House Republicans Use "Nuclear Option" to Get Marriage Amendment Vote

Last session, Speaker Pat "The Hair" Bauer tried to kill the marriage amendment by keeping it in a committee and preventing it from ever getting to the floor for an up-or-down vote.

Bauer knew that, if it ever made it to the floor, it would pass handily.

The committee was a convenient mechanism to keep the amendment off of the floor and allow the Democrats to avoid going on the record about the amendment (and avoid having it pass, since many Hoosier Democrats would overwhelmingly vote for it, as they did last time when it was put to a floor vote).

Now, however, House Republicans have exercised the "nuclear option" to go around The Hair and the committee where he consigned the marriage amendment to die.

By offering the marriage amendment as an amendment to a bill, in this case property tax reform, they will circumvent the committee graveyard and force the House to go on the record on the marriage amendment (and likely pass it).

Questions have been raised at Masson's Blog about whether such a move is germane, or relevant to the measure to which it is being attached.

The chair--the speaker--would make that determination (effectively forcing The Hair to go on record about it).

Moreover, the moment that the Speaker renders a determination that the amendment is not germane, that ruling can be appealed by a floor vote of the House.

It is my understanding that this would not be a voice vote and "selective hearing" would have nothing to do with its outcome.

In April of 2003, for example (and I don't have a citation yet; will hunt a few up later), the chair made a ruling about the germane-ness of an amendment, and was overruled by a vote of the House.

It seems unlikely to me that selective hearing would have allowed that to transpire; it seems clear that a recorded vote will be necessary.

A recorded vote will force the House Democrats, many of whom either support the marriage amendment or are afraid to oppose it, to go on the record of how they stand about it.

Even if they succeed in preventing it from being attached (something which I view to be unlikely; I think it will be attached and it will be passed), they will have gone on the record about it (and will give fuel to Eric Miller & Company for the general election).