When the new members of Congress convene on January 3, their first order of business will be to elect a new speaker. Y’all remember how much fun that was last time? Assuming that Matt Gaetz does as he says he will and not show up (he resigned from the last Congress but had already been elected to the incoming Congress), Republicans will have a 219-215 advantage. Meaning that a successful Republican Speaker candidate can only lose ONE vote and still achieve a majority (assuming no Democrats support him/her).
Mike Johnson had seemed on the glide path to reelection, but the embarrassing funding debacle at the end of last Congress has put him in peril. Democrats have no real reason to support him. He’s in Trump’s doghouse, having failed to deliver on his primary demand (taking a debt ceiling hike off the table for the next four years). And the FC is just as self-destructive as ever. And an additional complicating factor is the electoral count convening on January 6. If the House has still not elected a Speaker by then, it’s an open question of if and how the House can participate in the count.
So, my friends, as you hopefully are still basking in the holiday spirit, know that soon you will be able to warm your hands and your hearts by the ongoing dumpster fire that is the United States House of Representatives.
…a 218-215 advantage. Obviously, If Gaetz does not show up, he will not be counted in the number of members present, so the majority of members present is (433/2) = 216.5 or 217 whole persons for a majority. As there will be 218 Republicans present, if they lose one, that would be 217 out of 433 or a majority.
My understanding is that if Gaetz does NOT attend, the Congress that convenes on January 3 will be comprised of 219 Republicans, 215 Democrats, and one vacancy (Gaetz). A majority of the 434 present members would require 218 votes (217 would be a tie). As I said, therefore a Republican Speaker candidate could lose exactly one Republican vote and still prevail. Rep. Andy Biggs has already stated publicly he will not vote for Johnson, so that means that Johnson can’t lose ANY more votes if Democrats all vote for Jeffries and Biggs sticks to his word.
IMHO, Johnson is too reviled by the MAGA rank and file to have much chance. If I’m correct there, we will see the same game played when they went from McCarthy to Johnson, except that it will be even more difficult because each GOP speaker has to be farther right than the one before. Is there not going to be some point where the closest-to-moderate Republicans refuse to vote for the only candidates acceptable to the far right?
Again there will be talk of the Democrats doing something to prop up the current speaker in order to prevent someone even more extreme from getting the job. But each time this happens, that makes less sense. Mike Johnson is much less moderate than Ryan and McCarthy were!
I have no prediction what will happen because every possibility seems impossible.
However, I am pretty sure they can manage January 6 formalities without a speaker.
If there is one thing repugs are good at it is keeping members in line and voting as a block. We saw in the teens any repug who refused to toe-the-line got primaried out of office.
Any moderate has long since been run out of office and those left all know the deal and cannot really be called “moderate” anymore.
According to that article Rep Massie is also a no on Johnson. So him and Biggs would be enough to tank him.
But we all know that if anything actually jeopardizes Trump himself (like the Jan 6 EV certification), he will make sure they all vote to approve Johnson.
I hope not. I want to see the nightmare scenario where the House takes so long electing a Speaker that Trump’s victory can’t be certified by the time Biden’s term ends and we wind up with Acting President Chuck Grassley.
Everyone who said Biden was too coconut-brained to be president will owe me an apology.
How would that exactly happen. Harris counts and certifies the vote in front of Congress. No action is needed by the members to enact the certification.
The President of the Senate shall, in the presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the certificates and the votes shall then be counted;
If the House doesn’t exist at the time for the certification then that would not stop it unless maybe the Clerk themselves at the time is considered “The House”.
The members of the House cannot be sworn in until a Speaker has been elected. The votes cannot be counted “in the presence of the House” if the House is in a state of abeyance, therefore the certification cannot take place.
If there are 0 members of the House and 0 members show up to the joint session then the House is present. This reminds me of the discussion we had in my logic classes over vacuous statements. IF Santa Claus exists THEN …
This was my mistake – it is Massie who’s said he’ll vote against Johnson. Biggs has not definitely said one way or the other.
As the Roll Call article says, while it would be unprecedented to enter the Electoral Count without a Speaker, it’s likely that the House can use its inherent Constitutional authority to organize itself to allow the clerk to swear members in or appoint a temporary Speaker. If the majority of House members agree with a way forward, there’s no realistic way to challenge it – this is pretty much the platonic ideal of a non-justiciable issue.
They used to be pretty good at keeping their members in line, but these last few years we’ve seen the GOP tearing themselves apart. They couldn’t even keep their members in line to pass legislation when they had a majority in the House. I get that it wasn’t an overwhelming majority but they couldn’t get anything done and I remember one Republican congressman, from Texas I think, who openly complained he couldn’t go back to his district with any accomplishments to share. The Republicans do not trust nor do they like one another. They’re going to have a hard time just electing a speaker.
