It’s been announced this morning a deal on an omnibus package has been reached that would fund the federal government through the rest of the current fiscal year (i.e. September 30, 2023) including an additional $45 billion in assistance for Ukraine and including the Electoral Count Reform Act. It’ll need to pass before the lame duck session expires on January 5, but I’m assuming they wouldn’t be announcing this if didn’t know they had the votes.
House Freedom Caucus members are decrying it as a betrayal, which of course means that Kevin McCarthy is decrying it as a betrayal. But secretly I bet he’s relieved, as trying to pass any government funding bill early next year would have torn apart the caucus. At least this pushed back the date for that shit show.
Over in this thread I linked a Wall Street Journal editorial written by their editorial board (which has always been distinctly conservative).
They had this to say (among other things) that bears on what you just said:
Meanwhile, across the Capitol, Senate Republicans are doing Mr. McCarthy no favors by joining Democrats to pass a giant omnibus spending bill for fiscal 2023. Most House Republicans prefer a continuing resolution to fund the government only into early next year, when Republicans will have more leverage as the House majority.
But Mitch McConnell and the Senate GOP don’t trust that Mr. McCarthy can deliver in January, or so they say. They won’t even give him the chance. SOURCE
Yep, the threat to our nation of Kevin McCarthy handing the keys to the House over to the Freedom Caucus in order to get elected Speaker isn’t all of the things that the House will do – i.e. endless investigations, passing whack-a-doodle bills, impeachment after impeachment, etc. The real threat is the things the House won’t be able to do, like passing a government funding bill or debt limit increase. There’s simply no compromise that can be reached between Freedom Caucus extremists and the majority of sane legislators on these issues.
The House is a zoo at the best of times, but there are times when they really do need to get their shit together and pass something. At least this punt pushes that off until summer of next year, when we’re likely to bump up against the current debt ceiling.
Has it been mentioned that this contest has pitted fiend against fiend as MTG and Boebert are cat fighting. Boebert threw a space laser jab at her, and MTG called her immature. I hope it goes on for a while.
Here’s an idea: tell the Freedom Caucus (a dozen or so members, anyway) on the day of the vote that they found the goods on a pedophile ring in a pizza parlor, and they really need to be there to catch them in the act. Then hold the vote without them and elect a Democrat.
Now the whiners are threatening to vote down any Republican bills favored by any Republican senator who votes “yes” on the omnibus. McCarthy signed off on the threat, because of course he did.
“Further, we are obliged to inform you that if any omnibus passes in the remaining days of this Congress, we will oppose and whip opposition to any legislative priority of those senators who vote for this bill – including the Republican leader,” the letter said. “We will oppose any rule, any consent request, suspension voice vote, or roll call vote of any such Senate bill, and will otherwise do everything in our power to thwart even the smallest legislative and policy efforts of those senators".
(Bolding added by me)
The GOP Leader pledged that bills from GOP senators who vote for the package would be “dead on arrival” if he is Speaker.
McCarthy really will do anything to get the Freedom Caucus to vote for him, won’t he?
Why don’t the Democrats find half a dozen moderate Republicans and unite on a less-bad Republican who is not currently an elected official? Paul Ryan? Larry Hogan?
I can’t find it now, but there was a pundit who suggested this a while back. It was hard to see the value in leaving it all up to the Republicans to pick someone who will make life for Biden as miserable as possible.
P.S. I see that DSeid mentioned this likely impossibility earlier, except that the suggested GOP moderates were House members who would have the threat of being primaried as a reason to not be a true centrist.
Why would the Democratic Progressive Caucus vote for Paul Ryan – who for years made it his crusade to shrink or privatize Social Security and Medicare – to be the Speaker of the House?
To me, it is obvious — the alternative is even worse.
Then there is one more little matter that might be whispered — Paul Ryan almost totally beholden to Democrats, for his job, would not be the Paul Ryan who was wholly beholden to Republicans.
To be honest, I think that all of these daydreams of Democrats joining up with “moderate” Republicans to elect a centrist Speaker are pure fantasy. It’s happened in some state legislatures, but national partisan politics are just too hardened for this to be a realistic scenario. Not to mention that I cannot imagine why Paul Ryan or any other Republican would want to burn every relationship and job opportunity he or she has or will ever have in the conservative movement for the sake of one deeply frustrating term as Speaker.
Well, I’d say that with 222 GOP House members, you are correct. If 218 or 219 in the future, and after a few failed single-party attempts to elect a speaker, maybe. It’s at least more likely than going to a more-than-two-party system.
I would like to see the GOP fail to elect a speaker through numerous votes, and have increasingly bitter fights about it. Keep this up for the next two years.
Pelosi’s term as Speaker ends with the current session of Congress at noon on January 3. At that point the Speakership is vacant until the newly seated Congress elects someone.
We don’t do wagers around here, but if we did, I would absolutely be willing to put a decent amount down that McCarthy will be voted in as Speaker by the end of the first day of voting. There’s a non-zero chance that the ultra-crazies will make him sweat it out for a few votes to make a statement, but I bet they fall into line quickly. The GOP is brilliant at falling into line.
IMO, every other possibility is so remote as to be silly.