The House of Representatives passed an increase in the debt ceiling yesterday.
After some conversation about attaching additional conditions to the legislation, Speaker John Boehner decided to allow a “clean” increase in the debt ceiling.
The bill passed by a vote of 221 to 201. 193 Democrats and 28 Republicans voted for the bill while 199 Republicans and 2 Democrats voted against the bill.
Here’s the breakdown of how the PA Congressional delegation voted on this piece of legislation.
Yeas:
All five Democratic members of the House from Pennsylvania (Brady, Cartwright, Doyle, Fattah, and Schwartz) voted for the bill.
Additionally, three PA Republicans supported the bill out of 28 total GOP yea votes: Reps. Charlie Dent, Mike Fitzpatrick and Pat Meehan. Of those three, Dent and Meehan, face no challengers this year while Fitzpatrick lacks a primary opponent. The lack of electoral consequences may have influenced their votes.
Nays:
The ten other Republican members of Congress from PA voted against the bill. Among those ten only one, Rep. Bill Shuster, is currently facing a primary challenger. Another three, Reps. Tom Marino, Joe Pitts and Keith Rothfus, have Democratic opponents. Five incumbent Congressman (Reps. Lou Barletta, Mike Kelly, Tim Murphy, Scott Perry and Glenn Thompson) are running completely unopposed. Finally, Rep. Jim Gerlach is retiring at the end of the year.
“With our national debt now well over $17 trillion dollars, I could not in good conscience vote for a bill that would extend our borrowing limit without reductions elsewhere,” Rep. Barletta stated in a press release after the vote.
“When it comes to the solemn task of preserving the American dream for the next generation, I cannot in good conscience support adding more debt to the backs of our children and grandchildren without a meaningful solution to Washington’s spending addiction in sight,” Rep. Kelly added.
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9 Responses
Shuster only voted no this time because he’s scared to death of Art Halvorson. Unfortunately for Bill, he can’t hide the fact that he has voted yes on raising the debt ceiling 13 times in his career.
Like Lani Frank, Gerlach’s “nay” vote took me by surprise. He’s not running for reelection. If he’s planning on running down the road, this vote would probably be long forgotten. It would seem Gerlach voted with his heart, his beliefs…reckless Tea Party beliefs. I’ve long suspected this, and now it’s confirmed. Not surprised.
Glenn Thompson isn’t running completely unopposed – you just wrote an article on Kerith-Strano Taylor the other day.
In addition to Mr. Kelly’s three challengers, the 5th District will also have a two-way Democratic Primary to determine an opponent for Congressman Thompson.
It seems to me that no one can say an incumbent is running unopposed until petitions have been filed. Most of the MOCs listed will have a challenger this year. Perhaps those challengers will not be well-funded, but they will be on the ballot.
I expect better reporting from Politics PA than this.
why didn’t Gerlach vote yes????? He complained about the last shut down vote, first voting for shut down and then publicly declaring that it was a mistake and voting to reopen the Gov’t the next vote. And he is not running for reelection so he had the chance to do the right thing without having to face any opposition. He must be running for something else down the road and couldn’t take a vote that his TEA PARTY base would not like!!! We are not done with Gerlach I predict.
It’s funny how Democrats complain about the composition of the PA Congressional delegation, but have yet to recruit a single candidate for 7 races that are 8 months away.
Please note that Rep Joe Pitts has a very strong Democratic challenger in Tom Houghton. Pitts’ vote to send the country into default is too extreme for our district and out-of-touch with the will of the voters. We will remember in November.
Last time I checked… Kelly has 3 Dem challengers!