John Boehner's big failure. Nancy Pelosi's big win.

The big news tonight (Friday) is coming from the U. S. House in Washington.    All day John Boehner and the Republican leadership had been counting their votes and thought they had enough votes to pass the 3 week funding bill for Homeland Security.  Doing this would allow them to avoid voting on the clean bill passed by the Senate and still avoid a shutdown that would have come at midnight.

So Boehner brought it to a vote -- and it failed.   It seems that 52 of his Republican caucus had deceived him about their intentions.  They voted against it, along with all the Democrats.

Let me underline this:   the Republicans could not even pass their own bill because of the lack of cooperation of the Tea Party conservatives.

So after a couple of hours of behind the scenes negotiations, Nancy Pelosi bailed Boehner out -- and got a good deal out of him.  She got her Democrats to agree to vote for a one-week patch funding, with the understanding that next week they will have an opportunity to vote on the Senate's clean bill.  By clean bill, we mean that the Homeland Security funding bill has been stripped of its poison pill that would have overturned President Obama's executive action on deportations.  The Senate has already passed the clean bill to fund HS.

As of this writing, John Boehner has put out word that he did not agree to have a clean vote next week.    But reporters who have been watching this and talking to legislative aides say that this is a stance and that there will probably be maneuvering and intermediate votes, but that eventually Boehner will allow the clean bill to be voted on.

This is a major defeat for Boehner's leadership.   Commentators have suggested that, although he is in a very difficult spot trying to get cooperation from the Tea Party members who refuse to compromise on anything, it is also their opinion that there were creative ways that a more skilled leader could have probably gotten something done.

At the same time, it is a major victory for the leadership of Nancy Pelosi and her team on the Democratic side.   She not only got every Democratic to vote no on the 3 week bill -- and then got most of them to vote yes on the 1 week bill as part of the plan to get the clean bill to the floor next week.

Score a big win for Pelosi, a big loss for Boehner.

Ralph