Again, this isn’t like a primary system where every member must vote for Boehner or Pelosi. Seventeen Republicans could vote for ME or YOU as Speaker, not because they want us in that office, but to simply force a second ballot and force Boehner to step down if it becomes clear that he can’t twist enough arms to get a majority.
If he would actually have to solicit Democrats in subsequent ballots to get elected Speaker, that would increase his irrelevancy in the Republican ranks and cause him to lose more support.
Ralph, you think the Republicans were trying to cut spending and Obama convinced them to not cut spending? You know of course that the Republicans don’t want to cut spending. What are they going to cut? The military? Social Security? Medicare? They don’t dare to cut anything or propose any cuts in anything. They aren’t trying to cut spending. They are trying to cut taxes, which is different than cutting spending.
But that’s just it; they can’t elect Pelosi. On account of those 17 GOP House members-For-Pelosi not existing.
They can reward Boehner (for bowing to the inevitable, or something) by giving him 17 Dem votes to keep him in the Speaker’s seat, and at least prevent the kind of coup that might lead to Cantor or Ryan taking the gavel.
I remember that after the Republicans took a one-seat majority in the California Assembly (I think 1995), it looked like Curt Pringle was about to be elected Speake of that body. And then at the last minute, one of the Republican Assemblymen cast his vote for Willie Brown.
Everybody LAUGHED and LAUGHED!
Well…not Curt Pringle, obviously.
And, upon reading that, I would be tickled PINK to see Nancy helpin’ a Boehner out…
Why would anyone want to be Speaker of this lot? You’ve got enough Republicans who are either completely unwilling to cooperate with Democrats or are afraid of being replaced if they try that it is impossible to lead that caucus. Besides voting to repeal Obamacare a few dozen more times, what is their agenda? They may pay lip service to cutting spending but they don’t make any specific proposals. Repeating bumper stickers and opposing whatever the president wants to do doesn’t require a lot of leadership. So who the hell wants to lead such a dysfunctional group? I’d rather be janitor of the House than Speaker.
I don’t think you actually understand how the Speaker election works. It isn’t going to go to an open floor election in which large numbers of either party are undecided.
If you had read my posts in detail you’d note I mentioned a caucus vote, some of which go multiple rounds. This is where the parties meet to decide on a nominee. When the Clerk of the House opens the session, he asks for nominees. The battle for Speakership happens before that moment, the battle is to be nominated. The party caucuses have gone multiple votes in recent memory over the nomination, but once it goes to a full floor vote they will most likely be in lock step.
If the arch-conservatives in the GOP caucus didn’t have enough votes to get another nominee instead of Boehner, then they also will not have enough votes to elect anyone other than Boehner in the House floor voting. This isn’t a situation where moderate Republicans are pondering casting their lot with the Democrats, but one where extremely conservative ones may not want Boehner back, they simply would never vote for any Democrat. There is no chance anyone other than a Republican becomes Speaker.
If the hardcore conservatives actually refused to vote for Boehner on the first ballot, and you had many rounds of balloting, it’d just be a fight for which Republican would win. There would never be a scenario where a Democrat won.
I mean a procedural “No, they can’t.” The Republicans get to vote for one nominee, the Democrats get to vote for one nominee. There’s no way the Democrats can influence the Republicans’ choice. The only way that would work is if the party system breaks down entirely, which just isn’t happening for about a million different reasons.
To expand on my above point, the reason the floor vote hasn’t gone second round since 1923, is rebellions happen in the caucus vote. If a challenger to the current presumptive nominee can’t even win in the caucus vote, the only thing you accomplish by not getting behind him after the caucus vote is causing a big mess and hurting your own party. If you can knock him out in the caucus vote, then he won’t even be standing for election come the floor vote.
But if you refuse to vote for him after he has won the caucus vote, on the full floor of the House, then you take what is normally supposed to be handled in caucus out in public in the hope that you can somehow force the rest of the party (who were not persuaded in the caucus votes) to vote for your guy. It’s a prospect with such little chance of success that it just makes no sense.
