The QAnon caucus within the Republican party has made it virtually impossible to fast-track noncontroversial bills that are critical to running the House. Frivolous delay tactics used by hard-line Republicans like Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert have irked lawmakers in both parties and brought much of the chamber’s floor action to a halt. But Democrats are not taking it anymore.
House Democratic leaders said they’ve found a workaround to defuse weeks of delay tactics, Politico reports.
Members of the far-right “Freedom Caucus” have sought to make life difficult for Democrats by trying to derail every single bill brought to the House floor, creating “a legislative slog.”
As noted by Politico, however, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer devised a strategy that would “prevent leaders of the far-right Freedom Caucus from being able to effectively seize control of the floor by demanding individual votes on dozens of suspension bills and forcing members to vote late into the night.”
According to the report, Hoyer plans to package much of that broadly palatable suspension legislation into a single block on the floor, which he said would “save us somewhere in the neighborhood of seven-and-a-half hours” of voting time.
“What we have seen in the past few weeks has been an unfortunate example of extreme partisanship getting in the way of even the most bipartisan legislation there is,” Hoyer said in a statement.
House Rules Committee Chairman Jim McGovern added that “there are Democrats and Republicans who want to get things done, and we will work around those who do not.”
“The Freedom Caucus has wrestled over how far to push its rebellion,” Politico stated, noting that “House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy stopped by the group’s weekly meeting on Monday evening, where he encouraged members to fine-tune their strategy and focus on achievable goals. McCarthy also warned Freedom Caucus members that they could face potential consequences from Democratic leaders if they keep disrupting the floor.”
You can read more over at Politico.
