0 democrats do, which is that the government should be started up again, and we should settle our policy issues through some other means of fighting. more than enough republicans have said that publicly, that it should be possible. but it's left to the democrats to try to find a way to make that true. it's left to the democrats to try to find ways to let those supposedly more moderate republicans find a way to put their money where their mouths are. so they tried the louise slaughter rule which effectively would have put louise slaughter in charge of the house for a second instead of john boehner. that didn't work. now their plan is to take over john boehner's job, to maneuver around him for one vote. by using something that is technically called a discharge petition. but which for the last few years at least everybody really just thinks of as the reese witherspoon option. in the reese witherspoon movie "legally blonde 2," not only did the whole plot turn on a successful use of a discharge petition, but reese witherspoon and her castmates did, in the movie, basically a perfect job of explaining how one works. >> elle, it's time to finish what you started. >> swelling music. and it works! in the movie it works. bruiser's bill can't come to the floor for a vote otherwise because the speaker won't let it come to a vote and it gets forced onto the vote by reese witherspoon. they gets 218 signatures. that's something they want to vote for if only they had the chance. takes it out of the speaker's hands. it's a plot in a not-so-great movie. it's also now a real thing. and now honestly, it is the only plan to bring the government back from the shutdown. >> we are now in the fourth day of our government shutdown. the question on everybody's mind, then, how does this shutdown end? one thing that's becoming clear is that the -- as the shutdown drags on, the growing number of republican members of congress want the opportunity to work with democrats to end this crises. we have seen this in press reports and i have heard it in my own private conversation with my republican colleagues. today we're offering my republican friends and the american people a way forward. we are initiating this afternoon a discharge petition under the rules of the house that will finally allow a majority of the house to freely express their will on whether or not to reopen the government through a clean funding resolution. if a majority members sign this petition, house members can take up an up-or-down vote on reopening the government as early as october 14th. >> so that's congressman george miller of california. he's a very close ally of minority leader nancy pelosi. and today miller went on to say democrats would love it if republicans would restart the government right now. but if republicans won't do that, then the "legally blonde 2" rabbit is the rabbit that they found down in the bottom of the hat. if these 22 republicans really did mean it when they said they wanted to vote to end the shutdown, then at least theoretically this tactic could work. put all the democrats together with most of these guys, and bingo. because it theoretically could work, you started to see some excitement about this idea on the left today. huffington post today led with this as a possible solution all afternoon long. over at "the daily coast," which is a real liberal hub online, the first recommended diary about this plan finished with this little happy dance. like mr. t., i pity the fool who went up against nancy pelosi in a game of vote whipping and parliamentary rheaume maneuvers with death on the line! there is excitement. in the beltway press, oerpd, there is wall-to-walleye-rolling skepticism that anything like this could ever work. discharge petitions have not worked on capitol hill in a long time. the last one that worked was 11 years ago on a campaign finance bill 11 years ago. before that, though, a few years before that, it worked on a gun rights bill. i don't know why the beltway thinks that circumstances like those are somehow more unusual, more special than what we've got right now. which is the first-ever shutdown of the federal government during wartime with no end in sight. the beltway, however, all the old hands think this cannot be done. the beltway press thinks, sure, the reese witherspoon cure is cute, but it could never work. why are they so sure? let's talk to a guy who thinks the whole idea is nuts. joining us now is steve lockerette, former congressman from ohio. he was known for being willing to criticize own party's right flank when the mood struck him. congressman, thank you for being here tonight. >> rachel, thank you. as i told your producer, i can now cross this off my bucket list. i appreciate being on the show. >> this is a rare thing to be on a bucket list. i'll try to not think about that. am i right in characterizing your position on this discharge petition as basically that this is nuts, it can never happen? >> well, yeah. i mean, if you took a snowball and put it in i ami microwave oven, it has a better chance of surviving. you watch these guys at this press conference, it's all tongue in cheek because discharge petition and louise slaughter's vote on the previous question, they almost never, never work. and i would suggest that john dingell, friend who's been in the house over 50 years, the next time he puts his name on a republican discharge petition won't be the first time. >> so the parties never like to do this. it has happened. it's not historically unprecedented. we've got campaign finance bill in which it happened, a gun bill on which it happened. the previous question, the louise slaughter trick today, that did actually work against tip o'neill. why is it impossible if there are more than 20 republicans who want that outcome and maybe this is the only way to get it? >> well, it's not the only way to get it, and i'll be glad to talk about that. but it's not as simple. i mean, they want to say that this is simple. when you defeat the previous question, louise slaughter's trick, you're not just abandoning the speaker for one vote. that, then, lets the movement, mrs. slaughter, write any proposal she wants. the majority isn't going to do that. pelosi wouldn't do that. as a matter of fact, if you look up all the democrats who ever signed a discharge petition when mrs. pelosi was speaker, they're now called former members because it doesn't go over very well. and the same thing with the discharge petition. now, that is an abrogation of the legislative process. it's not the way that things are supposed to get done. and it would be just as disloyal of these 20 republicans as it is disloyal of these 25 nuts that are holding the country hostage. >> when we think about how this is going to get resolved, i feel like i'm not a great predictor in politics. if you go back and look at my predictions, i'm the one with the shattered crystal ball. i don't even deserve to be in those contests. but i feel like when i look at the democrats right now both in congress and in the white house, i see zero percent chance that they will turn either the shutdown or especially the debt ceiling into an opportunity to negotiate policy points with the republicans. democrats, i feel like, believe it's an abrogation of the governing process to let this happen at the end of a barrel of a gun. therefore, i really see the only solution as some sort of clean resolution being passed. >> i do disagree with you. i would just go back when president obama was senator obama. he didn't think he was going to vote and didn't vote to raise the debt limit. you know -- >> but there was no chance that we were going to be up against the debt limit when he did that. >> well, but you know what? that's an answer without an answer. i mean, either we pay the debts that we have incurred, as he has suggested, or we don't. and it doesn't matter whether george bush is the president or barack obama is the president. there is a way out. and the thing that sort of got lost in the democratic trickery is ron kind, democrat from wisconsin, went with charlie dent and indicated that there were members on both sides that would vote for a cr if they dealt with something as small as the medical device tax. now, i know that's horsing around with obama care, but, you know, 76 senators agreed to rescind the medical device tax. so there are ways out. and i would suggest that, you know, here's john boehner's position. that you want us to extend the borrowing authority of the united states. it's reasonable then to have a conversation as to why we have to borrow so much money. and that's what he's asking for. and i'm telling you that there is a way out. but, you know, the quote out of the white house today by somebody that we're winning, we're winning, it isn't about winning. this is about fixing the country. and if everybody gives a little bit, you'll have plenty of votes and we'll get out of here. and the outliers on the right and left, they can go on msnbc and fox news and say we got screwed. who cares? get 218 votes. >> fixing the country by threatening default is impossible. and i think a dishonest way to think about it. i hear you that we ought to be talking about long-term issues like the debt. maybe there are parts of obama care where they could find big bipartisan con ses success. but putting the potential for international economic catastrophe and american economic collapse as the price of having that conversation now instead of later, we just can't -- we can't ever do it, ever. >> no. and we're not going to default. i'm going to tell you, john boehner is a friend of mine. we're both from ohio. i served with him for 18 years. he's not going to let that happen. but the problem is -- and the reason this isn't working like tip o'neill and ronald reagan, there is an absence of trust between the white house and the house republicans. now, you can say -- you can say, oh, it's obama's fault or it's boehner's fault. it really doesn't make any difference. and so when the president says, i'll talk to you all you want if you just do this, it's what i call the wimpy statement. you're not old enough to remember wimpy and popeye. wimpy would say i'd gladly pay you a tuesday for the hamburger today. >> if they were giving him a hamburger, okay. to keep the government going, avoid catastrophe? we could talk about this all night. i have a feeling we'd end up at the same place. your willingness to have the conversation and civility and spirit with which you approach it, i aappreciate it. steve la tourette, republican of ohio, now president of the mcdonald hopkins lobbying firm. all right. here for the interview tonight is the one and only dan rather. he is here in person. plus, there's something spooky going on in a very big election that's happening in our country very soon that nobody's paying attention to because of the shutdown. and also, there's booze all ahead, all still to come. stay with us. ♪ [ male announcer ] when we built the cadillac ats from the ground up to be the world's best sport sedan... ♪ ...people noticed. ♪ the cadillac ats -- 2013 north american car of the year. lease this cadillac ats for around $299 per month with premium care maintenance included.