House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., announced earlier this week that she will likely file a discharge petition forcing a vote on an independent investigation of the Trump campaign’s interactions with Russia’s regime. If it happens, every member of the House is going to be forced to take sides and (if they support it) put it in writing.
If she can persuade a majority of House members to sign on, then there’s precious little that the Republican leaders can do to prevent a vote. What’s more, everyone will be able to see which members sign the petition and follow the process as it is updated on a daily basis. This will put a lot of pressure on the handful of Republicans who have called for an independent investigation (so far that includes Barbara Comstock, R-Va., Darrell Issa, R-Calif., Walter Jones, R-N.C., Erik Paulsen, R-Minn., and Justin Amash, R-Mich.) to put their money where their mouth is and sign on.
(A spokeswoman for Rep. Pat Tiberi, R-Ohio, says he has not actually backed an independent prosecutor yet, contrary to the Buzzfeed report linked above. The statement he released on May 10 says he “would” support one if the leaders of the House and Senate intelligence committee determined it was warranted.)
Discharge petitions are used in the U.S. House to force votes in Congress that the leadership opposes or on bills that are bottled up in committee. If a majority of members of the House sign one — usually 218, but possibly fewer if there are vacancies — it sends the bill in question straight to the floor for consideration, bypassing the committee process. One of them was used in 2002 to force a vote on the Shays-Meehan campaign finance bill (better known as McCain-Feingold).
Currently, there is only one active discharge petition, filed last month on H.R. 305, which would require the disclosure of all presidents’ tax returns. It has 190 signatures, all from Democrats, and is probably going nowhere.
