A Second Look | Rep. Boehner Looks Back, No One Following

via House Passes Historic Climate Change Bill.

After a tense debate, in which the margin of success or failure never moved beyond a handful of votes, the House of Representatives passed the most sweeping climate change policy ever considered by Congress early Friday evening.

This deserves A Second Look not only because it is a big victory for progressive Democrats and maybe the biggest to date, but conversely it is the biggest failure for the ultra-conservative far-right. Boehner and his crowd have stood defiant, united against anything “Obama” and won the media wars even if they could not garner the votes to stop any legislation.

But this time is different.

This time Boehner has made a silly and failed attempt to use his floor time, a parliamentary procedure, to garner support but he’s shouted down by the boisterous Democratic caucus.

Hoping to stem what seemed increasingly like a Democratic victory, House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) deployed an infrequently used parliamentary procedure to delay the bill’s consideration – reading before the House a 300-page amendment that had been offered to the 1,200-page bill Friday morning.

After an hour of reading the text derisively, Boehner finally surrendered the floor. A raucous Democratic caucus quickly asked for vote to be taken, after which it was revealed that the White House and Democratic leadership’s efforts had paid off. The House passed the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 by a vote of 219 to 212. Forty-four Democrats voted against the measure and only eight Republicans yes.

The wall of Republican unity that we witnessed against the stimulus bill has a crack – 8 yes votes on an issue that the Republicans claimed was non-existent – they were convinced of it.

It also looks like the Blue Dog Democrats held strong with their forty-four votes though, and it makes me all the more anxious to elect better Democrats.