Boehner and his fellow House leaders didn’t go down without a fight Thursday night, engaging in hours of intense meetings with individual Republicans and small groups to try to pile up votes. In the end, they decided to try again in the morning.
Rep. Louie Gohmert, a conservative Texas Republican, emerged from Boehner’s suite of offices Thursday evening — which include Majority Leader Eric Cantor’s space — and said he is a “bloody, beaten-down no.”
Adding even more drama to an already chaotic evening in the Capitol, several members of the South Carolina delegation retreated to an ornate, secluded chapel adjacent to the Capitol Rotunda to pray on the issue.
Asked whether divine inspiration might hit during prayer, Rep. Tim Scott (R-S.C.), a freshman from Charleston, replied: “Divine inspiration already happened. I was a ‘lean no,’ and now I’m a ‘no.’”
Dozens of reporters and photographers massed outside the entrance to Boehner’s second-floor suite of offices Thursday evening to watch the procession of rank-and-file lawmakers, before moving down to the first floor where McCarthy’s office served as the nerve center for the remainder of the night.
As hours slipped away and pizza boxes emptied, a handful of other undecideds and Republicans opposed to the bill also flowed into McCarthy’s suite, with Boehner joining the session. Among the holdouts were Flake, Trent Franks, Mo Brooks (Ala.), Scott DesJarlais (Tenn.), Rick Berg (N.D.) and freshman Vicky Hartzler (R-Mo.).
This Should Surprise Nobody. The House GOP Freshman, DesJarlais, who once held himself hostage at gunpoint for three hours is a no vote on the Boehner Debt ceiling bill. What can Boehner do to convince this guy to change his mind? What could anyone do? If he was just holding himself hostage you could tell him to pull the trigger. But the gun is not to his head this time.
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