US Democrats launch bid to force debt-ceiling vote

Democrats have started collecting signatures for a petition to raise the debt ceiling, a long-shot manoeuvre designed to vote.

US House Speaker Kevin McCarthy is the centre of attention as he leads Republican efforts to reach an agreement with the White House. Picture: AFP

House Democrats started collecting signatures on Wednesday for a discharge petition to raise the debt ceiling, a long-shot parliamentary manoeuvre designed to circumvent House Republican leadership and force a vote.

Brendan Boyle, the top-ranking Democrat on the House Budget Committee, initiated the petition and became the first to sign it in the well of the House when the chamber gavelled into session at 10am. He was followed by a steady stream of fellow Democrats.

“We only have two weeks to go until we may hit the x-date,” Mr Boyle said, referring to possible default. “We must raise the debt ceiling now and avoid economic catastrophe.”

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries sent a “Dear Colleague” letter on Wednesday morning backing the petition effort. Mr Jeffries cited the “urgency of the moment” and said it was important to pursue all legislative options in the event that negotiators are unable to reach any agreement.

The move comes as the White House is negotiating with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy over possible spending cuts to pair with a debt-ceiling increase. Talks currently centre on potential spending caps in coming years, as well as rescinding unspent Covid-19 funds and toughening work requirements for federal benefit programs. The White House said on Tuesday that President Joe Biden would curtail a planned overseas trip to get him back to Washington sooner.

While the White House has made clear it is opposed to work requirements for Medicaid, officials haven’t ruled out that the president would entertain discussions about tighter work requirements for food stamps and a cash assistance program called Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, or TANF.

In remarks on Wednesday as he prepared to leave for Japan for a Group of Seven meeting, Mr Biden said he wouldn’t accept “any work requirement that’s going to impact on the medical health needs of people”, but left the door open to some new rules. He also said he was “confident that we’ll get the agreement on the budget and that America will not default”.

McCarthy denounced the discharge petition effort by House Democrats.

“That’s going nowhere and that really shows that the Democrats aren’t serious about doing something,” he said on Fox Business on Wednesday. “That’s really trying to give the Democrats something to save face on, but that – that will never see the light of day.”

The Treasury Department reiterated this week that the US could become unable to pay its bills on time as soon as June 1 if congress doesn’t raise the debt limit.

It takes the signatures of 218 House members – a majority, regardless of party – to move a bill to the floor by discharge petition. Republicans control the House, 222-213, so for their petition to succeed, Democrats would need at least five GOP representatives to sign on.

The way the petition is structured allows Democrats to fill in the text of the bill later, and Boyle said Democrats are keeping their options open for now, though the intention is to raise the debt ceiling cleanly, without conditions attached.

He acknowledged that a discharge petition’s chances of success are slim.

“I’ve always said a discharge petition is not a high probability move. But at this point, we must try whatever it takes,” Boyle said.

House Democrats lined up in the well to sign the petition on Wednesday morning, encouraged by party leadership to add their names before the end of the day. The second Democrat to sign, David Cicilline, appeared to snap a photo of the petition as Mr Boyle signed it, breaking House rules against photography in the chamber as he documented the rare parliamentary tactic in action.

The last time a discharge petition succeeded was in 2015, when supporters of reauthorising the Export-Import Bank were able to gather enough signatures to bring a bill to the floor and pass it.

If congress doesn’t act to raise the debt limit soon, and the government is unable to borrow to help pay all of its bills, it might have to suspend certain pension payments, withhold or cut the pay of soldiers and federal workers, or delay interest payments, which would constitute a default.

Democrats had said earlier this month that they planned to file a discharge petition, using a shell bill they had quietly filed in late January. Under House rules, the petition had to sit in committee for 30 legislative days, defined as beginning when a chamber gavels into session and ending when it adjourns. That initial waiting period took about three months.

Next, seven legislative days had to pass before signature collection could start. Once the petition gathers 218 signatures, there is a wait of another seven legislative days before a member can announce to the House that they want to bring it up. The speaker must then schedule the motion within two legislative days after that announcement.

If Democrats gather all the signatures in one day, the earliest the bill could come to the House floor is June 8, assuming the House keeps its current schedule, according to Thomas Wickham, former House parliamentarian and now senior vice president of state and local policy at the US Chamber of Commerce. The Senate would then have to pass it, too.

Mr Wickham estimated that timeline would put final passage of a debt-limit increase on June 12 or 13, after the projected earliest x-date.

But House Republicans aren’t expected to sign the petition right away, if at all. None have said publicly that they are even considering it.

“Every day they do not have the full 218 signatures adds another date to the count,” Mr Wickham said.

Republicans on Tuesday scoffed at the idea of a petition.

“People have got to stop living in fantasy land,” said Dusty Johnson. Mr Johnson chairs the Republican Main Street Caucus, a group that represents some of the most vulnerable House Republicans.

“The only way this crisis gets averted is with an agreement between the speaker and the president,” he said. “Anything else is just whistling Dixie.”

The Wall Street Journal