Currently in Ohio, you can have federal unemployment benefits for up to 26 weeks before being booted off the government entitlement program.
Rep. John Boehner, the House Speaker who is a Republican from Ohio, effectively told Ohioans on Wednesday that extending that qualification period by 16 additional weeks was too politically challenging in a contentious election season, which Republicans fiercely want to dominate.
Boehner, whose district is near Cincinnati, suggested on his blog that he might put the brakes on yet another domestic policy advancement that has support from Senate Democrats and Republicans.
The Senate came up with a bill that would have extended unemployment benefits similar to their limits under a program that expired in December.
Boehner said the Senate bill has “serious problems” and is “simply unworkable” for him, suggesting that he’d likely not bring it for a vote in the House.
He hit a similar tone about a series of bills passed by the Senate in late 2013 that were meant to stop the government shutdown. And the immigration reform bill drafted by the “Gang of 8” — a group of four Democrats and four Republicans who took up the issue — and passed by the Senate. (Boehner still hasn’t brought that bill to the House for a vote.)
Isn’t the legislative branch supposed to work together? If your Senate colleagues are working hard on something, and then they pass a bill, is there any good reason to deny those colleagues the chance at having their work passed in the House? Especially when those colleagues in the Senate represent entire states with millions of Americans who sent them to Washington to work?
Just hold a vote, at least, Boehner’s critics say.
Other critics and political pundits say Boehner would never want comprehensive immigration reform in the House because he thinks it could very well pass, sending the bill to President Barack Obama to become law. Why’s that scary?
Well, it’s not in the GOP’s best interest for Obama to be seen penning his signature on a huge bill that even two predecessors, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, wanted but couldn’t get done. That would bolster the campaigns of Democrats running for Congress in November.
Also, to some House GOP members whose districts bleed red — and have huge financial backing from right-wing groups that oppose the idea of a pathway to citizenship for those who have been here illegally — the bill is a tough sell.
But that can’t be the problem, because government works by allowing those members who oppose the bill to vote against it and those who like it to vote for it. So the politically vulnerable Republicans could vote “no” and allow the bill to pass largely on the backs of Democrats, the same way the debt ceiling increase was approved. That would leave a vulnerable Republican’s record untarnished on the issue in the eyes of those back in his or her district.
So, it must be the Obama thing. Surprise, surprise. Boehner’s got the long-game in mind for the party. As I’ve written before, all the infighting in Congress on both sides of the aisle comes down to making the best calculated political moves that get a GOP or Democratic president in the White House after Obama.
A win on immigration and the unemployment bill would be, in cut-and-dry terms, a domestic win for a president who is struggling to strike a tone of strong leadership to most Americans.
So forget about it, Boehner says.
Joshua Jamerson is a junior studying journalism and local editor of The Post. What do you think of Boehner’s job performance? Talk politics with him at jj360410@ohiou.edu.
