Voting for Speaker
Jordan has failed to get a majority in the first round of voting, although he reached 200. He needs 217.
I assume there’s a lot negotiating going on.
McCarthy was elected after 15 rounds of voting. I really really really hope this deal is closed much sooner than that. A lot of the holdouts seem to be posturing: six voted for McCarthy, a few others for Scalise, and one for Lee Zeldin. None of those three people are even running.
We elected children and this is what to expect.
Here are the 20 Republicans who voted against Jordan. One of them, Doug LaMalfa, is from California and I intend to call his office. I am really disappointed in John James of Michigan. I donated to his campaign. I will not make that mistake again.
The Republicans who declined to support Jordan included Representatives Don Bacon of Nebraska, Ken Buck of Colorado, Lori Chavez-DeRemer of Oregon, Anthony D’Esposito of New York, Mario Díaz-Balart, Jake Ellzey of Texas, Andrew Garbarino of New York, Carlos A. Giménez of Florida, Tony Gonzales of Texas, Kay Granger of Texas, John James of Michigan, Mike Kelly of Pennsylvania, Jen Kiggans of Virginia, Nick LaLota of New York, Doug LaMalfa of California, Mike Lawler of New York, John Rutherford of Florida, Mike Simpson of Idaho, Victoria Spartz of Indiana, and Steve Womack of Arkansas.
Zeldin might make a good speaker.
He would certainly have made a good governor.
___
The vote for Speaker happens at the beginning of the session so that whatever mistakes the representatives made can be forgotten by reelection time. It’s best not to reopen Pandora’s box in the middle of the session.
It appears that getting a Republican majority in the HOR to vote like a majority is like herding cats.
Don Bacon of NE is one of the holdouts. He will be primaried.
And I have a good idea who it might be.
Sadly, This is to be expected. K street, mega donors, corporate donors-and politicians who are loyal to them, and not the people. It is about power, money, and control.
Trump is being punished for pulling back the covers on this crap. Most of us would have no idea the level of sheer corruption, and incompetency involved in our system, with out Trump being elected in 16.
Pretty good breakdown of the 20 no republicans and what their motivations may be.
https://twitter.com/greg_price11/status/1714369022651781246
Wouldn’t it be 218 to win, not 217?
217/435 = 49.885%
Without a Speaker, 100% of Biden’s and the Left’s agenda is currently blocked until at least 2024. This is better than the GOP has managed to do, and for longer, since the Contract with America days.
As soon as there is a Speaker, the GOPe will once again start enacting part of Biden and the Left’s agenda today, and every day thereafter, and our supposed reason for continuing to vote for them is that if we don’t give the Left some of what they want every day until 2024, then in 2024 the Left will get enough power to get what they want much more quickly.
Of course this is the same logic that got us to where we are today over the last 30 years. Those individual Congressmen who have been part of the GOPe have profited hugely. But America is certainly worse off than 30 years ago.
If a new Republican Speaker is sworn in, about the first thing that Speaker will do is enact a few trillion more in debt with items from Biden’s and Schumer’s wish list. There will be no way to spin this as a victory for conservatism, not fiscal nor any other kind, though plenty of talking and blogging heads will manfully try. We’ll be told it’s a “compromise”, but in reality, it’s a throwing away of the veto power that we have, and that the Left would certainly use if positions were reversed.
It will be trading a full loaf for half a loaf, and patting ourselves on the back that in 2024 red hogs will still be at the trough, giving up to Biden and the Left a little more every year until–what? What’s the endgame?
Delaying tactics only work if there’s somebody coming to save you. Who is that? What is the GOPe delaying it for? I can see the logic if they want to line their pockets by using our tax money to buy their friends for as long as possible, but if they are really trying to delay, what magic thing is going to rise up and turn the tide for conservatism?
At this rate, national bankruptcy and fiscal collapse is going to be the thing that turns the tide, but it’s not going to be a process or an outcome that any of us are going to like too much, may not be conservative.
Those 20 mostly look like obscure back benchers.
Could they perhaps have been more susceptible to pressure from big money backers than others?
Snow On The Pine,
Check the tweet I linked to above.
It’s not 435, Watt, it’s 433. Those “present”.
Mellisande
“Without a Speaker, 100% of Biden’s and the Left’s agenda is currently blocked until at least 2024. This is better than the GOP has managed to do, and for longer, since the Contract with America days.”
Why is it that everything you suggest would be fatal to the Republican chances to win the House in 2024? You certainly do act like a Democrat troll. Now you’re going to pull the victim card. No conservative I’ve ever known would do that.
Please explain how the House will function without a speaker.
I guess not getting a speaker isn’t all that important to the people who previously supported McCarthy a few weeks ago.
Buck from CO may not be primaried, but he will get a strong Dem running against him in the General. And CO being much more Blue he has a good chance of loosing. Yes, I understand that he is from a rural area but I stand by what I said.
That said, it is on full display why the Republican Party is called the Stupid Party.
@Bob Wilson:Please explain how the House will function without a speaker.
“Not functioning” means no bills passed sent over by the Democratic Senate and no more money borrowed to fund Biden’s spending. A functioning House, when it was led by Kevin McCarthy, ran up several trillion in new debt since January. The non-functioning House appears to be much more fiscally conservative than the functioning House has been in 30 years.
Why is it that everything you suggest would be fatal to the Republican chances to win the House in 2024?
The media is very eager for us to believe this, yes, and certainly they will tell what lies they need to in order to make it true. But aside from that what is GOP supposed to be winning it for? To feed us to the Left one leg at a time instead of all at once? How many more trillions are they going to let the Left have before you start to consider that they might not actually be effective opposition? How does caving to the Left a bit at a time help Republicans win in 2024, can you explain that? You think Dem voters will want to help them out for giving them what they want? Kevin McCarthy did think this, and the Dems certainly didn’t help him.
You certainly do act like a Democrat troll. Now you’re going to pull the victim card.
There is not one thing that trolls do that you can show I have done. I have, however, civilly expressed an opinion which differs from some people who post here, and I have never responded in kind to anything offensive said to me.
A troll is a person who posts or makes inflammatory, insincere, digressive, extraneous, or off-topic messages online with the intent of provoking others into displaying emotional responses, or manipulating others’ perception, thus acting as a bully or a provocateur.
@Yancey Ward:I guess not getting a speaker isn’t all that important to the people who previously supported McCarthy a few weeks ago.
I think some folks here are missing this: it’s a different set of people now who are not voting for the majority candidate. Obscure backbenchers don’t sit on the Appropriations and Armed Services committees.
As the link from Griffin makes clear, “Jim Jordan is being opposed by members who are a part of the military and bureaucratic industrial complexes, as well as members who need lobbyist dollars to be re-elected.”
The media set a narrative for us a few days ago, that conservative back-bench troublemakers were messing it all up for the GOP, and some of us are still stuck in that narrative, I guess.
Mellisande
“How does caving to the Left a bit at a time help Republicans win in 2024, can you explain that?”
Is it caving to the left to continue the investigation of Biden? To send over individual appropriation bills to force the Democrats in the Senate to vote them up and down and Biden to veto them?
The voters, Democrat or Republicans, will not vote for a party that cannot govern.
I hope you do not mind if I do not join you in your suicide pact. Instead of committing suicide, how about figuring out a way to defeat the Left at the ballot box?
Republicans have been rewarded by voters when they keep their word.
Gingrich and the class of 1994. Republicans were sent to the wood pile when they refused to build the wall that Trump was elected on.
That is, of course, an oversimplification– but let’s try keeping our word. It’s become a novel idea in congress.
I was optimistic about Jordan until I went RVing with a friend who was a state legislator for many years. Listening to him recount some of the drama makes me believe that there is nothing too petty for politicians to fixate on.
Twenty-one congresspersons voted against McCarthy for the first 12 rounds. I hope the 20 that opposed Jordan in this first ballot don’t believe in an eye for an eye– and I think they understand the risks of doing that– but at the end of the day, a congressman is beholden to only the voters and the megadonors supporting his campaign.
Griffin @ 4:24 pm posted a link that makes perfect sense and is cause for unease.
@Bob Wilson:Is it caving to the left to continue the investigation of Biden?
The Biden investigation is not in itself bad, but it accomplishes nothing; the media sees to that. And while they’ve been doing that, they’ve been giving Biden and the Dems the trillions they’ve been asking for while sticking us with the bill. The GOP could, if they chose, have blocked the spending AND done the investigation, but they preferred to collaborate with the Dems on the spending. The investigation into Biden will accomplish nothing. Low-information voters will never hear of it, and the Dems will harvest all the ballots they need from people who don’t know or care how they vote.
But the extra trillions in debt could have been stopped with the power the GOP has now. And it is BEING stopped now by having no Speaker. Which is really sad, if fiscal conservatism is a thing you believe in, not everyone does.
To send over individual appropriation bills to force the Democrats in the Senate to vote them up and down and Biden to veto them?
Another thing that would not have been bad in itself, but when the demands from the Senate and Biden came in for more money McCarthy used his capital to see to it those demands were met.
The voters, Democrat or Republicans, will not vote for a party that cannot govern.
I thought we were a free people who could govern ourselves… but if by “govern” you mean “vote for trillions borrowed for more spending to fund Biden’s and Dem’s initiatives” then the voters who insist the GOP “govern” are dooming us to bankruptcy while giving the Left what it wants, and the only reason to have red hogs at the trough is so they can get some while there’s still any to be got, but I’m not seeing how that helps us.
how about figuring out a way to defeat the Left at the ballot box?
It’s not going to be done by giving the Left what it wants a piece at a time any more than you can win a football game by giving up yardage. At some point you have to advance the ball…. but what’s wrong with our ballots is far more than anything going on with the Speakership, which only a tiny minority of people have even heard of anyway.
“Jim Jordan is being opposed by members who are a part of the military and bureaucratic industrial complexes, as well as members who need lobbyist dollars to be re-elected.”
It would appear that once again the issue is the need to keep the grift to Ukraine going.
Melisande – Your advice is basically the Thema and Louise option. It’ll be glorious for about two weeks until the GOP centerists who would like to actually get elected again start to get squirrely. Then Jefferies gets to be speaker. Then Jefferies gets to remain speaker after 2024.
After that, we’ll live in a progressive tyranny with 52 states, a packed Supreme Court, and taxes to high heaven, but hey, we’ll always have those two weeks.
@Bauxite:Your advice is
Really? What is my advice? For the GOPe to not vote for Biden and the Dems spending and legislation. Why is this bad advice? And thanks to the lack of a Speaker Biden and the Dems cannot get anything passed, and this lack is better than anything they’ve done in 30 years.
the GOP centerists who would like to actually get elected again start to get squirrely. Then Jefferies gets to be speaker.
That can only happen if Republicans vote for Jefferies. Telling me that the GOPe can betray me even more badly than they have already done is a curious way of defending them. I know they can do it, they’ve always been able to do it.
After that, we’ll live in a progressive tyranny
I see. Conservatism needs to enthrone liberalism over the long term or we might end up progressive in the short term, which has been happening for the last 30 years….
But delaying only works if something is coming to save you. What is this mysterious force that is going to watch the GOP hand Biden and the Dems half or 3/4 of what they want for several more years while running up huge deficits, and how is it going to intervene to turn things around before national bankruptcy or worse happens?
You can’t win a game just by giving up yardage. You can give up yardage if trying to run out the clock while already ahead, but there is no sense in which the GOP is ahead, the government is enforcing the spaying and neutering of children…
Melisande – You can be as right as the day is long on policy, but if you can’t make a majority, you lose, or more specifically Democrats win.
There is no majority without quite a few Republicans from districts that are not onboard with Speaker chaos in the middle of the term and are most definately not on board with shutting down the government until the next election. They’re not “betraying” you, they’re representing their districts.
Dems are putting their fingers into the pie. What a real mess
For some reason I am being shown as “Corn”.
Melisande is a Pyro with asbestos undies, or so she seems. Fixated on the GOPe and quite willing to have the Democrats back in full control. Then she will be able to wail and shriek about how the GOP are allowing the Democrats to bankrupt the country and spend “her” trillions of dollars.
And of course the isolationists are stuck on Ukraine. Will they pivot to blaming Israel next? Yes, there are some of those too.
Before there was a Uniparty there was the defense-industrial complex. Something about the complexity and lethality of weapon “systems” eludes the “I’m mad as hell, burn it down crowd.”
Gingrich and the class of 1994. Republicans were sent to the wood pile when they refused to build the wall that Trump was elected on.
I don’t think so. Republicans lost suburban districts where voters cared about mean tweets and abortion, but not so much about the wall. I thought of the wall as a means to an end, and if illegal immigration was finally under control, I didn’t need the thousand miles or so of wall. It would be great if politicians would keep their promises, but until then, expecting less of them has it uses.
“Not functioning” means no bills passed sent over by the Democratic Senate and no more money borrowed to fund Biden’s spending.
Block the money for the Ukraine and Israel and the Dems will play the “strong America” card, as well as the usual “stingy Republican Scrooges” card. Does the electorate really see through things like that?
File under “if Democrats didn’t have double standards…”
https://redstate.com/sister-toldjah/2023/10/17/life-comes-at-hakeem-jeffries-fast-after-democrats-accuse-jim-jordan-of-election-denialism-n2165171
I think there’s a broader comment to be made here about democracies. What we’re seeing with the Gaetz fiasco and now with Jordan is that a minority is trying to force a major change on the majority. There sometimes exist procedural loopholes that allow a minority to impose its will on the majority. (Melisande’s “shut it all down” proposal is another.) Any victory won in this way will be completely pyrrhic and quickly reversed.
Republicans have run on major fiscal reform before, in 2012. They lost. Trump won by basically repudiating fiscal reform. I’m not sure that Republicans really had a coherent message in 2022, but whatever message they had, voters gave them an exceptionally thin majority in 1/2 of the legislative branch. So now a minority of the thin GOP majority in the House is supposed to force a government shut down to cut spending in a way that is opposed by the President, the Senate, and a majority of the House? It boggles the mind that anyone could see that as a good long term plan.
Sure, it’ll work in the short term, but it really is like jumping off a cliff and expecting to fly. You’ll fly for few seconds.
Larger point – if you want to make a major policy change in a democracy, you need a majority. There simply is no way to hack that truth. If a majority of the people want the government to keep spending until interest rates go to 20+% and the currency is inflated to worthlessness, then that is going to happen one way or another. Melisande’s suicide mission will just be a speedbump that Democrats will fly over and then double down.
And how is any of this consistent with a party that’s poised to nominate Donald Trump for President. Trump as a fiscal reformer? Please. Trump repudiated fiscal reform and continues to promise not to touch Social Security and Medicare. Trump repeatedly goes on about how stupid Paul Ryan and Mitt Romney were to try fiscal reform in the first place. So the GOP is going to shut down the government for a year and a half for fiscal reasons and then ask the voters to make Donald Trump president again? Pardon those of us who see the whole MAGA thing as a bad joke.
the dems steered us into the ground with the four members of the squad, and the tie in the Senate with Romney Murkowski and co, playing for the other team,
sell this story elsewhere,
“I think there’s a broader comment to be made here about democracies. What we’re seeing with the Gaetz fiasco and now with Jordan is that a minority is trying to force a major change on the majority. There sometimes exist procedural loopholes that allow a minority to impose its will on the majority. (Melisande’s “shut it all down” proposal is another.) Any victory won in this way will be completely pyrrhic and quickly reversed.
Republicans have run on major fiscal reform before, in 2012. They lost. Trump won by basically repudiating fiscal reform. I’m not sure that Republicans really had a coherent message in 2022…”— Bauxite
Governing coalitions have existed long before the Freedom Caucus.
I’m not sure what “major fiscal reform” you think the conservatives were proposing, but I’m not sure how returning to regular order could be considered a revolutionary idea– unless 20 years of CR’s where the debt has grown at a greater pace is the new norm and the old ways are “major fiscal reform”. Since the 70’s, the debt doubled every 10 years or so. I think the last doubling only took 8 years. Historically, when the federal government’s spending was around 17-19% of the GDP, the economy could expand as government borrowing didn’t crowd out private expansion. The last few years it’s been 23-24%.
President Trump isn’t a fiscal conservative, but he understood that getting the economy back to 3% growth is the only way out of our debt crunch– we can’t save our way out of insolvency. He did propose budgets closer to balanced which were ignored by Congress.
Here’s the real problem. Congress passed the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023 in May. It removed any need to raise the debt ceiling for 2024 and 2025. It supposedly would reduce spending by $1.2-1.5 trillion over the next 10 years– though we all know the spending cuts would occur in the later years of the 10 year cycle. I linked to an article that raised the alarm that Congress was already proposing increases in spending that would blow any savings in the bill. Meanwhile there will be no alarm signaling since the only time our debt is talked about is when we approach a debt ceiling.
You may think this is insignificant, and just political posturing, but we’re already looking at interest payments on the debt of $1 trillion annually, and rising.
Using the debt ceiling as leverage to force any pretense of fiscal sanity was the only tool left and has been used successfully (more or less) in the past. That’s now off the table, while spending will continue to rise.
@sdferr
Thank you! This has been driving me nuts.