House Motion to Recommit Success Update

A vote in the House, or any official lawmaking body for that matter, is not just a matter of recording a body's decision on something and the positions of its members.

The controlling party can wield a lot of influence by deciding what the institution is going to vote on (to help themselves and hurt their opponents) and what it is not going to vote on (to protect themselves and stifle their opponents).

Although the Democratic majority controls the agenda in the House, the Republican minority has found a way to reshape the majority agenda into a means of advance their own agenda or at least exposing any soft underbelly to majority legislation.

A procedural vote called the motion to recommit with instructions has this power to turn a bill from something the majority wants to vote on into something that the minority wants to vote on.

Since the last post here on the unprecedented record of winning seven successive motions to recommit, the Republican minority record is:

• Lost: H.R. 1361, H.R. 1905, H.R. 1495, H.R. 1257
• Won: H.R. 362, H.R. 363 (Education)
• Lost: H.R. 1332, H.R. 249,
• Lost: H.R. 1429, H.R. 1592 (Religious Freedom!)
  
• Lost: H.R. 1868
• Won: H.R. 1684 (Homeland Security)
  
• Lost: H.R. 1873
• Lost: H.R. 2237, H.R. 2206, H.R. 2207 (Iraq)
  
• Lost: H.R. 2082 (Intelligence)