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"Look, just tell us what promises we can break in order for you to help us stop looking so bad!"
That's the thing, it's not just a one-and-done vote, anyone who votes for a Speaker will be required to continue to support that Speaker on a bunch if procedural votes. So there are ways to follow up on any deal made. Recall that after the Debt Ceiling thing, the MAGAs were so upset that they stopped voting with Republicans on those procedural votes, and the chamber was almost as paralyzed as it is now. (Funny how they didn't consider that to be working with Democrats, even though they all voted the same way).
There are several concessions that the GOP can make, which would still respect the Speaker's Conservative agenda:
-
give the Democratic supporters better committee assignments, at the expense of Republicans who don't support the Speaker. This may make some key committees a 50/50 split.
-
give the Biden impeachment the up-or-down vote it should have gotten when it started
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A promise to give certain bills that the Senate sends over an up-or-down vote as well
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disband Jim Jordan's committee on the weaponization of government, which seems to only be serving to weaponize government.
And, if any of these are not followed through on, Democrats can withdraw their support in those procedural votes and leave the House Speaker powerless to do anything until those needs are addressed. Thus is exactly what the far right has done, but the difference would be that Democrats would be negotiating in good faith, and have a long-term goal of governing, not burning it all down.
In a world of sense and decorum your idea would work flawlessly. But we aren't in that world.
I like how the extreme ideas that Republicans are scared of are simple things like "let the House vote on stuff".
It seems like a key part of Republican strategy recently is for leadership to prevent votes they know will pass, simply because it has Democratic support.
Mitch is a master at this. He sat on Merrick Garland's nomination because he knew that if the whole Senate voted on it, it would pass. And he once fillibustered his own Debt Ceiling bill to prevent a vote because Democrats decided to support it.
Or how almost all of this is predicated on not working with Democrats as their default. Bipartisanship is a sin for them. It's one of the worst things they could possibly consider doing.
McCarthy nullifies those maga clowns months ago by making a deal with the Dems: I won't bring an impeachment inquiry we all know is fucking dumb, if you vote for me when they try to oust me.
All.he had to do, during the shutdown fiasco, is work with the Dems and make that same deal.
The problem with all these points is that the newly minted speaker can just toss those promises out the window as soon as he's sworn in.
That's the problem here. Republicans cannot be trusted at their word.
The only way this works is if all of these items are added to a resolution that acts as a vote and the vote for speakership is bolted on. Procedurally, this isn't possible.
It is kind of is possible, because the Speaker can only conduct business in the House if a majority agrees. There are procedural votes all the time, for things like the agenda for the session, which need this majority.
After the Debt Ceiling vote, the far right had a temper tantrum and stopped voting with McCarthy for a week or so, and nothing could get done until Kevin gave them back their binkie so they would start voting the right way again
Presumably, in any agreement to share power, whatever coalition voted for the Speaker would be expected to keep voting in his favor on those procedural votes, otherwise the whole thing stops. Which also means that the Speaker has some incentive to keep his coalition in his camp. In a typical party-based majority this should be easy, but Matty and Jimmy get mad when you take away their binkies.
s/bad/stupid and incompetent/g;
Cool. Vote for Jeffries.
Oh, no, we meant we want you to get a bunch of your people to vote for one of our guys so we can keep stabbing you in the back. Maybe this white supremacist guy over here? Or this sexual abuser and enabler guy over there?
House Republicans: “We will never cooperate with Democrats, never ever.”
House Republicans (later): “Democrats, please cooperate with us!”
In fairness, they can usually count on Democrats to do what they want.
"All you need to do is vote for Jefferies & we'll all help you out."
He maintained that Republicans are “still the majority party,”
Are they?
I’m not questioning the numerical advantage, but more the insinuation they’re a single party and somehow capable of governance.
Don’t get me wrong, the democrats are also just a bunch of affiliated ideologies in a trenchcoat, but their body politic isn’t being steered toward a flight of stairs by a few wayward feet in this baba yaga political trenchcoat.
I was coming to the comments to quote the exact same portion, with similar thoughts, though I'm even less generous than you.
I question the numerical advantage too, since it doesn't exist if it only exists in name, while in practice, they're unable to act as a unified bloc.
I'd argue that, in practice, the GOP House majority isn't deserving of that title, since they seem to be unable to operate cohesively and actually vote and pass resolutions as a majority. Instead, I'd argue that their internal struggles have (effectively, even if not yet nominally) created a splinter party within the GOP, so we now have a House with a Democratic plurality, with GOP-centrist a close second, and GOP-MAGA a distant third. Just like Independents like King and Sanders in the Senate align with Democrats, the MAGA reps broadly align with the GOP.
So we have a situation where the Democrats in the House have a de facto plurality, the largest single voting bloc...but the rules of the House only respect a majority, and at that, the House is so locked into the two party system that it seems to be clearly unable to function in this particular political situation.
No party ever has been 100% a unified block. Over the years some have done better than others at getting unity, but unity itself is a strawman. The odd part is the GOP can't even unify on a leader which should be a low risk thing to unify on.
I had started to rhapsodize about the need to change the U.S. elections/governance rules to one that accommodates coalitions, and realized that by the time I got to the end of that thought, that I’d have a very long, nigh unreadable comment that the powers that be would never help facilitate, anyway.
So I left all that off, because the void is already full of similar screams.
But, yeah…. Meanwhile, the circus continues.
Let's not forget that without gerrymandering and voter suppression they'd never hold a house majority ever again
I bet they could get the Democrats' help! All they have to do is nominate a Democrat for Speaker. What a beautiful opportunity for bipartisanship!
...wait that's not what they meant?
House Republicans have passed the “fuck around” point but have not yet gotten to the “find out” stage which I predict they will arrive at right after the next election cycle.
He maintained that Republicans are “still the majority party,” but described the eight Republicans who voted to oust previous Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) as “traitors” who “put us in this position” and “paralyzed” the House.
If the "traitors" are the problem, you have to deal with them, they have been fed and pampered and brought into the House by your party. So your party has put them into this position to paralyze the country. Now grow up and deal with your home-made problems yourself - like any responsible adult would do. After all, you like responsibility as a Republican, don't you? Or is it suddenly all propaganda when truth and reality starts to hurt?
This is meant as a threat to the GOP hardliners to get them to play ball.
This would be a great opportunity for trolling the Republican party. Have all the Democrats come together to support a new Republican speaker and get them elected... First order of business, vote them out again and laugh.
"wait, you want us to put down the popcorn? It was just getting to the good part"
He wants you to put down the popcorn, because the poppers just got out of the oven!
I mean, they only want the cooperation till they get what they want and then cooperation immediately ends.
This is the fruit of their labor, they should have to eat it.
Pretty easy game to play. Demand the recall vote stays in, then if they lie or pull some bullshit, invoke it again. Let the GOP lose its shit trying to do this again.
Personally I would demand a real budget fir yhis year, and no debt ceiling bullshit for at least 3 years.
High ranking house republican can smoke a fat dick.
Some already do
There is only two ways to elect a Speaker, either (A) some Republican gets all (but 4) Republicans to agree, or (B) moderate Republicans make some concessions to Democrats and get someone elected without the fringe Republicans.
Threatening (B) helps force (A) because if you're a fringe Republican, (B) is your worst case scenario.
Why not just boot the MAGAs out of the party? I mean, Rogers called the MAGAs "traitors," which suggests there is little room for compromise. Traitors should be booted from the party and forced to sit as independents. Then, the centrist GOP establishment should elect a moderate Dem as Speaker and tell their voters that the GOP will never be able to form another majority if they continue to elect MAGA radicals. This will either split the party or help them return to contender status.
Yes, obviously, that would end the GOP's majority this term, but failing to deal with the MAGAs will be worse for the GOP in the next election, and the one after that. The more centrist Republicans must be starting to see that by now.
I say all this as a left-wing voter, but at the same time, I recognize that all governments need a credible opposition. It is unhealthy to just keep electing the same party forever. All leaders and governments get stale and entitled and need to be replaced.
Traitors should be booted from the party and forced to sit as independents.
That's an interesting idea, not expulsion from Congress but from the caucus. There are examples of independents voluntarily joining a caucus, but in my quick research I'm not seeing where a caucus has even asked a member to leave, much less thrown them out.
'Hope this can/will happen.
They wont expel them because it may literally create a viable 3rd party at their right flank.
Not one they could join, and not one that they could control, one just large enough to prevent the GOP from ever controlling anything again.
Sounds great, honestly, but likely not to them.
This is the natural result of the moderates and traditional republicans associating with lunatics, it's finally coming back to bite them as they realize just how insane the people they associate with are.
I hope this is enough of a wake up call for the handful of remaining sane republicans to either:
A: switch over to Democrat where things are sane or B: Vote to boot out the MAGA idiots that are holding them back, restoring the republican party back to just being GOP (but sane about it), and not full blown "vaccines cause autism" MAGA
What I find interesting is that the USA doesnt seem to have an emergency clause that if a House Speaker cannot be elected that it force triggers an election of the house, because if the party cant agree on who should lead them, it inherently outta trigger a dissolvement of that party and a re-election to reform them again.
Canada has "Vote of Non-Confidence" as a system, where if our Parliament ever fails to pass a vote, the whole thing dissolves and a whole ass new election fires off, as it indicates a fracturing within the party and that our government is not stable, which forces everyone to re-think their votes and try again.
The funny part is that even if the Republicans choose a speaker, they still need to draft a moderate enough bill to get past Manchin, Sinema, and Biden. The hard liners will never get some of the things they want, and would have gotten way more if they unified behind someone like McCarthy. Instead, they risk having their moderates side with Democrats and concede quite a lot, humiliating the party, or they'll be blamed for a government shutdown, humiliating the party.
All this has more to do with big egos and personal grievances than any important policy differences. They're all fascists at this point, and they can't even unify for their mutual advantage because they made selfishness and asshole behavior a prerequisite for office.
If they don't want to rush Republican ire by voting for a Democrat speaker, then they should just switch parties to Democrat. Especially if they're in a purple area, it could be viable in the next election, as well.
Go fish.
this post was submitted on 13 Oct 2023
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