Oops! The House sent the wrong Obamacare bill text to the Senate

VP Vance helps GOP block Senate vote on Venezuela

Jan 15, 2026

Also in today’s edition of ‘Regular Order’ for January 15, 2026:

House ignores Trump push for big cuts at Voice of America.
Democrats vow accountability on ICE arrests.
CBO says it would cost ‘hundreds of millions’ for Pentagon name change.

ACA SUBSIDIES. Talk about a mistake. While the House voted last week for a 3-year, $80 billion extension of extra health insurance subsidies under the Affordable Care Act, that’s not what made it over to the U.S. Senate. Somehow, the House Clerk’s office did not include the updated amendment offered by Democrats and approved on the House floor. Instead, the wrong bill papers were sent across the Capitol.

SEND IT BACK. House officials scrambled to fix that mistake on Tuesday night, as the House quietly approved a resolution which asked the Senate to return the bill papers for H.R. 1834. That was okayed by unanimous consent.
SNAFU. Informed about the mix up, the top Democrat on the House Rules Committee was a bit perplexed. “This is all fucked up,” said Rep. Jim McGovern (D-MA), who called it ‘amateur hour.’
AMENDMENT. What happened? While the House legitimately passed the 3-year extension of the ACA subsidies, the clerk’s office didn’t use that amendment from Democrats - defaulting instead to the original bill text. That was a placeholder for a House discharge petition started by Democrats in November.

RECORD. Sending the wrong bill text over to the Senate wasn’t the only mistake. The old text (as seen above) was also printed in the Congressional Record for January 8, when the House approved that 3-year subsidies extension. That has been corrected online - but the printed copy of the Record that I grabbed in the Senate basement yesterday showed the original error.

SENATE. So, how does this get fixed? The Senate will have to act - most likely by unanimous consent - to return the bill papers, in order to allow the House to correct them. That could happen as soon as today.

CLERK. There was a bit of irony in this mistake. Democrats were evidently worried that even if the House approved their subsidy bill, Republicans might not send the measure to the Senate. Democrats included a specific provision in the rule to make sure the bill papers were actually taken to the other side of the Capitol.

RULE. “The Clerk shall transmit to the Senate a message that the House has passed H.R. 1834 no later than one calendar day after passage,” that rule stated.

H.R. 3426. Of course, I wondered if there were other examples. The same type of error happened last year on a House-passed bill dealing with limits on new federal courthouse construction. In that case, it took almost two months for the Senate to approve a unanimous consent request to return the bill papers to the House.

I’M JUST A BILL. How did I stumble on this? I was puzzled by a unanimous consent request made on Wednesday by Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer about the ACA subsidies.
CONSENT. Schumer tried to pass the House-passed subsidies bill, specifically saying it would happen when the Senate ‘receives H.R. 1834 as passed by the House on January 8th.’
MESSAGE. But I knew the House bill had already been sent over to the Senate. What I didn’t know was that it was the wrong House bill.
CLERK. I don’t want anyone to think that I’m dumping on the House Clerk’s office in any way. Mistakes can be made. But that’s a pretty big error. And now you know the rest of the story.
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VENEZUELA. Senate Republicans used a parliamentary maneuver last night to avoid a vote on a war powers resolution dealing with Venezuela. Instead of voting directly on the measure, Republicans raised a procedural point of order, flipped the votes of two GOP Senators, and got a tie-breaking vote by Vice President JD Vance to block the Venezuela debate.

NO COMBAT. “The operation has ended. It’s over. There are no troops there,” said Sen. Jim Risch (R-ID), as Republicans argued there was nothing for the Senate to vote on regarding Venezuela. “There are no U.S. forces in hostilities.”
LOBBYING. The GOP victory came after a furious lobbying effort led by the White House and President Trump - who bitterly complained last week when five GOP Senators voted to advance this measure to the Senate floor.
SWITCHEROO. After a lot of pressure, two of those Republicans flipped their votes yesterday - Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) and Sen. Todd Young (R-IN). That made the vote a 50-50 tie, which was then broken by Vice President JD Vance.
TIE VOTE. It was the eighth time that Vance had come to Capitol Hill to break a tie vote; the record is 33 tie-breakers by former Vice President Kamala Harris.
DISSENT. Democrats blasted the GOP move. “Call it whatever you want,” said Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ). “When people are shooting, it’s war. When the President deploys the U.S. military, it’s war.”

PARLIAMENTARY NERD NOTE. This was another example of Republicans using a different kind of method to deal with questions on the rules and precedents of the Senate. Instead of having a ruling issued by the chair - presumably through the Senate Parliamentarian - Republicans put it before the full Senate.

PRESIDING OFFICER. “The Chair submits the question to the Senate for its decision,” said Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-OH), who was presiding at the time. “The question is, ‘Is the point of order well taken?’”
MAJORITY RULE. The Senate then voted, with the majority determining how to interpret the rules. This is much like the process involved with the nuclear option. Basically, the rules are what a majority decides the rules are.

ICE. Democrats continued on Wednesday to ramp up their complaints about the actions of ICE agents in Minnesota, vowing to hold agents accountable in the future. “What the hell happened to our country? asked Rep. Lou Correa (D-CA), as a group of Democrats blasted ICE at a news conference outside the Capitol.

SHOOTING. Lawmakers had a picture of Renee Good at their rally, as they said her death should not be swept under the rug. “We will not stop fighting until we achieve real justice and accountability,” said Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN).

YOUR PAPERS PLEASE. “We see ICE beat, drag, abuse, and even shoot to kill American citizens,” said Rep. Adriano Espaillat (D-NY). “Any other country, and we would call it a violent dictatorship.”
IMPEACH. A group of House Democrats yesterday unveiled an impeachment resolution against Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. “She must be removed from office immediately,” said Rep. Dina Titus (D-NV).
VIDEOS. Long term, I do think the most important thing coming out of all of this would be the videos - especially of the incidents involving U.S. citizens.
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CONGRESS-SPENDING. On a vote of 341-79, the House approved another pair of government funding bills for 2026, giving the okay to money for the State Department and foreign aid programs, along with funding for the judiciary and a variety of general government agencies. Those bills now go to the Senate.

AMENDMENTS. Two Freedom Caucus amendments were easily defeated. First, the House rejected a plan from Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) to cut the budget of federal district courts in D.C. by 20 percent, and to reduce the pay of two judges to $1. Lawmakers also defeated an effort to cut out $315 million in funding for the National Endowment for Democracy.
USAGM. Maybe the biggest headline from this spending package is how the House rebuffed President Trump’s bid to close down the U.S. Agency for Global Media, which oversees the Voice of America and other international broadcasting and information services.
VOA. The plan has $643 million for international broadcasting for VOA, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, and operations aimed at Asia and the Middle East. “Voice of America plays a pivotal role in enhancing America’s national security and combating authoritarian propaganda,” said Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-MO).
DEADLINE. After doing little for months, the House has now approved five funding bills which have the support of both parties. Four others still have to be dealt with before a Jan. 30 funding bill: Defense, Homeland Security, transportation-housing, and Labor-health-education.
MINIBUS. The Senate will try to give final approval to a 3-bill funding minibus today. Senators are off next week which makes it hard to see how the final six bills get finished by a January 30 funding and partial shutdown deadline.

SCHEDULE. Chalk up another setback for House Republicans. The GOP was supposed to vote today on the ‘Save Local Business Act’ from Rep. James Comer (R-KY). But it didn’t make the floor schedule - because it likely would have been defeated, part of this week’s House floor troubles for House Republicans.

BIG LABOR. “Despite its name, this bill would not protect local businesses,” the AFL-CIO wrote in a letter to lawmakers this week. “It rewrites federal labor law so that a company is only treated as an employer if it directly hires, pays, schedules, and supervises workers.”
TUESDAY. Earlier this week, the House defeated one bill which would have relaxed overtime pay rules. Two other bills which also undercut overtime pay were yanked off the floor before a final vote, as a small group of GOP lawmakers mainly from swing seats made clear they opposed the plan.
NOT NORMAL. I just want to make this point clearly again - this is completely crazy. It is not normal for the majority to bring bills to the House floor and watch them either lose or get yanked before a final vote.
JEFFRIES. Democrats were more than happy again yesterday to blast the GOP over their floor failures. “They don’t know how to organize a two car funeral,” said House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries. “They’re losing votes week after week after week.”

DEPARTMENT OF WAR. The Congressional Budget Office says it would cost ‘hundreds of millions of dollars’ for the Department of Defense to have its name officially changed to the Department of War. You can read the letter sent by the CBO to Senate Democrats at this link.

EXECUTIVE ORDER. The CBO said a more limited name change - basically making the Department of War the nickname for the Pentagon - would cost between $10 million and $125 million.
STATUTE. As I’ve detailed previously, the annual defense policy bill made no mention of the ‘Department of War.’ Only Congress can change the official name of the Department of Defense - not a presidential executive order.

ILLEGAL ORDERS. A group of Congressional Democrats who made a video urging members of the military not to follow illegal orders say they have been contacted by federal prosecutors. “The intimidation is the point,” said Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI). “And it’s not going to work.”

CAPT. KELLY. Slotkin, a former CIA analyst who served in Iraq, was part of a group that included Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ) - a retired Navy Captain - who this week sued the Pentagon for trying to demote him and reduce his pension.
KEYSTONE. “The six of us are being targeted not because we said something untrue, but because we said something President Trump and Secretary Hegseth didn’t want anyone to hear,” said Rep. Chrissy Houlahan (D-PA), an Air Force veteran. “We will not be silenced.”
EAT CROW. “We will not allow any president to intimidate us and threaten us and dissuade us from performing our duty and fulfilling our oath,” added Rep. Jason Crow (D-CO), a former Army Ranger who won a Bronze Star in Iraq.

MISSED VOTES. It’s an election year, which means some lawmakers miss time on Capitol Hill in order to campaign. For Rep. Wesley Hunt (R-TX), that’s been standard operating procedure so far this year. As of last night, Hunt had missed 25 of the 28 votes on the House floor in the first two weeks of the year.

LONE STAR. What is Hunt doing? He’s running for U.S. Senate in Texas, which also involves taking shots at incumbent Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX). “How about showing up for work to support the Trump agenda?” Cornyn tweeted at Hunt last night.
CALENDAR. Hunt doesn’t have that much time to campaign. The Texas primary is March 5 along with Arkansas and North Carolina.

MUSE OF HISTORY. January 15, 1968. On this date, ex-Rep. Jeannette Rankin of Montana - the only lawmaker who voted against the U.S. entering both World War I and World War II - returned to Capitol Hill to lead a protest against the Vietnam War. Rankin (wearing glasses in the middle of the photo below) joined with 5,000 women, marching from Union Station to the Capitol.