Heller Rides (His Hobby Horse) Again

The U.S. Senate voted Tuesday evening on a cloture motion to stop the Republican filibuster of H.R. 4660, (Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2015 ) and the cloture motion was agreed to on a 95-3 vote.  The three Republicans voting to sustain the filibuster?  Paul (R-KY), Lee (R-UT), and Nevada’s own Dean Heller (R-NV). [roll call 200]

And, why might he have done this? Perhaps we have the answer in the following statement posted to Senator Heller’s web site:

“U.S. Senator Dean Heller (R-NV) has filed “No Budget, No Pay” as an amendment to the CJS Appropriations Bill (H.R. 4660).  The Heller No Budget, No Pay Amendment calls on Congress to adopt legislation requiring passage of a yearly budget and all twelve appropriations bills each fiscal year in order to receive pay.”

This particular hobby horse is a favorite toy for the Senator.   However,  proposal comes with a bit of a problem for the Constitution First Crowd — it’s unconstitutional.  See the 27th Amendment: “No law, varying the compensation for the services of the Senators and Representatives, shall take effect, until an election of Representatives shall have intervened.”   And, while the proposition has a lovely tinkly sound for fiscal conservatives it is no more grounded in reality than Tinker Bell.

In an article speaking for the ethereal proposal, former Comptroller General David Walker inadvertently included the core of the problem for the No Labels folk: “Congress has only passed spending bills on time four times since 1952. The last time Congress passed both a concurrent budget resolution and all required spending bills on time was 1996.” [Politico]  And, there’s another historical problem:

“In four of the last five election years in which the Republicans held at least partial control of Congress (1998, 2002, 2004 and 2006), they didn’t pass a budget resolution. That includes three years in which Republicans controlled both chambers.” [WaPo 2012]

There’s some irony in a Republican proposal to “solve” a problem created by … Republicans.  What might we call an unconstitutional, ahistorical, and flimsy proposal which is full of “sound and fury signifying nothing?”  The usual label is Grandstanding.

The idea has a lovely ring on the hustings, makes for great sound bite fodder, but as evidenced by the underwhelming support received by Senator Heller during vote #200, it has about Zilch chance of passage.