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Paul Ryan just announced that the house will not be voting on the AHCA today after all, since there was too much opposition from other Republicans for it to be able to pass.

Why would he cancel the vote, rather than let it proceed as scheduled? It's possible that when it came down to the wire, some of those who opposed it would vote for it rather than go on record as "voting to keep Obamacare". Is there some political (or procedural) advantage to not voting (and thus suffering the embarrassment of withdrawing the bill) instead of voting and failing (and thus suffering the embarrassment of a failed bill)? Is one worse politically than the other?

Bobson
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  • Stranger still, this is an issue they tackled with gusto, repeatedly, when Obama was president. This is probably a duplicate of my question here: http://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/16606/why-couldnt-republicans-who-voted-to-repeal-obamacare-so-many-times-under-obama – J Doe Mar 24 '17 at 22:18
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    @JDoe - No, I saw yours, but I'm specifically asking why not even vote rather than why did this bill fail. I'd have expected them to hold a vote, to see if anyone changed their mind when it came down to the wire, even if they were expecting it not to pass. Why not even try? – Bobson Mar 24 '17 at 22:24
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    I think you should not restrict this question to just procedural reasons, otherwise the title should be "Why cancel a vote for procedural reasons?" – Justas Mar 25 '17 at 01:27
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    @Bobson A possible reason, but I don't want to answer as it's only possible, is to not reveal how far off they were. Counts put the list as 36 republicans shy. With no vote, Trump was able to say "5 votes shy" and "very close". I'm not saying that's why but they can claim "close" with no vote. It's more obvious with a vote. – userLTK Mar 25 '17 at 08:54
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    Not meaty enough for an answer but: it's often better politically for a politician to not vote than to be held accountable later for a vote on record. –  Mar 25 '17 at 22:47
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    @Justas - I just did exactly that. This question has been broadened, and the new procedural-only one is here. – Bobson Mar 26 '17 at 01:19

3 Answers3

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To protect rebellious Republicans from their vengeful president

Until Speaker Ryan chooses to answer this question himself, we cannot be certain why and we are left to speculate, but the New York Times suggests an answer in their coverage on the matter,

The president was furious that members of the hard-line conservative Freedom Caucus had opposed the legislation. He demanded for much of Thursday that Mr. Ryan push a vote to publicly expose the members who were opposing the administration.

Mr. Trump and his top strategist, Stephen K. Bannon, wanted to see a confidential list of compiled [sic] to exact revenge on the bill's Republican opponents, according to two people with direct knowledge of the situation.

Refusing to vote would prevent the President from learning who opposed the legislation and protect them from his wrath. It looks like there's a growing divide between Republicans in Congress and their president.

J Doe
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    You could probably phrase this so it sounds less biased, but I would agree that this is one of the reasons. But it is one of the political reasons, while the OP specifically asked about procedural reasons (I don't think that it makes much sense to restrict the question like this, but that's what's being asked). – tim Mar 24 '17 at 22:58
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    You miss the obvious answer here... to avoid losing the vote. Its pretty embarrassing when a bill you put up loses because the members of your party don't support it – David says Reinstate Monica Mar 24 '17 at 22:59
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    @DavidGrinberg I agree, but is there any less embarrassment by calling off the vote at the last minute, compared to letting it actually fail? – Bobson Mar 24 '17 at 23:10
  • @DavidGrinberg That may be obvious but it wasn't obvious to the questioner, and my answer is actually supportable. You're downvoting an answer supported with sources in favor of unsupported speculation. – J Doe Mar 24 '17 at 23:26
  • @tim I removed any editorialization unsupported by the NYT's charactarizations. I think what remains, "vengeful", and "wrath," is well supported by the quote. Good enough? – J Doe Mar 24 '17 at 23:32
  • @JDoe It's better, "unhinged" was the main problem regarding bias. I still think that it's not really answering OPs question, but that is at least partly the fault of the OP (I would have made this two questions; one within the current context asking for procedural and political reasons, and one which doesn't contain the context, and which only asks about procedural reasons). – tim Mar 24 '17 at 23:40
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    "To protect rebellious Republicans from their vengeful president" = sounds like the elevator pitch for the next Star Wars movie plot. –  Mar 25 '17 at 18:55
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    Other than belittling them on Twitter, what exactly do they have to fear from Trump's "wrath?" – Andy Mar 25 '17 at 20:30
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    @Andy That's a good question! you should ask it. – J Doe Mar 25 '17 at 23:35
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    @tim - At this point, I think I'm going to follow your suggestion: I will edit this question to make it ask the question which this answer is answering, and then ask a new question with no mention of the AHCA to find out about what I really wanted to know. I will also remove my downvote from this answer, although I'll wait to see what answers the edited one attracts before accepting it. – Bobson Mar 26 '17 at 00:46
  • @JDoe It really should be part of your answer though as its incomplete as is. If he has no wrath for them to face, then this answer falls down completely. – Andy Mar 27 '17 at 00:01
  • @Bobson There may be specific procedural rules of Congress that would prevent them from voting on another health care bill for a certain period of time, if this one had been voted on. Especially so since they had gone the tricksy route of using budget reconciliation to enact a repeal-and-replace procedure that couldn't be filibustered by Senate Democrats. I could be mistaken, but there's been some hubbub lately about such things being used to strategically block legislation or opposition to it. – zibadawa timmy Mar 27 '17 at 04:54
  • @Andy The President (and the speaker Ryan) have quite a lot of power for this. Ryan controls committee appointments, rules of debate, and apportionment of party funds, which can substantially raise or lower a given representative's power and stature. The president can use Executive branch powers to potentially muck over specific opponents, though these may be impeded by various controls. He could also simply endorse their opponents in the primaries, which would jeopardize their re-election bids (and thus their job) as many of his supporters seem likely to follow his endorsements. – zibadawa timmy Mar 27 '17 at 05:04
  • Why did this answer receive votes to be deleted? What is so wrong with it to merit deletion? – J Doe Mar 27 '17 at 19:29
  • I like the idea of this answer, but I'm really not sure it's accurate. There's plenty of people who are known to have opposed the AHCA - Trump surely knows who they are. Are you suggesting that it's to protect the people who didn't publicly oppose it? How many people like that are there, actually? – Bobson Mar 31 '17 at 16:00
  • @Bobson I updated the answer with a caveat. Hopefully that is an improvement. Obviously it is to protect only those who didn't publicly oppose the bill, and because they are being protected we cannot know how many of them there are. – J Doe Mar 31 '17 at 18:32
  • @Bobson There is a difference between publicly advocating for changes or a completely different approach before a vote, and not holding the party line when the vote actually takes place. Trump is likely not pleased with either, but the second is much more serious. I think that the assumption is that many or at least some would have backed Trump up when it matters, and Trump wanted to know who wouldn't have. – tim Apr 01 '17 at 10:57
  • @Bobson, There's a lot more risk in having the vote. Yes, cancelling is embarrassing but this was a dangerous vote. While Obamacare is unpopular, O'Trumpcare light was less popular and it would have taken the healthcare away from a lot of people. Voting yes would have risked losing votes and voting no would have invited criticism. It was a high risk vote and if it didn't pass, same embarrassment as cancelling, plust votes to answer for. High risk. It was much safer to just not vote. Try to put some blame on the Dems and keep things vague on yes and no votes. – userLTK Apr 01 '17 at 12:34
  • @Andy: You can say about Trump what you want, but he is very, very good at belittling people. It's probably his greatest strength. That, and an unbreakable belief in his own version of "truth". I wouldn't want to be at the receiving end of this if it can be avoided. – gnasher729 Apr 02 '17 at 21:32
  • @gnasher729 My point is that beyond belittling people, he doesn't have any wrath to dish out. Being called a name is supposed to be scary? – Andy Apr 02 '17 at 23:38
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It's important to understand that there was no downside to voicing dissent. Politics is about convincing people to vote for a bill, which is a time and resource intensive process. Obamacare, for instance, literally made sweetheart deals with some Senators to get their vote

President Barack Obama’s healthcare reform proposal released Monday eliminates controversial funds given to Nebraska as part of a deal to win the support of centrist Sen. Ben Nelson (D).

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) offered the $100 million in Medicaid funding, also known as the “Cornhusker Kickback,” to Nelson to help win him over* as the 60th vote on the Senate’s healthcare reform bill last December.

Nelson claims that it was just in there as a placeholder.

There was no such dealing on this. In fact, the time frame was incredibly short (just a few weeks) compared to most legislation of this scope. Speaker Ryan was only going to allow one amendment to the bill to fix changes brought up by various people. And then President Trump issued an ultimatum, which may have been a way for Trump to walk away from the bill

So, now that Republicans have pulled the AHCA, does the loss undermine President Trump’s self-proclaimed proficiency at the negotiating table? Not so, says Erez Yoeli, a research scientist at Harvard’s Program for Evolutionary Dynamics, who argues that President Trump was in an almost impossible position. He could either pass the Ryan-designed bill, which overwhelmingly hurts his constituents, or he could risk his reputation as a tough negotiator by continuing to whittle away at the AHCA, trying to appease both moderates and extreme conservatives. In the face of such a dilemma, Yoeli says, Trump has more to gain walking away. That is, as long as he doesn’t ultimately go back on his word to punish Republicans for their inaction by leaving Obamacare in place.

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Machavity
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  • From the quote: "He [Trump] could either pass the Ryan-designed bill, [..]" Since when is Trump in Congress? – Sjoerd Mar 26 '17 at 16:12
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    @Sjoerd What they mean is that Trump could spend his time and political capital on passing the Ryan bill, or move on to other things – Machavity Mar 26 '17 at 16:55
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Why would he cancel the vote, rather than let it proceed as scheduled?

The vote was going to be a public roll call going through each Representative and putting their vote on record. Once it became clear that the bill was going to lose many Representatives who might have voted Yes would likely switch to No to avoid the negative consequences of having supported a failed bill (attack ads from opponents etc).

Those definitely against numbered about 30/40 but there were many Reps on the fence so if it was forced to vote it might have lost by as many as 100 votes.

Machavity
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deep64blue
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