The House took a step toward easing its latest partisan confrontation by agreeing Friday to create a panel that will investigate a controversial floor vote and make recommendations for changes in voting rules.

The bipartisan six-member select committee will probe Thursday’s contested vote on a Republican motion to send the fiscal 2008 Agriculture spending bill back to committee.

The Republican-sponsored resolution (H Res 611) creating the investigative panel was adopted minus “whereas” clauses accusing Democrats of improperly manipulating that vote.

Democratic leaders had struggled all day Friday to quell a revolt that brought House action to a halt and threatened to send the House members home for the August break without action on major portions of the majority’s pre-recess agenda.

Republicans have complained since a Democratic majority took over in January that they have been shut out and too often denied the chance to influence legislation. Late Thursday, the Republicans moved from unhappy to irate when a Democratic presiding officer ruled that their motion to shelve the agriculture bill had been defeated, even though as the gavel fell the electronic scoreboard in the chamber blinked a tally of 215 votes for the motion and 213 against it.

House Republicans declared that unless Democrats honored the 215-213 outcome, the GOP would block action on all but two bills — a modification (HR 3356) of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (PL 95-511) and a bill (HR 3311) authorizing up to $250 million to rebuild the collapsed Minneapolis highway bridge.

The GOP motion that touched off the furor would in effect have amended the spending bill (HR 3161) to bar use of funds to employ or provide housing for illegal immigrants. Instead, Democrats plowed ahead, eventually passing the bill by 237-18 on a roll call boycotted by most Republicans.

The resolution calling for an investigation was brought to the floor by Minority Leader John A. Boehner, R-Ohio. Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer, D-Md., said although he disagreed with his Republican counterpart on the particulars of the previous evening, he would not block an investigation.

The panel would be directed to make an interim report to the House by Sept. 30 and to deliver a final report by Sept. 15, 2008. The resolution also instructs officers of the House to preserve documents and recordings related to the vote in question. The panel, made up of three appointees of the Speaker and three of the minority leader, would have the power to subpoena documents and testimony.

Earlier, Hoyer took the floor to apologize for the way the entire series of votes was handled, as did Michael R.McNulty, D-N.Y., who had been presiding over the House when the furor erupted.

“The minority was understandably angry,” Hoyer said. Speaking quietly, he sought to lower the temperature a bit.

Republicans accused Democrats of using the kind of heavy-handed tactics that Democrats had assailed when the GOP ran the House. The late-night exchange featured a heated exchange between former Speaker J. Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., and Hoyer.

And on a video replay of the night’s action, Hoyer can be heard saying, “We control this House, not the parliamentarians!”

“I regret what happened last night. I think it was very unfortunate,” Boehner said. But he said it was just the latest in a string of moves taken by Democrats this year to control the outcome of debates in the House.

Republicans clearly were not satisfied by Hoyer’s earlier plan to let the House ethics committee review the matter. They wanted the substantive legislative victory they were denied by the chair the night before.

Minority Whip Roy Blunt, R-Mo., said, “The remedy is to let this vote stand.” Eric Cantor, R-Va., agreed, declaring that the spending bill should be sent back to committee, amended with the anti-immigrant language, and then passed a second time.

Blunt said, “The majority has been forthright in apologizing for last night’s unprecedented over-reach, and I take them at their word that the violation was unintentional. But instead of doing the right thing this morning and reinstating the vote’s true outcome, Democrats seem content with the result they manufactured and are now simply trying to move on. I believe that to be unacceptable.

The floor confusion arose when, with the tally tied at 214-214, two politically vulnerable Democrats, Nick Lampson of Texas and Harry E. Mitchell of Arizona, went to the well of the chamber to switch their votes to “no.” The buddy system would prevent Democrats who voted “no” from being targeted as the deciding vote in future campaign ads. Moments later, three Cuban-American Republicans from south Florida, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Lincoln Diaz-Balart and Mario Diaz-Balart, moved to change their votes to “aye.”

The five vote switches were called out by the House reading clerk. The two Democratic changes put the tally at 212-216. Ros-Lehtinen’s switch made it 213-215. Lincoln Diaz-Balart evened it at 214-214, but a tie vote fails. As the reading clerk called out Mario Diaz-Balart’s new vote, the Speaker Pro Tempore, Rep. Michael R. McNulty, D-N.Y., banged the gavel, apparently unaware that the second Diaz-Balart’s vote had yet to be counted.

McNulty had his eyes on the electronic scoreboard, which still read 214-214. But almost as soon as the gavel came down, the scoreboard registered Mario Diaz-Balart’s vote, pushing the tally to 215-213. The scoreboard showed those numbers and the word “FINAL.”

Within a minute or so, a flurry of post-gavel vote switches by Reps. Zack Space of Ohio, Kirsten Gillibrand of New York and Jerry McNerney of California — resulted in an official outcome of 212-216. Boehner was observed switching his vote — a common way to preserve the right to seek reconsideration, and an aide confirmed that the tally board at that point should have read 211-217.

“Shame! Shame!” Republicans chanted across the aisle. Rep. Patrick T. McHenry, R-N.C., thumped the seat of a chair in rhythm with the chant. Rep. Steven C. LaTourette, R-Ohio, repeatedly covered his mouth with his hand, pretended to cough and bellowed a barnyard epithet.

McNulty, whom Democrats often tap to preside over contentious debates, could be heard on television insisting “I called it 214-214.”

Hoyer asked for unanimous consent to vacate the vote. Republicans objected. He then moved to reconsider the vote. Boehner moved to adjourn, a motion that was not in order during the reconsideration vote. Most Republicans walked out of the chamber in protest. Fifty-five of those stayed voted “present.”

“Never have I seen such mayhem,” said Cantor, the chief deputy Republican whip. “All of this to protect illegal immigrants. That is even crazier.”

Much more was riding on that vote than the possible inclusion of immigration language.

The motion was cast in a way that, if successful, would force Democrats to jump through many hoops to get the legislation back onto the floor.

After the vote, Hastert approached Hoyer in the center aisle of the House floor and repeatedly jabbed his index finger at the majority leader’s chest as the two veteran institutionalists quarreled nearly jaw to jaw. “This doesn’t reflect well on the House,” Hastert told Hoyer. When the argument ended, Hastert released Hoyer’s arm with a shove and pushed past him.

New House rules adopted by the Democrats in January stipulate that a vote may not be held open to manipulate the outcome. But it says nothing about closing a vote to do the same.

The new rule was an outgrowth of Democratic fury over the GOP holding open votes in recent Congresses to twist arms. The most memorable example was the 2003 vote on the Medicare prescription-drug conference report, which lasted three hours as House Republican leaders and then-Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy G. Thompson leaned on recalcitrant rank-and-file Republicans to change their votes.

Hoyer said Democrats did not violate that.

“In my opinion, the vote was held open too long,” he said. He said he moved to reconsider in the interest of fairness, rather than simply allowing the first vote to stand.

“It’s against everything they said they would do,” said Rep. Kevin Brady, R-Texas. “They’re right. There is a ‘culture of corruption’ in this town.”

“The sad thing here is McNulty’s a good guy,” said Rep. Charles W. “Chip” Pickering, R-Miss. “He was actually, I think, trying to be fair.”

McNulty apologized in a statement on the floor

“I wish to express my apology to all of the Members of the House for calling the vote prematurely. I called the vote at 214-214. Subsequently, Members of both parties changed their votes,” he said.

Michael Teitelbaum and Alan K. Ota contributed to this story.

First posted Aug. 3, 2007 9:54 a.m.