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GOP Lawmaker: “If I Were A Betting Man, I’d Say There Won’t Be A Vote Today”
Despite Sean Spicer claiming during his daily press conference that the vote to repeal Obamacare will still take place tonight as previously scheduled, others disagree. Several lawmakers quoted by the Hill say that the House will likely delay its vote until Friday or next week, several lawmakers said. “It didn’t look like today was going to be when we’re going to vote,” said Rep. Phil Roe (R-Tenn.) after leaving a meeting with committee chairs and House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), who controls the House floor schedule.
Roe said a vote may come Friday.
The vote on the healthcare bill was originally planned for Thursday, the seven-year anniversary of the day ObamaCare was signed into law, however as of 1:30 p.m., GOP leaders had not made a final decision about whether to delay the vote until Friday or next week. The decision was further complicated after negotiations between the White House and the Freedom Caucus broke down as reported shortly after 1 pm.
Meanwhile, Sean Spicer said he still expects the bill to come up for a vote Thursday. “That would obviously be up to Speaker [Paul] Ryan and [House Majority] Leader [Kevin] McCarthy, but nothing leads me to believe that’s the case,” he said.
Spicer also said the whip count of votes in favor of the bill is improving. “We continue to see the number go up, not down, and that’s a very positive sign.”
Yet several House GOP lawmakers and a GOP chief of staff predicted a vote would be postponed past Thursday night.
“If I were a betting man, I’d say there won’t be a vote today,” one GOP lawmaker told The Hill. “At this point, it would have to be [delayed],” said a chief of staff to a top House Republican. “They won’t want to vote in the middle of the night.”
GOP leaders, however, also were feeling enormous pressure from some rank-and-file members to press on with the vote Thursday. They warned delaying any further could kill the bill outright the Hill reported.
“At some point you gotta say there’s nothing in this world that’s gonna change [the Freedom Caucus’s] minds. I think the window for making a decision is rapidly closing. We need to either vote or go home,” an exasperated Rep. Bradley Byrne (R-Ala.) told reporters.
“I think the chances for getting the bill done after this week get smaller. They don’t go to zero. No such thing as never or impossible,” Byrne added. “But the chances of passing this bill get a lot lower after this week.”
It appears that the”the art of the deal” will go down to the wire, and may well go beyond it, which may mean a vote well after midnight.
Source: http://silveristhenew.com/2017/03/23/gop-lawmaker-if-i-were-a-betting-man-id-say-there-wont-be-a-vote-today/
