Highlights: Their third speaker pick in three weeks lasted barely four hours. Now, with their desperation on full display, Republicans are trying again.
The House GOP is convening Tuesday night for its fourth internal huddle of the day as it hears from yet another unwieldy field of candidates to lead its broken ranks. No one has demonstrated the ability to do what the three previous failed speaker hopefuls couldn’t: Unite enough Republicans to land 217 votes on the floor.
Two members of tonight’s five-man field have already run and lost. That includes Rep. Mike Johnson (R-La.), the second highest vote-getter earlier Tuesday.
There’s little hope for relief among the bitterly divided GOP, where the fruitless search for a speaker has become so miserable that some members even floated a return to former Speaker Kevin McCarthy — with Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) as an “assistant speaker.” (The idea has not been taken seriously inside the conference.)
[M]any Republicans fear they’ve reached the point where no candidate can get 217 votes on the floor.
It’s more than “the most disruptive” members of the GOP. It wouldn’t take but a handful of reasonable members to vote for Hakeem to get out of this rut. Of course, they probably wouldn’t get elected again, even though not doing so will cause serious damage to the country.
I don’t expect them to put country over party, just like I don’t expect them to put country over their jobs. Too cowardly.
Imagine the opposite and The Squad was preventing Democrats from electing a Speaker until they get a promise to do X far-left thing. Would you really think the “reasonable” Democrats should just send 5 votes to Jim Jordan to get the Speakership finalized?
It’s just an insane idea to think anyone would give the opposing political party power rather than literally anyone from their own party. It’s not a reasonable ask.
At this point I think we are likely to see Democrats make a deal for extra committee seats in exchange for the last few votes to get a moderate elected, eventually, but there is a zero percent chance a Democrat becomes Speaker.
You think Democrats would turn down an opportunity to work with Republicans and against progressive members of their own caucus?
Manchin and Senima already have
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As a counter-point: every House member goes up for re-election every two years. So lets say the moderate House Republicans vote Jeffries in.
A possible complication: I don’t know, does that stupid “anyone can ask to vote you out of office” rule stay in place? In which case, Jeffries probably doesn’t last a full year (I think the rule says that once moved, the next item of business has to be the vote. And the disruptors would just keep moving the motion).
Regardless of the vote-him-out situation, Jeffries would still be working with a Republican majority that really doesn’t want to be seen working with the Democrats, so I’m not sure how much would actually get done, other than a budget (which, granted, is very important). And then next fall the moderate Republicans are all voted out of office and maybe replaced by more MAGAts.
Is a possible advantage lasting just a few months worth the permanent loss of some Republican moderates? Especially with Biden running for re-election and unlikely to do much that will disrupt his chances?
I’m not good with political math, nor do I know all the possible detailed repercussions, , but it’s something to think about.