216 votes to vacate
210 no
0 present
I heard three known Ds, including my own rep, vote “yes”. Seems the majority of Dems, and the R extremists, combined to burn the house down.
I said, some twenty years ago, Shiny-land was turning into a big, heavily armed, aggressive, banana republic.
Steve
I suspect the Dems were unanimous, although a couple failed to vote at all. Haven’t looked at the details of the vote yet.
The counter argument from the Dem side is that the GOP is in the majority. It is up to them to govern in the House. The dems are not there to save the GOP from their inability to govern. If the GOP needs help governing, they’d be happy to offer up Jeffries as the next Speaker so that the House can get back to business. If the GOP doesn’t want Jeffries, they’ll have to get 218 votes out of their own caucus to pick someone else.
In the mean time, the dysfunction of the GOP is on full display for all to see as we move into the next round of elections.
–Peter
Steve,
The Dems voted in the whole to vacate. I doubt there were any exceptions. They voted yes.
8 GOP reps voted yes to vacate.
Exactly. This is not only the strategic argument but is also a conservative POV based on two hundred years of civil practice. The Speaker MUST first assemble a durable functioning group of supporters, and then can cut deals with the minority.
david fb
McCarthy broke faith on an agreement with the Democrats on the budget earlier this year. And he turned around last week and broke faith again with the members of his own party. I am surprised that so many of them supported him. Maybe it says something more about them than it does about him.
Personally, I would have preferred the Dems vote “present”, and let the GOP sort out it’s issues on it’s own.
However…
According to the news this evening, the Dems cite the Speaker, on, iirc, “Meet The Press”, accusing the Dems of obstructing the continuing resolution…the Dems who voted to pass it, against most of the GOP members. In that light, then the votes to vacate would be a big thumb in his eye.
Steve
It would be a “rules based society” approach. However, some folks are no longer interested in “rules based society”, be it based on long standing custom, or law.
Steve
He screwed over the Dems on multiple occasions, sold his soul to the extremists in his own party, and eschewed any help from the Democrats until the last Perils of Pauline moment, and then you want them to help him stay in power, so he can not bring any of their legislation to the floor? That’s not how it works.
Yes, I would have liked to see a centrist bi-partisan coalition tell the burn-it-all-down caucus to find some sand to pound, but McCarthy made no indication that such an option was possible, much less welcome. Politicians may have short memories, but they’re not that short.
Over 40 years of lying? Well some do not even know it is lying. Forty years of messing up our industrial base and we should not enjoy the show?
As Reagan left us crawling around in the mud so be it.
The R’s hold the majority of seats.
Why would D’s ensure that someone beholding to R extremists retain power?
Nonsense. The R’s broke it. The R’s bought it.
The Ds could have remained neutral in the R civil war by voting present. Instead, by voting “no” on the procedural motion to table Gaetz’s motion – and then voting “yes” on his Motion to Vacate the Office of Speaker – Democrats effectively voted for Gaetz. And a vote for Gaetz is a vote for chaos.
DB2
Yeah. Just imagine if there was a way to stop it.
The democrats are simply allowing the American people to see what modern day republicanism means. It is all anger and no substance.
Kinda wish for the old days when Big Money really was running the show. They may have been corrupt, but at least they were competent.
LOL! Please think again. Big Money paved the road that the clown show is currently driving along. BM is mostly remarkably stooopid.
david fb
BM. like many “JCs”, has a very short time horizon. “Get into power, and give ourselves more tax cuts and government subsidies” is the agenda. “Pander to the worst impulses of the mob” has become the preferred way to get into power.
Steve
Big Money is motivated by self-interest. One can negotiate with that. Big Money is also not about creating anarchy as there is no profit in that. As such, Big Money can be a workable part of a democracy. The current crop of angry ideologues are not compatible with democracy, which is ultimately dependent on a willingness of all sides to compromise.
No, McCarthy voted for Gaetz when he capitulated to him in January. And the Dems have no obligation (or indeed interest) in furthering McCarthy’s tenure: he continued to lie to them while trying to use them.
With all of the concessions he made, it’s remarkable that McCarthy has lasted this long.
Pete
On the contrary. As said from time to time, “in chaos there is opportunity”. Fans of “Operation Petticoat” may remember the sequence where Tony Curtis uses the cover of an air raid to go on a looting expedition.
Was the entire anti-vax, anti-mask, anti-precautions of any sort thing about “personal freeedom”, as the advocates said, or about trying to maintain business as usual, because all the precautions hurt profits?
Are school voucher programs about “school choice”, or about profit for the school operators?
What can “Big Money” get away with, while the mob is diverted by a witch hunt for “wokies”?
Steve
What Steve has been saying.
AND also: Big Money used to mean people who thought. Now it means the bizarre algorithm that resulted from BofD’s primailry answerable to the Great Executive Class who themselves are primarily shaped by the Absolute Imperative to Maximize Executive Comensation (oops, I mean shareholders profits) over 5 year or so time spans,
STOOPIDness incarnate,
d fb
Heh. McCarthy is saying the same thing. Dysfunction in the Republican party is the Democrat’s fault. All he had to do was reach across the aisle and offer some modest concessions that most of his own party would have agreed to, thereby cutting out the crazy wing and accomplishing the work of the American people. You know, the job he was elected to do.
Instead he offered only insults and chose to pander to the crazy wing. No Kevin, this is your fault. All of it. For once in your life accept responsibility for your own decisions. It is called being an adult. Big leap, I realize.