A discharge petition is needed to avoid the tyranny of the House minority

The American public watched a group of 21 Republican rebels repeatedly thwart the will of more than 200 members in the Republican conference during a historic 15 votes to elect Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) Speaker of the House of Representatives. Was this tyranny of the minority a preview of things to come during the next two years of Republican House rule? If so, House members should seriously consider the use of a discharge petition as a safety valve to address the most urgent issue facing Congress — averting a potentially calamitous default on the nation’s debt.

Only time will tell if that will be necessary, but there is great concern in Washington that the concessions McCarthy made to these rebels will make it more difficult for the majority to keep the government open, pay the country’s bills and extend the debt limit.

And now we learn that the same group of Republicans is preparing an emergency plan for breaching the debt. The chances of the Republican conference coming together on these vital issues are not great. And with Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen’s recent announcement that her department has begun taking “extraordinary measures” to avert default, it’s past time to begin planning for alternatives to get out of this quagmire.

This is certainly not the first time in the history of the House in which a small minority tried to dictate to the majority. You can find a similar situation in the early 1900s when the powerful Speaker of the House, Joe Cannon (R-Ill.), ruthlessly ran roughshod over the majority in his own party. In order to check the power of the disliked Speaker, the House revolt of 1910 came up with a precursor to the present-day discharge petition, a procedural tool to allow the majority to exercise their will in the face of an obstinate minority and have an opportunity to vote on legislation to their liking. We may face a similar situation in the next few months when the 21 rebels seek to include dramatic cuts to a bill to raise the debt limit. 

Like their progressive era predecessors, a handful of today’s House Republicans could join with most of the Democrats and use a discharge petition to force a vote on a clean bill dealing with the debt limit increase. 

Here’s how it works: A discharge petition enables a majority of the House of Representatives, or 218 elected officials, to force a bill onto the floor, where it will be debated and ultimately voted on. If a bill has been introduced and referred to committee for at least 30 days, any House member can file a motion with the clerk of the House to discharge the bill from committee. If 218 members sign onto the petition, the bill becomes eligible for discharge with a vote (after seven days). After 20 minutes of debate, if the vote passes, the House will take up the measure. As of 1995, the names of all signers on a discharge petition were required to be made public; they had previously been undisclosed.

The most recent use of the discharge petition is most relevant to today’s context. In 2015, I served as the coalition manager where the discharge petition was successfully used to reauthorize the Export-Import Bank. Started by Franklin D. Roosevelt, the Export-Import (Ex-Im) Bank provides direct loans and loan guarantees at low interest rates to foreign entities to buy American products, thereby supporting American jobs and businesses.

Despite a long history of bipartisan support, the Export-Import Bank became a target of some conservatives. (Sound familiar?) On June 30, 2015, the agency shut its doors when Congress failed to renew its charter.

Keeping the bank alive required a campaign to pass legislation to reauthorize and reopen the bank. The key component of the House campaign was the use of a discharge petition. That campaign was aided by cultivating congressional champions, engaging private sector leaders, recruiting local voices from around the country and executing grassroots and local media campaigns.

Why should today’s House members consider using the discharge petition moving forward?

First, if the rebels in the House put the government on the precipice of defaulting on the debt, the discharge petition may be the last resort to prevent such a financial crisis. 

Second, although there have been only three successful discharge petitions in which the process was carried to its conclusion and became law, there are a number of cases where the threat of a discharge petition has given the majority leverage over the leadership, in which case they relented on some bills with pending petitions.

Third, recent evidence shows a discharge petition with a broad-based campaign can be successful.

If a discharge petition campaign becomes a reality, House members need to understand that it will require bipartisanship, planning and much coordination. There is no time to delay. The country cannot afford a situation in which the rebels in the Republican conference ensure that a clean debt ceiling cannot be extended or even put to a vote. There is an alternative to the tyranny of the minority. The time to plan is now. 

Tom O’Donnell is the former chief of staff to House Majority Leader Richard Gephardt (D-Mo.) and cofounder and managing partner of Gephardt Government Affairs, where he served as the coalition manager that successfully used the discharge petition to reauthorize the Export- Import Bank in 2015. Currently, he is an adjunct professor at Georgetown University’s McCourt School of Public Policy.