I have to give the Republicans some credit. They continue to go beyond my imagination to come up with new ways of getting around rules and norms to accomplish things that seem impossible. When I wrote Thomas Massie Has Trapped President Trump last week, I explored the bind Speaker of the House Mike Johnson was in. He wanted to avoid having a vote on releasing the Epstein files, but he really had no easy way of stopping Republican Rep. Massie of Kentucky and the Democrats from forcing one through a discharge petition (where a majority of members override the Speaker’s calendar). His choice, as I saw it, was basically to allow a vote or recess Congress early.
But he came up with something that had not occurred to me. Even though the House Committee on Rules can be bypassed by a discharge petition, it can still stall the process if it simply refuses to meet. So, Speaker Johnson didn’t have to recess the entire House early. He could just give up on passing any bills requiring a rule.
The simple explanation is that any bill that gets a vote without a rule must get a two-thirds majority to pass. Since nothing important to the GOP can pass with a supermajority, that means Johnson had to cancel his agenda for the week. I think he decided to recess a day earlier than originally planned, but that’s because there were no longer important bills that he could push through.
While this was clever, it didn’t accomplish much. As Taegan Goddard observes, people are still going to notice that Congress fled the Capitol rather than allowing a vote on the Epstein files. And, as I noted in my earlier piece, the discharge petition will still pass in September as soon as the Rules Committee convenes.
In the interim, every Republican back in the their home districts for the August recess will be asked how they are going to vote on the discharge petition. Saying they will vote against releasing the files is not going to an acceptable answer for their constituents.
As a result, the delay isn’t helpful because the problem hasn’t gone away. The fiscal year ends on September 30, and the House will have a lot of work to do when they get back around Labor Day. They will need the Rules Committee. It cannot remain shuttered.
The way a discharge petition works, once a majority has signed and filed the petition, there is a period of seven days while the petition “ripens.” After the ripening, a vote on the bill (in this case, a vote on the Epstein files) becomes the first order of business.
I actually don’t think there is any procedural way around this other than refusing to convene the Rules Committee in perpetuity. That is not an option.
So, the idea that perhaps interest in the issue will want during the recess isn’t really tackling the reality of the situation. Even if the country begins to focus on other things, it won’t stop the vote.
Goddard also points out that the Democrats once hoped that the August recess would tamp down passionate opposition to the Affordable Care Act only to be met by the rise of the Tea Party at members’ town hall meetings. The Democrats will make sure to try to replicate this over the Epstein files. And they’ll have plenty of help from MAGA and QAnon folks.
Epstein has become a clusterfuck that won’t go away.
