Immigration Reform 2014: Will House Democrats Use A Discharge Petition To Force A Vote?

The Hill reported on Thursday that House Democrats plan to use a rare legislative tactic called a discharge petition to push a bill which would raise the federal minimum wage from $7.25 to $10.10 per hour over the next several years. “We just announced that we're going to be going back to Congress a week from now and we're going to put a discharge petition in and get the minimum wage on the calendar,” House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer said on MSNBC shortly after Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) announced they would do so.

Discharge petitions are used to circumvent House leadership when it refuses to bring legislation to a vote; they require the signature of the majority of members in the chamber. But House Democrats would not say whether they would try the tactic to force a vote on immigration reform, another key issue for President Barack Obama. Hoyer gave a nod to the issue on his MSNBC appearance, saying, “We want to see comprehensive immigration reform passed as you pointed out. That's good for the economy, it's the moral thing to do.” But he also sounded a pessimistic note on Democrats’ chances of getting enough Republicans in the House to buck their leadership and join Democrats in signing the petition, saying, “I don't think we're ever confident that we're going to get 18 Republicans to sign a discharge petition.”

The idea, first floated by the Washington Post’s op-ed writer E.J. Dionne in a Wednesday column, was quickly championed the next day by Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY), who saw his own efforts on a bipartisan, comprehensive immigration bill in the Senate go to naught when the House refused to consider it. Schumer told Politico that he thought the idea was “a good one” and urged House Democrats to take it up, saying enough Republicans supported action on the issue to win a majority of votes in the chamber – a sentiment backed by President Barack Obama at a House Democrat retreat on Thursday.