WOW ! House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy just said he is not the right man to be the face of the Republican Party. He announced at the Conference meeting that he didn’t believe he could get 218 votes needed when the vote is taken on October 29.
The Republican Party as we know it is in meltdown. Stay tuned.
Fred Rich LaRiccia
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If all they really want is a guy who will sit around and fiddle while they preside over the destruction of their own party I am totally available. I’ll take the big office and government pension, and just sit back with some bourbon and a nice cigar like Mr. Sam and Tip used to do.
Charlie Dent (R-Penn) just said it might take a coalition of Republicans and Democrats to actually elect a speaker. Wow.
it looks like they have to either find someone who’s conservative enough for the 40 (or so) in the “freedom caucus,” or try to establish a coalition that includes Democrats. Wow!
Someone (didn’t catch who) when asked about this on the Dem side said that the Dems would demand a lot to bail out the Repubs on this – like things including votes on immigration reform, a real budget, debt ceiling, etc. Whatever the deal would be, it would be awful interesting.
And, of course, Donald Trump has taken credit for all this.
That could easily split the Democrats as well, as some are more easily satisfied than others, particularly as the urgency of getting the debt limit vote grows.
parliamentary government after all.
find a moderate GOP speaker, on the deal that some legislation gets passed. I don’t know what would make sense, maybe some budgetary things to get past 2016, maybe some appointments (judicial or otherwise), whatever. I’m less concerned about the kinds of things that the next Congress can overturn easily, because, well, they just might.
Some Dems benefit from the right-wing rhetoric from the far right side of the GOP, and I’m not asking for a slightly-rest-of-center speaker indefinitely. But, I’d take one for a year if it meant the President got more appointments through, and we can find a new speaker, elected by 100% of Dems or 100% of GOP, in January 2017.
although Presidential appointments go through the Senate.
fair enough, I wasn’t thinking especially clearly. Thank you for the correction.
(and no, neither bob-g nor the Constitution be damned)
is to just get rid of the (unofficial) Hastert rule — in which Republican majorities only allow votes if it has a majority of the Republican caucus’s support.
There are lots of bills that could pass tomorrow, like immigration reform, if the Hastert rule didn’t prevent those bills from coming up.
Get rid of the Hastert rule and we can actually have a functional government that gets stuff done, even with an uber-conservative and uber-huge Republican majority in the House.
The GOP achieved its current ascendancy (at least in numbers) by lying, pandering to base instincts, and by promoting religious fervor (towards right-wing articles of faith, if not any particular deity) over rationality, realism, and logic. They have pandered to those who prefer mob rule over the rule of law.
As they lived by those swords, they are now dying by those same swords. And not a moment too soon.
It is increasingly apparent that the next Speaker requires Democratic votes to obtain that office. Perhaps the grownups can regain control of the House.
… as “The Revenge of ‘What’s the Matter With Kansas'”.
at least for now.
They are still a majority and are statistically likely to remain so until at least after the 2020 census.
And I have great confidence in House Dems ability never to miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.
the Republicans when it comes to snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.
that much of the last 20 years has been a fuckup contest between the two parties, and the volatile nature of the electorate is just a function of penalizing the one that fucked up more recently.
Democrats often drop the ball and lose; on the other hand, Republicans try to take the ball and go home.
..I mean, I think you’re probably right in the numerical sense of enough people, of those willing to vote, are willing to vote ‘R’ or too many unwilling to vote ‘D’… but if they are too fractioned and really can’t get it together are they anything more than a paper majority? Dennis Hastert instituted the brain dead ‘majority of a majority’ rule for bringing legislation forward and now they can’t even get that.
Nor do I think that participants are going to wait patiently for 2020 to come around for things to shake out. If the inner turmoil becomes formalized and two parties, or even three, form from the one then they will cease any unity and will have lost their majority. Donad Trump is only a very squishy Republican, his appeal is more to tickle the unreasoning id of the party and they can’t decide on a Speaker… so for all intents and purposes, what is their majority doing for them?
I don’t even see where that’s relevant, even were it true. One has only to compare Nancy Pelosi’s tenure, however brief, with that of any Republican Speaker in the past 20 years. Even, however, were that not the case and the D’s were as feckless and bumbling as the R’s, why is that anything more than idle comparison? It’s certainly not anything like cogent explanation for the R’s present plight…
To a first, and perhaps even a second, approximation, the person actually making the sausage bears a striking resemblance to the one clumsily dis-embowelling themselves with the same tools. The appearance isn’t the measure, though, the sausage is.
GOP hegemony with the United States becoming a “majority minority” country in 2020. It is true that minority voters give Democratic candidates an advantage nationally, but haven’t shown up in mid-term elections. Demographics may be destiny, but there is more to electoral politics than the coming non-white majority.
As much as we’d all love to see the GOP have to turn to the Dems to get a sane GOP Speaker elected… the chances of that happening are tiny.
Ultimately, GOP congresscritters care about reelection, and “colluding” with Democrats to get a “RINO” elected is a great way to lose a primary in their crazy-gerrymandered-uber-conservative districts they’ve all made for themselves.
I think it most likely that Boehner does not resign after all, but instead stays on, in a far stronger position than he had before.
A little like when the Red Sox put Manny on waivers, and no other team bit.
Since the caretaker options are all too unknowable to be effective or too ‘moderate’ by Tea Party standards.
As a centrist independent this must be the worst campaign season so far, ah CMD?
Yes it is. A least Trump is funny, though.
Republican presidential candidates when I can’t sleep. As an added bonus, I usually wake up laughing.
…but I doubt he is anything like OUR Daniel Webster.
After all, the GOP finally created a job. That’s a new skill for them. Now they need to learn how to hire somebody.
That’s a clever line.
So, Boehner resigns. In additon to a new Speaker, somebody needs to replace Boehner in Congress. Then, somebody needs to replace that person’s previous job. And, the people keep getting replaced until finally, somebody who is unemployed gets an opportunity to work at a minimum wage job and live in poverty.
That’s how trickle down economics works!
He didn’t have the votes in the Democratic caucus to become MA house speaker, but he had enough DINOs to pair with Republicans to get elected.
So, let’s say we get 110 Republican and 110 Democratic house members to agree to work together to forge a governing coalition, dedicated to advancing legislation, open process, and letting the full house vote up and down on the key issues before them. Kind of like Town Meeting, where you can actually move something from the floor and try to build support from diverse corners of the room.
let them clean it up.
And they’re delusional if they think the Democrats are going to bend over for them after all their crazy threats on the debt ceiling, budget and transportation bill.
Fred Rich LaRiccia
According to Vox
It is really amazing how the media is by and large ignoring the obvious option of a Speaker who is elected by the non-Tea Party Republicans combined with all of the Democrats or some Democrats. This option has been pointed out publicly as a possibility by Republican Congressman Bent of Pennsylvania, but has been ignored by all kinds of media outlets everywhere on the spectrum even including Rachel Maddow. Very strange. It’s wonderful to contemplate because it would be The “Freedom Caucus” reaping what it sewed in a real case of poetic justice.
support and to what end? Nobody wants the job. It won’t get any better with a new speaker.
It would only mean the difference between having a coalition that can :
1. Pass the debt limit ;
2. Pass the highway bill;
3. Pass comprehensive immigration reform,
…all of which have majority support in the House…
… As compared to continuing the stranglehold of a few right wing nuts on our country.
against those things. I’d like to see those results, but I don’t see it happening.
…if that Speaker and the so-called Hastert Rule, which says that Republicans will only allow bills to pass that have majority support within the Republican caucus alone. But if the new speaker has to rely on Democrats to be elected, guess what? We can say goodbye and good riddance to the Hastert Rule. So, yes, it will make a difference.
…if that Speaker ENDS the so-called Hastert Rule, which says that Republicans will only allow bills to pass that have majority support within the Republican caucus alone. But if the new speaker has to rely on Democrats to be elected, guess what? We can say goodbye and good riddance to the Hastert Rule. So, yes, it will make a difference.