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Originally Posted by glatt
It's hard to follow all this. I don't want to invest the time.
Didn't the Republicans change the rules so Cantor is the only one who can bring a bill? They know that the majority of the House has gone on record that they would support the Senate bill to fund the government and debt, and so to keep moderate Republicans from submitting that bill, they changed the rules so that only Cantor can do it. They want him to be in charge.
I honestly don't know what power Boehner has left. What is his power?
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Cantor is the only one who can file a discharge petition which would start a process that, with enough support among the rest of Congress, could bring a bill to the floor without Boehner's support.
Boehner can bring any bill he likes to the floor whenever he wants.
The discharge petition was supposed to be a way to break the type of logjam that the tea party caused. It's convenient and efficient to have a Speaker who runs things, but the discharge petition was supposed to be a way for a majority of congresspeople regardless of party, to overrule the Speaker in special circumstances. The House GOP leadership changed the rule to prevent that.