“It takes a handful of members of the GOP to say, ‘Enough,’” Rep. Katherine Clark (Mass.), the Democratic whip, told reporters in the Capitol. 

That’s a heavy lift, since it would require GOP lawmakers to buck the wishes of Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), who is in tense negotiations with the White House over a debt-ceiling package and is opposed to a vote on the “clean” debt-limit hike preferred by Democrats. 

The procedural gambit is a long shot: Only two discharge petitions have been successful in the last two decades. Still, Democratic leaders are hoping their party’s unanimity on the document will pressure moderate Republicans to sign on, particularly if talks between President Biden and McCarthy don’t yield fruit and the threat of default is imminent. 

“We’re five signatures away,” said Rep. Pete Aguilar (Calif.), chairman of the House Democratic Caucus. “So for our Republican colleagues who give interviews and go back home and talk about how they want to work together, and talk about how they’re not extreme like Marjorie Taylor Greene, and how she doesn’t speak for them — this is their opportunity.” 

Some moderate Republicans have already hinted at a willingness to join Democrats on a discharge petition if Congress inches too close to a federal default with no resolution in sight. Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.), a co-chairman of the centrist Problem Solvers Caucus, said earlier in the year that he might do so — “if that’s necessary.” 

Since then, however, House Republicans have passed a debt ceiling proposal of their own, which would extend the government’s borrowing authority by $1.5 trillion and reduce deficit spending by roughly $4.8 trillion over the next decade.