed  or sabotaged the ACA , the House GOP controlled  by the Tea Party  continued sending  bills to the Senate with those poison pills and the threat to shutdown the government. Failing to bully the President to ditch the ACA,  his signature piece of legislation,  they then tried to   divide their opposition by offering to fund   a few popular programs, including reopening national parks , while excluding   other federal agencies, including some in Grand County.   To open the government for all services and agencies,  a vote by the entire House is all that is needed.