A petition to dismiss is a way to force a vote by bypassing the Speaker. It was largely forgotten for decades, but was brought back for the Epstein file bills and to extend ACA subsidies.
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Here in Washington, Congress is back this week, and one of the House's first tasks is a vote – a vote on a bill to extend expired health insurance subsidies, despite the objections of Speaker Mike Johnson. This isn't the first time this Congress has seen enough Republicans join with Democrats to bypass the speaker using a previously obscure maneuver called a discharge petition. NPR Congressional reporter Sam Greenglass explains.
SAM GREENGLAS, BYLINE: Speaker Johnson has refused for weeks to allow a vote on extending subsidies for marketplace plans under the Affordable Care Act, even as more than a dozen members of his caucus pushed to pass the measure before it expires at the end of December. Some of these Republicans, like Congressman Mike Lawler of New York, were furious.
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MICHAEL LAWLER: This is idiotic and disgraceful. This place is disgraceful. Everyone wants political advantage. They don't actually want to do the damn work.
GRINGLAS: So just before Congress left town for recess, Lawler and three other swing district Republicans joined with Democrats to force a vote on a three-year extension. The method is a petition to dismiss, which allows 218 or more members to bypass the Speaker and force a vote in the House of Representatives. The subsidies would still have to pass through the Senate, which has already voted against a three-year extension. But Lawler told NPR that for him, the petition was a last resort to restart negotiations.
LAWLER: I don't want to go down that route, but unfortunately we're left with no alternative after we've exhausted all other options.
GRINGLAS: The use of dismissal petitions is on the rise. In the fall, five Republicans joined Democrats to hold a vote to repeal President Trump's executive order stripping collective bargaining rights from many federal workers. The dismissal petition also led to a vote requiring the Trump administration to release the investigation into convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
MOLLY REYNOLDS: The last time we had Congress that had this much success on a dismissal petition, oh, that was 90 years ago.
GRINGLAS: It was during the Great Depression, says Molly Reynolds of the Brookings Institution. The tool emerged two decades ago as rank-and-file party members struggled to push back against then-Speaker Joseph Cannon.
REYNOLDS: He is sometimes called “The Tsar Cannon” to give you an idea of ​​how the members of the group felt about the power that he was trying to exercise.
GRINGLAS: But unlike those members more than a century ago, lawmakers today see Johnson less as a hard-line ruler and more as a missing speaker. In announcing her resignation from Congress, Republican Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene criticized Johnson for allowing rank-and-file bills to gather dust and keeping the House from working throughout the 43-day shutdown.
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MARJORIE TAYLOR GREEN: The Legislature has been largely sidelined. And we are entering the election campaign season, which means that all the courage is gone and only the safe mode of the election campaign is turned on in the House of Representatives.
GRINGLAS: The willingness of some Republicans to stand up to their speaker has also given Democrats an unusual opportunity to force votes by pushing their own agenda. Johnson called a flurry of successful dismissal motions inevitable if it only took a few defections.
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MIKE JOHNSON: This is not a challenge to the Speaker's leadership. Here's the reality, guys. We have a tiny majority – a record small majority.
GRINGLAS: Johnson spoke to reporters in December.
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JOHNSON: This is not an act of defiance. Each member has a different constituency with different dynamics and different demographics.
GRINGLAS: But Mike Ricci, who served as chief staffer to former Republican Speakers John Boehner and Paul Ryan, says there's more to the story.
MIKE RICCI: If members don't trust the speaker, they don't feel like the speaker has their back, there's no question that that's a direct referendum on the speaker himself.
GRINGLAS: Ricci says both Boehner and Ryan have sometimes found it difficult to negotiate with the unwieldy Republican factions.
RICCI: It was unmanageable, but not unproductive. With enough conversations, with enough back and forth, we could find a way forward to keep the House moving forward.
GRINGLAS: In this era, some members view the dismissal petition as a tool to allow the House to move on. And with a growing track record of success, there may be even more to come.
Sam Greenglass, NPR News, Washington.
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