Advertisement

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT

Surprise Ending to Day of Strong-Arming, Head Counts and Meetings

Early Thursday, a group of freshman Republicans stood united in support of Speaker John A. Boehner's debt crisis bill. Later in the day, some things changed.Credit...Stephen Crowley/The New York Times

WASHINGTON — After two hours of impassioned debate, the Capitol was braced for the grand finale of Speaker John A. Boehner’s days of strong-arming members on the most important vote of his Congressional career. Suddenly, with no warning and just minutes from a vote Thursday evening, the conversation on the House floor turned to naming post offices.

Thus began the great pizza seduction. One after another, recalcitrant Republicans were marched into Mr. Boehner’s office, where he begged, implored and, when that failed, berated them in a desperate effort to win support for his proposal to resolve the debt crisis.

Representative Kevin McCarthy, the House whip, bought a pile of pizzas, and asked those members who were against the bill to come on over for a slice, and some haranguing.

The speaker was forced to delay the vote on Thursday on his debt ceiling bill, when it became clear that his Republican members were not going to put him over the top. Some of those who left Mr. Boehner’s office looked stricken, but said they were unyielding. Representative Louie Gohmert of Texas emerged, saying he was “a bloody, beaten-down no.”

Other Republicans who had agreed to vote yes went gallivanting through the Capitol — in red spike heels in the case of Representative Nan Hayworth of New York — to get before their colleagues or television cameras and help the speaker seal the deal.

The pulling of the bill was an unexpected twist in a chaotic day in which staff members for Republicans in the House and Democrats in the Senate slid from desk to desk around Capitol Hill asserting that the outcome of the debt debate would end in their party’s favor.

Earlier Thursday, it seemed as though Mr. Boehner was indeed picking up support for his bill, which cuts spending, raises the debt ceiling and gives his members their coveted balanced-budget amendment. But in the waning hours of debate on the bill, the math appeared to turn against the speaker. Some key lawmakers, like Representative Tim Scott of South Carolina, a member of the freshman leadership team, said he would join the other freshmen from his state and vote no.

In the final minutes of the two-hour debate of the bill, right after Representative Nancy Pelosi, the minority leader, offered her closing remarks, Representative Steven C. LaTourette, an Ohio Republican who was serving as the presiding officer, announced that the House would turn to other business.

For more than an hour, lawmakers in a nearly empty chamber talked about naming post offices: one in Peoria, Ill., in honor of Charles Lawrence Chan, a Sept. 11 victim; one in Iuka, Miss., honoring Sgt. Jason W. Vaughn, who was killed in Iraq; even one in Guam, honoring John Pangelinan Gerber, a Vietnam veteran.

The whipping effort had begun early in the week, and included pizza parties and one-on-one meetings with freshmen, cellphone calls and text messages from Representative Eric Cantor, the majority leader, and nice dinners over wine.

On Thursday, Mr. Boehner and his leadership team continued to press their case long before the bill was pulled, Mr. Boehner emerged from his ceremonial office to a sea of reporters, whom he met with a mild curse, grabbed members from the floor and marched them through the speaker’s lobby in full view of their colleagues for a talking-to back in his den.

When Representative Chuck Fleischmann, Republican of Tennessee, came out, he did not look as though he had been picnicking. This continued well into the night, after the bill was yanked. Mo Brooks of Alabama, Jeff Flake and Trent Franks of Arizona, and two freshmen from Illinois, Randy Hultgren and Joe Walsh all met with members of the leadership team. On Thursday night, Mr. Walsh said he was still a no vote.

After leaving Mr. Boehner’s office, Mr. Gohmert told reporters his objections to the bill. “Why are we compromising with ourselves?” he asked. “The Senate has passed nothing.”

The freshmen, many of them associated with the Tea Party before the Republican party, appeared to be putting up the highest walls, though some more senior members were also invited to see Mr. McCarthy and his plates of pizza. “It is the most refreshing thing in the world to see what is going on in there,” said Representative Jeff Flake of Arizona, an ardent foe of earmarks, the pet projects of lawmakers. “This kind of negotiation a few years ago would have cost $20 billion” in pork barrel projects. Mr. Flake would not say whether the quality of the pizza had moved his vote, as he continued to ponder his final move.

Members said they agonized. “I am trying to find a way to vote for this bill,” said Representative Bill Huizenga of Michigan. “This is a step in the right direction. I wish it were a bigger step.” (At the last minute, Mr. Huizenga, who brought his 12-year-old son Garrett to the Capitol for inspiration, assured leaders that they had his vote.) Some men from the South Carolina freshman delegation, a tight-knit group of conservatives, repaired to the House chapel on Thursday to pray. “I am a no at the end of the day,” Mr. Scott said. “I was leaning no. Now I am a no.”

In a parallel, reverse-whip universe on Twitter, Freedom Works, a Tea Party group, began at midday to send messages pressuring members who were on the fence, urging people at home to call the members and tell them to vote no. Former Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska also got in the game, posting an ominous warning to freshmen about contested primaries on Facebook.

Amid the frenzy of arm-twisting, debate and reporters swarming like bees in a sunflower garden, Representative David Wu, the Oregon Democrat who resigned this week amid a sex scandal, sat peacefully on the balcony off the speaker’s lobby, awaiting the last votes of his career and pulling on a stogie.

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section A, Page 13 of the New York edition with the headline: Surprise Ending to Day of Strong-Arming, Head Counts and Meetings. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

Advertisement

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT