The British Thermal Unit, or BTU, is loosely defined as the amount of heat required to raise one pound of water one degree Fahrenheit. Outside the laboratory and inside the beltway though, it’s shorthand for political suicide.
If there was a dictionary definition for the term, it’d read like this: Getting BTU’d | verb 1: to be made hopelessly vulnerable by Senate inaction; 2: to be left completely out to dry during a midterm-election because of one’s own party; 3: what happened to Democrats in 1994 and will soon happen to Republicans in 2017.
It works like this: House leadership forces a vote on an unpopular piece of legislation; rank-and-file members support it against their better interest; and the bill subsequently gets stuck in the Senate. One example of this came in 2009, when House Democrats passed a cap and trade bill on carbon emissions, which subsequently went nowhere in the Senate.
Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., urged House Republicans over the weekend to buck leadership and avoid this fate. Speaking on “Face the Nation,” Cotton warned his former House colleagues to avoid the self-harm of the Republican Obamacare overhaul. “Do not walk the plank and vote for a bill that cannot pass the Senate,” he warned, “and then have to face the consequences of that vote.” In short, he warned them “about getting BTU’d.”
As House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., whips votes and races to pass his Obamacare package, it’s worth reviewing the etymology of the word.
During President Clinton’s first 100 days, the Democrat took aim at two problems, the deficit and pollution. Against the desperate pleas of his party, Clinton proposed a BTU tax. It would’ve levied an additional charge on all types of fossil fuels, generated $72 billion in new revenue, and increased energy costs for every single American. It was doomed and everyone knew it.
Like a legislative charge of the light brigade, then-Speaker Tom Foley led Democrats in voting for a bill they knew wouldn’t pass the Senate. When freshman Democrat, Rep. Marjorie Mezvinsky of Pennsylvania cast the deciding ballot in support of the measure, the New York Times reported that Republicans broke out into a chorus of “Bye, bye Marjorie!”
After House Democrats bit the bullet on the unpopular BTU tax, their Senate colleagues dropped the ball. Opposition to the failed BTU tax was like rocket fuel for the Republican Revolution. That November, 54 Democrats lost their seats. Feeling betrayed for touting the party line, many would later complain that they were “BTU’d.”
And unfortunately for Mezvinsky, Republicans were right about her fate. After casting the deciding vote on the tax, her career quickly ended. “When I went to town hall meetings, I had to be escorted by the police,” she would tell Daily Beast years later. “There were kids holdings signs saying ‘LIAR.’ I just painted a target on my chest.” And that November, she’d lose her seat by more than 8,000 votes.
That BTU phenomenon is not unlike what’s being seen today. After yesterday’s CBO analysis, it’s becoming apparent that Ryan’s Obamacare overhaul cannot pass the Senate. If House Republicans pass that legislation and it languishes in the upper chamber, they could get BTU’d like Democrats were 1994. Only this time, it’d be even worse.
Opposition to this bill is equally fierce but significantly more bipartisan. Liberal voters despise the package because it axes too much of Obamacare. Conservatives hate it because it doesn’t gut enough. Any GOP representative voting for the bill would face a backlash from both groups.
It’d be like dousing oneself in gasoline then handing out free butane lighters. It’d be political suicide. It’d be getting BTU’d.
Philip Wegmann is a commentary writer for the Washington Examiner.
