Congressional Shenanigans

Ezra Klein relates how the Democrats almost tricked the Republicans into passing the Republican Study Committee's We Hate Our Government budget on Friday:

I haven’t paid much attention to the Republican Study Committee’s budget, as it wasn’t going to pass. It wasn’t even going to come close to passing. This is a document, after all, that House conservatives released to make Paul Ryan look like a squishy moderate. No one was going to vote for it. No one, that is, until earlier this afternoon, it almost passed.

Here’s what happened: In the House of Representatives, a simple majority can pass a bill. But you can do more than just vote “yes” or “no.” You can also vote “present.” So a bunch of Democrats — 172 of them, to be exact — either voted “present” or, more sneakily, switched from “no” to “present.” As the number of “no” votes dwindled, the confused Republican realized their “yes” votes — votes that were friendly expressions of conservative solidarity rather than an actual effort to pass the RSC’s plan — were becoming a majority. The result, as Brian Beutler says, was “chaos” on the House floor, as Republicans, once they realized what was going on, rushed to switch their “yes” votes to “no” votes to make sure the RSC budget didn’t actually pass.

I wonder how long the Democrats have been saving that trick.  Jim Jordan, who heads the Republican Study Committee is the ultimate do-nothing backbencher.  I wouldn't be surprised if he never voted for any of the final Budget Bills in his 12 years in Columbus.  I remember him opposing a couple of the budgets because the sales tax had been increased to avoid making big cuts.  He swears he won't raise any taxes ever, and is one of the people who will vote against any compromise because he wants to maintain ideological purity.  But, he's guaranteed to continue winning elections in West Central Ohio, so we'll have to keep paying him to do nothing.  That is better than if he gets to slash up the government like he wants to.