{"id":10898,"date":"2025-07-02T16:16:43","date_gmt":"2025-07-02T16:16:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/megabill-hits-an-unexpected-procedural-snag\/"},"modified":"2025-07-02T16:16:43","modified_gmt":"2025-07-02T16:16:43","slug":"megabill-hits-an-unexpected-procedural-snag","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/megabill-hits-an-unexpected-procedural-snag\/","title":{"rendered":"Megabill hits an unexpected procedural snag"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p>Republican leaders aren\u2019t only scrambling to find the votes to push their megabill through the House, they\u2019re also dealing with an unexpected procedural issue that could complicate floor consideration of the \u201cbig, beautiful bill.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The problem is deep in the weeds, a drafting issue on a procedural document \u2014 <a href=\"https:\/\/rules.house.gov\/bill\/119\/hr-1-sa\" target=\"_blank\">the \u201crule\u201d governing the megabill\u2019s floor consideration<\/a>. But there are real consequences for Speaker Mike Johnson if it doesn\u2019t get fixed.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It has a mistake in it,&#8221; said Massachusetts Rep. Jim McGovern, the top Rules Committee Democrat, on the floor Wednesday. He said Republicans &#8220;don&#8217;t have an escape hatch if they start it and realize they don&#8217;t have the votes&#8221; as the key consequence.<\/p>\n<p>As currently written, the rule does not \u201corder the previous question\u201d nor does it prohibit \u201cintervening motions.\u201d Long story short, that means once the House begins debate on the procedural measure, Johnson doesn\u2019t have a ripcord he can pull to delay or reschedule voting. Moreover, Democrats would be free to deploy a variety of delay tactics, including motions to adjourn or table the measure.<\/p>\n<p>McGovern added that Republicans will probably offer an amendment to fix the issue, but argued that if Republicans &#8220;can&#8217;t get a one-paragraph rule right,&#8221; they shouldn\u2019t be trusted to pass an 870-page bill touching taxes, health care, defense and more.<\/p>\n<p>Fixing the rule would require another floor vote \u2014 and another test of Republican unity \u2014 before they can take action on the party\u2019s signature legislation.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Republican leaders aren\u2019t only scrambling to find the votes to push their megabill through the House, they\u2019re also dealing with an unexpected procedural issue that could complicate floor consideration of the \u201cbig, beautiful bill.\u201d The problem is deep in the weeds, a drafting issue on a procedural document \u2014 the \u201crule\u201d governing the megabill\u2019s floor [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10898","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-congress"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10898","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10898"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10898\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10898"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10898"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10898"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}