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Republicans fail to coalesce around speaker choice, leaving House in limbo
(www.washingtonpost.com)
this post was submitted on 12 Oct 2023
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I wonder how long it will take for 5 or 6 Republicans from strong Biden districts to say fuck it and throw in behind Jeffries?
And is that longer than it will take the Republican conference to get their shit together and vote on a new speaker?
It seems to me like the problem the Republicans have is the Trump faction that has no interest in government functioning at all. If we assume those votes are unattainable, do they even have a majority/plurality?
Can the Speaker Pro Tempore keep the house out of session? If it's "pending the call of the chair," do they still do the daily pro forma session?
Hey, with the House like not actually running, can Biden make a bunch of recess moves? I feel like I remember Pelosi purposely keeping the House technically "in session" to cock block Trump on some things...
If 5 or 6 Republicans support Jeffries, they will effectively be leaving the Republican party. They are guaranteed to have a primary challenge, and lose any funding from the party. I don't think that's likely to happen, but who knows? Maybe a small group will decide they have a better chance running (I) than (R).
The Freedom Caucus absolutely is interested in governing, they just want to govern on their own terms and view any compromise as weakness. They place so little value in a functioning government that they would rather bring it all to a halt than compromise. Remember what got us here in the first place, they were ready to shut the entire government down and got mad when Kevin used Democratic votes to pass a stop-gap. They will take shutting down the House for all business as a consolation prize.
That's not governing, that's ruling.
I would be curious if a centrist Republican could work with (centrist) Democrats to gain the speakership in exchange for some key concessions, such as pledging to not follow the Hastert Rule (a rule that most Republican speakers follow, that they will block a bill that does not have the support of the majority of the majority (Republican) party even if a bipartisan majority supports it). That assumes that a lot of Democrats will trust a Republican to be bipartisan and not weasel out of their word or be pressured by their party follow partisan lines.
There is zero reason for Democrats to throw any votes behind a Republican speaker. If the majority party can't find a leader they agree on, that's on them. Dems only need 5 Reps to back Jefferies.
Actually, the main thing that would block this at this point is that there is a Speaker Pro Tempore, and while he can't do much one of the few things he can do is keep the House in recess until a Republican has enough Republican votes to win the election.
So, even in the hypothetical case where there is a centrist Republican who can pull this off, that person will have to get Patrick to agree to open the House to hold the vote in the first place.
As far as I understand it, the Speaker Pro Tempore has no power other than what is necessary to getting a new "permanent" speaker elected.
Like when he tried to kick Nancy Pelosi out of her office.
He had no power to actually do it. She left the office willingly because she has class, not like we can say the same thing about Mr. Speaker PRO Tempore who had a little hit of power go to his head.
Yeah. It is basically there to provide someone to call the House in session after a decapitation strike and to be in line for President.
Not correct. They have all the same powers.