Prospects for extending emergency benefits for the long-term unemployed faded when the U.S. House of Representatives recessed April 10 without taking up a bill passed in the Senate.

Proponents, mainly Democrats, were reluctant to say the measure is dead.

House Democrats may try a discharge petition, a parliamentary tactic meant to force a vote on a bill, said U.S. Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Springfield. The petition requires 218 signatures, meaning Democrats must find 13 Republicans to sign on.

“That’s going to be very, very difficult,” DeFazio said Tuesday.

If it came to a vote, however, he predicted the legislation to extend jobless benefits would pass.

The program, instituted in 2008 to provide federally funded compensation to the unemployed who exhausted their 26 weeks of state benefits, expired Dec. 28. The state Employment Department continued to pay benefits, however, through the first quarter of the year. Those payments primarily constituted cases in which the benefit was denied but the recipient appealed and won compensation, said Tom Fuller, department communications manager.

Through March, the state paid about $1.5 million in emergency unemployment benefits to approximately 1,500 people, according to department figures. In Deschutes, Crook and Jefferson counties, approximately 68 people received $76,362 total in the same period, said Craig Spivey, a department spokesman. No further payments are anticipated, he said.

The Senate on April 7 passed a five-month extension, retroactive to the end of December. Approximately 2.8 million Americans, including approximately 31,000 Oregonians would have received the benefit, according to DeFazio.

Six Republicans voted in favor of the extension. But it fell into limbo in the House, where Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, showed little interest in bringing it to a vote, according to wire service reports.

DeFazio said the argument that unemployment payments discourage recipients from seeking work makes no sense.

“In order to qualify, you have to be actively looking for work,” he said.

A call to a spokesman for U.S. Rep. Greg Walden, R-Hood River, a member of the House GOP leadership, was not returned Wednesday.

— Reporter: 541-617-7815, jditzler@bendbulletin.com