House lawmakers will conduct a straight, up-or-down vote on increasing the debt limit on Tuesday night, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., has announced.
Republican leaders had previously stated the vote would be sometime this week, but the date was not known before Cantor revealed the schedule Sunday.
By doing the vote after 6:30 pm, that ensures that the market is closed and there is no "real time" metric on Wall Street to measure the vote.
In September 2008, the market fell precipitously as the Troubled Assets Relief Program bill failed on the House floor.
This bill is not expected to pass.
There are two reasons for that. First of all, there are no "spending cuts" or framework attached to the bill.
Secondly, the House is treating this as a suspension bill. That means it has limited debate -- only 20 minutes -- and needs a two-thirds majority to pass.
With 432 members in the House now (not including Kathy Hochul, who has not yet been sworn in after winning last week's New York 26th District special election), 288 yea votes would be necessary to pass the debt ceiling increase.