I doubt McCarthy survives a week. And, of course, this sets up another Gov’t shutdown threat for Thanksgiving.
intercst
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This is the heart of the story.
There is a risk premium in this. No political resolve has formed. We all know cutting the budget to cut taxes is a complete lie in all aspects.
This is now beginning to drag down the equity markets.
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On the otherhand, now that he is working with Democrats, maybe the Democrats will support his re-election.
Perhaps a new coalition is forming in the Congress that can address some moderate issues people have in common and overcome the opposition of extremists on both sides.
Most of us would much prefer action with compromises rather than all or nothing excuses to do nothing on major issues like immigration reform.
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If the five people on the far edge of the wing go against him he can not retain the speakership. He can not be moderate.
As far as I can see as of now he has been acting that out as a fact.
iirc, when the Speaker election was going on last winter, someone in the media said that there is no House rule against Representatives voting for a member of another party to be Speaker. Yes, it is possible for a Repub to be elected by Dems, voting with only a handful of Repubs, like the vote on the continuing resolution, 335-91. That 335 was comprised of 209 Dems and 126 Rs. The nays were 1 D and 90 Rs.
One of the extremists had vowed to offer a resolution to remove the current Speaker for daring to work across the aisle, instead of going down in flames, clinging to rigid ideology,
Well, the last 22 years have seen a lot of things I never thought I would see after August, 1974.
Steve
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Unless the moderate Democrats decide to vote for him.
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If Democrats do that Republicans can vote for a new Democratic minority leader just to mock around. It will upset the apple cart and you will find rank-and-file folks really upset. You will see rules about this in a matter of minutes not days. It would not stand.
That is how our government really works on what will or won’t stand but taking one for global capitalism by allowing supply-side economics was not reality-based. So none of us feel satisfied right now.
Imagine you were gullible enough to think for 42 years you were getting a tax break. That is where the blame comes in to it. Those cats are not figuring out who was actually lying.
I don’t think so. Voting for majority or minority leader is by secret ballot within the party caucus. Voting for Speaker is by roll call vote of the full House.
Steve
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That is true but rules will spring up immediately against it.
Matt Gaetz said Sunday morning that he will introduce the motion to “vacate the chair”. Maybe McCarthy has already sealed a deal with the DEMs to provide the votes to maintain his position? I wonder what McCarthy had to give up?
Gaetz vows to move to boot McCarthy - Live Updates - POLITICO
intercst
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The obvious question here is if it takes Dem support why not a Dem speaker?
Kind of rude of the GOP not to support one. As the GOP speaker blocks Dem ideas why did the Dems support him or her if another is chosen?
In other words, how would the Dems support someone who the GOP insists blocks our agenda?
Why would the Dems promote someone fighting against the country? Who would have been engaging in lies? There is no way the Dems will do this.
I think the idea is that McCarthy might be a better Speaker for the DEMs than Lauren Boebert or Marjoire Taylor Green.
The whole GOP caucus would vote in mass against a DEM Speaker of the House.
intercst
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Because the Dems are the minority. They need some GOP members to form a majority.
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But that is what just happened. Democrats crossed the aisle and voted to avoid a govt shutdown. In doing so they outvoted conservative Republicans.
Apparently moderate coalitions are possible in Congress and can get things done. Can they elect a Speaker. We shall see, but maybe.
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Never, ever going to happen. Why do that when you could ask moderate Republicans to support Jeffries for speaker?
What McCarthy has done by allowing a bill without the pet ideas of the far right to come up for a vote is to call the bluff of that wing of his party. To get the gavel, he had to give them the power to vacate his speakership with a single objection. Are they going to use it or not? If they do use it, we’ll have a non-functioning House for a week or two while we go through multiple votes for the speaker. The hard right will continue to damage themselves and the entire party with their dysfunction. Why would any Democrat want to stop that, particularly with elections next year?
Now that is at least possible, particularly if the hard right chooses NOT to vacate the chair, and especially if they do and McCarthy ends up as speaker again anyway.
On the other hand, I don’t see extremists on both sides. I only see them on one side. The other side’s far end isn’t obstructionist. They advocate for their positions but don’t burn the house down when they don’t get their way. Only one side does that.
–Peter
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Nope. Not a snowball’s chance in … well, you know.
Democrats are smart enough to actually understand the principle: When your opponent is busy shooting themselves in the foot, don’t interrupt them.
–Peter
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No. I’m pretty sure Josh Gottheimer can find six Democratic Problem Solver Caucus members who will sell out for a big corporate campaign donation. There are worse choices for Speaker (from the corporate agenda point of view) waiting in the wings if McCarthy is deposed.
Of course, that would mean McCarthy would be a prime candidate for a primary challenege in the next election. It just depends on if he values a single term in the Speaker’s chair over a longer term House career.
intercst
The worst strategy is to support a speaker who is against them. There is no fixing that for the base. The Democrats wanted the government open. Some Republicans crossed the aisle not the other way around.
The best strategy is to let the Republicans show themselves up. The voters are eating it up this time. It is not like the obstruction in Obama’s time. This is the three stooges on steroids.
It’s going to take a lot more than that. The Dems will be close to unanimous in voting to remove. Perhaps Josh can peel off half a dozen, but add in half or more of the Freedom Caucus (40 something people, IIRC, so perhaps 20) and you’ve got plenty of votes to remove the Speaker.
And none of those choices have that snowball’s chance of actually getting elected. They’d need 218 votes (maybe one or two less depending on the open seats at the moment). Those other choices are not going to get that. They’re not going to get half that.
–Peter
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After a day of contemplation and listening, I’m going to back off my position a bit. I still think the Dems will be unanimous (or very close to) in their votes. But I’m not sure which way they will vote.
Voting to vacate will bring all House business to a halt while a new speaker is named. And that will not happen in a single vote. It took 15 last time - I don’t see how it will take less this time. The up side is that the chaos of the GOP will once again be on full display and could be used for political gain in the upcoming election season. The down side is that there is important business that needs to be done. The budget will again blow up in the middle of November when the continuing resolution expires. Of course, much of the negotiations on that happen off the official calendar, so could continue while the voting for a new speaker drags on.
Voting against the motion to vacate will leave McCarthy as speaker. The dems could extract some promises from Kevin for that vote, but he has broken many such promises already. He can’t be trusted to keep any he might make now. On the up side, it might help push the far right out of view for a while. And the promises extracted could be ones that require immediate follow through (drop the impeachment inquiry, reinstate some Dems to committees, things like that). And leaving the requirement for a motion to vacate at one member could become an enforcement mechanism.
Then there’s the option I hadn’t considered previously: voting present. That’s effectively not voting at all and would put the decision to keep or remove squarely on the GOP members. The number of votes to keep or remove would drop to half of the GOP membership. The up side is plausible deniability. “We let the GOP decide to keep or remove their leader. We didn’t meddle in their business.” That puts the onus on Gaetz to get half of his caucus to vote to remove - which I don’t think he can do. That leaves the speaker in place so business can continue in short order, but it doesn’t involve actively voting to keep McCarthy as speaker.
From the viewpoint of what’s best for the country in the short term, that’s probably the third option: keeping the Speaker in place without actively helping him.
For the longer term, the power move would be to oust the speaker and put the GOP dysfunction on full display, hopefully weakening the far right and helping the GOP move toward the center in upcoming elections. But that comes at the risk of participating in creating some of the chaos.
And a piece of the calculus might be what can be negotiated behind the scenes with some of the most moderate GOP members. Could enough of them be peeled away from their caucus to vote for Jeffries? Doubtful, but stranger things are already happening.
–Peter
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