Republicans: Vote no, hope yes

From Daily Kos...


Boehner explains the GOP's 'Vote No, Hope Yes' legislative strategy
from Daily Kos by (Jed Lewison)

When the House passed the Violence Against Women Act last week, it was the third time this year that House Speaker John Boehner relied primarily on Democratic votes to pass a piece of legislation. Today, he explained why he supported moving forward with the legislation even though a majority of Republicans opposed it:

    "We tried everything we could to get the differences in our conference resolved," Boehner said Tuesday of moving a Democratic version of VAWA last week. "And the fact is they couldn't resolve their differences. It was time to deal with this issue and we did."

So, according to Boehner, VAWA was a bill that needed to pass, and Republicans weren't capable of coming up with a version that could pass. The solution: push the GOP to the side and let the Democrats lead the way.

But even though Boehner has now allowed three votes so far this year on bills opposed by a majority of the House Republican Conference, he's not actually going against the wishes of his party. It's the exact opposite, in fact-a strategy that Ashley Parker of the New York Times dubbed "Vote No, Hope Yes."

The basic idea of Vote No, Hope Yes is that many Republicans realize that they can't stand in the way of must-pass legislation like the fiscal cliff deal, VAWA or Hurricane Sandy. At the same time, they can't bring themselves to support it, so they try to split the difference by allowing the legislation to come up, and then voting against it while simultaneously hoping it will pass.