Four centrist Republicans have handed House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) a huge win by joining a Democratic-backed move to force a vote on the extension of Obamacare enhanced subsidies.
Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA) was the first to sign a Jeffries-led discharge petition, swiftly followed by Reps. Mike Lawler (R-NY), Rob Bresnahan (R-PA), and Ryan Mackenzie (R-PA), to get to the necessary 218 signatures, forcing the hand of Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA). Jeffries’s bill would extend the subsidies, which are set to expire on Dec. 31, for three years.
“As I’ve stated many times before, the only policy that is worse than a clean three-year extension without any reforms, is a policy of complete expiration without any bridge,” Fitzpatrick wrote in a statement. “Unfortunately, it is House leadership themselves that have forced this outcome.”
The four Republican rebels, along with some others, have been pushing for bipartisan options to extend the Obamacare subsidies. They made their dramatic move Wednesday morning after their efforts were nixed in the House Rules Committee on Tuesday night.
Republicans joining a Democratic discharge petition is an embarrassment to Johnson, who has already faced similar attempts from his own members to bypass leadership and force votes they do not want to have.
But Johnson denied the successful petition is a sign of him “losing control of the House.” He said Republicans are “working through very complex issues” and they are “keeping the productive conversation going.”
House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA) said GOP leadership hasn’t looked at timing for Jeffries’s discharge petition yet. But it will likely happen in January, given the end of session for the calendar year is Friday, and the discharge petition needs seven days to “ripen.”
Scalise noted the bill is likely to be a fruitless Democratic attempt in the long run, given it has already been rejected in the Senate.
“They know it’s not a lawmaking exercise,” Scalise said.
Lawler, who on Tuesday said it was “political malpractice” not to have a vote on extending the subsidies, explained on Wednesday why he signed the discharge petition.
“While I have been working for a bipartisan compromise with reforms, the failure of leadership to allow a vote on the floor left me with no choice but to sign the Democrats discharge petition,” he said.
Bresnahan also said in a statement that “doing nothing was not an option” and while he never intended to support the three-year extension, “it is the only option remaining.”
The move by the four Republicans comes a day after Johnson said Tuesday there would be no vote on Obamacare subsidies because “it just was not to be.” Centrists still pushed for amendments to bring up various extension proposals in the Rules Committee on Tuesday night, though none of them were accepted.
Regardless of the centrist Republican frustration and Obamacare drama, a GOP-led healthcare bill, which does not include the subsidies, is still set to proceed later Wednesday. The procedural rule passed mostly along party lines, with one Republican, Rep. Jen Kiggans (R-VA), voting against it. Kiggans was another Republican with an Obamacare amendment which was voted down in by the Rules Committee Tuesday night.
Whether centrist Republicans actually vote for Jeffries’s bill when it does eventually come to the floor remains to be seen. Rep. Kevin Kiley (R-CA) said he’s undecided on how he’ll vote.
HOUSE RULES COMMITTEE TANKS CENTRIST REPUBLICANS LAST-DITCH EFFORT TO EXTEND OBAMACARE SUBSIDIES
“My goal is to get something enacted that will stop us from going off this cliff,” Kiley said. “And so whether that will be the right thing to do or not to facilitate that outcome, I think, is very unclear right now.”
Regardless of a vote on Obamacare subsidies being force, they will still expire at the end of the year. On the Senate’s part, Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) said “we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”
David Sivak contributed to this report.
