Okay, McCarthy is now playing dictator-
https://thehill.com/homenews/house/4225849-mccarthy-told-conference-he-wont-allow-vote-on-senate-stopgap-gop-lawmakers/
Well, if these illusory Republican “moderates” want to force a vote on the Senate bill they can do so in collaboration with Democrats via a discharge petition. There’s not enough time to avoid a shutdown but it could keep it short. I’m not holding my breath.
I’m not really looking for moderates, just people in purple districts who might benefit from keeping the government running? Or, people who actually want to see a functioning United States, instead of a clown show.
Liz Cheney was no moderate. (I know she was voted out, but she was in one of the reddest, if not the reddest, state)
According to that article, McCarthy says he doesn’t have the votes to pass it. Why should he bring it to the floor?
The Senate bill would pass easily in the House with overwhelming Democratic support and a sizable number of House Republicans as well. It would also result in a Motion to Vacate by the Freedom Caucus.
Maybe so, but McCarthy is following the Hastert Rule (the Speaker won’t allow a bill to come to the floor unless it has the support of a majority of the majority). If he’s a dictator for relying on that informal rule, then so are most of the Speakers since the mid-1990s. Nothing new here.
Read further down. Pelosi didn’t believe in it. Boehner violated it at least six times. He’s just using it as a shield. If he were a good Speaker, he would get his caucus in line anyway, and get the majority of the majority that he’s looking for.
The “Hastert Rule” isn’t a rule at all – and that’s according to Dennis Hastert. Speakers have broken the “rule” dozens of times. It is politically wise to not make a habit of going against the wishes of a majority of your caucus, but a Speaker also has a responsibility to his caucus to prevent them from committing self-immolation.
Yes, it’s not a formal rule, but it’s a guideline that former speakers have used. Were they all dictators? I’m just pushing back against the suggestion that this is something new or unprecedented.
Fair enough. I would never say McCarthy is a dictator. Dictators wield actual power. And I agree that refusing to bring a broadly popular bill (but one his caucus isn’t on board with) to the floor isn’t outside of the norms and expectations of the House.
But sometimes a Speaker has to bring a bill to the floor if the consequences would be disastrous for the nation and his party. And I’d wager the majority of House Republicans would secretly welcome McCarthy bringing this to the floor, where they can cast their “no” votes to prove their conservative nihilist street cred while avoiding a government shutdown they know Republicans will surely be blamed for. This was the same situation Boehner kept finding himself in trying to keep House Republicans from taking the nation over a cliff on the debt limit. Unfortunately, the lesson for McCarthy is that all it bought him was ultimately being forced out of the Speakership.
If other Speakers have used this Rule, maybe we could pick one of them who wasn’t a pedophile to name the Rule after? Just sayin’.
Sure, HE (as in the GOP caucus) doesn’t have the votes. But the votes are there, since the Dems would vote for this bipartisan measure.
Right.
Here’s a gift link about 18 Republicans in districts that were won by Biden:
Their constituents are frustrated with the looming shutdown. The Representatives are frustrated that a small group is causing this problem – well, it only takes five of you to fix it.
For those who don’t want to read the article, here are some frustrating quotes:
“I am ready to explore each and every option possible to make sure that we don’t shut this government down,” Representative Anthony D’Esposito, Republican of New York, said on C-SPAN’s “Washington Journal” on Wednesday. “Every option is on the table.”
“It’s Munchausen at work: creating a crisis, blaming others, pretending to fix it. And then rinse, wash, repeat,” Mr. Lawler said.
Mr. Lawler has emphasized his opposition to a shutdown and his efforts to bring a bipartisan spending patch to the floor. He has told his swing-district constituents that the government is hurtling toward a closure at midnight on Saturday because a handful of G.O.P. hard-liners have stood in the way of government funding while he and other Republicans were working to extend it.
Well, Mr. Lawler and Mr. D’Esposito, the solution couldn’t be simpler. Just get three more people to caucus with you and the Dems, bring in Hakeem Jeffries as speaker, and Bob’s your uncle.