You might be a little late. Humorist Swami Beyondananda used the term in his 2004 book Swami for Precedent. It’s right there on the cover. A 7-Step Plan to Heal the Body Politic and Cure Electile Dysfunction. (I have the book. Comedians fake running for President go back a long way. Eddie Cantor, Gracie Allen, W. C. Fields, and Jimmy Durante all put out books.)
No and no.
Here are the non-Jordan Republican votes, according to CNN:
*indicates they voted for Jordan in the first vote
McCarthy - 5
Bacon
Chavez-DeRemer
Gimenez
Kiggans
Lawler
Scalise - 7
Diaz-Balart
Ferguson*
Gonzales
Granger
Rutherford
Simpson
Womack*
Zeldin - 3
D’Esposito
Garbarino
LaLota
Others
Buchanan* - Byron Donalds
Buck - Tom Emmer
Ellzey - Mike Garcia
James - Candice Miller
Kelly - Boehner
Miller-Meeks* - Kay Granger
Stauber - Bruce Westerman
I suspect that if Jordan keeps pushing soonish, he’ll lose more. But his type, much like his mentor, has the demand to keep feeling strong, a winner. So I don’t think he can back down unless someone else he could claim to be an ‘equal’ (IE RWNJ) steps up, who is likely equally unable to get the requisite votes.
So I suspect that barring some major change, they’ll recess for the rest of the week.
I’d enjoy all the self-destruction if we didn’t need, you know, a functional government rather than a parade of the idiocy that the former Republican party has embraced in order to keep control in a changing world.
-le sigh-
Cookies and juice boxes, and then put them down for a nap.
Strikes me, as a complete outsider, that the only way it could happen would be if there were rules changes to strip out the legislative agenda powers from the Speaker, and turn the position into an impartial chair, like in parliamentary systems.
The Speaker currently controls the political agenda. A non-elected Speaker wouldn’t have the political legitimacy to do so.
But if those legislative agenda functions were transferred to the Majority Leader, it solves the problem. The Majority Leader would have the political clout and legitimacy to decide what legislative matters should come forward.
And a outsider, like a retired judge or a respected former member, would have the gravitas to carry on the impartial chair function.
It would also mean that if the majority party is in disarray, it doesn’t mean the entire House grinds to a halt, as currently happens. Internal disagreements in the majority party would still have a slow-down effect, but it wouldn’t mean that the House is paralysed.
And, if the Speaker becomes an impartial chair, that in turn strengthens the role of the rules. For example, an impartial Speaker could enforce the “unitary subject matter” rule for bills, because the Speaker wouldn’t be trying to advance a political position and wouldn’t be part of a backdoor deal.
But, as Exapno_Mapcase says, chances of any of that are extremely low.
I just got the biggest chuckle from this.
“Stale graham crackers and warm, curdly milk.” — Bill Cosby
One thing I don’t understand is why this this strategy that the FC is using isn’t more common in the House. It seems like this is a very powerful method for a minority faction of the majority party to get their way. Is this going to be the new normal for elections of the Speaker? I don’t think the D’s would do this, but there was some grousing before Pelosi’s last election. I think she had to make some compromises to get enough votes to win. That kind of negotiation is what we want to happen, but that only works if the people are negotiating in good faith. People like those in the FC just want to get their way and cause chaos. I could see this happening from now on every time the R’s have the majority.
Are they getting their way, though? Is the House right now advancing legislation to slash government spending, halt illegal immigration, eliminate federal bureaucracy and red tape, etc.? Are they any closer to electing one of their own Speaker? They can burn the House down, but they can’t rebuild it in their own image.
Other factions within the Rs and Ds don’t use these tactics because they have actual legislative goals that require the chamber to function in order to be achieved.
I do think they are getting their way. I don’t think they really care about legislating. The FC want fame and attention. They want to be on TV and in the media. They want people to know their names. They want to get re-elected. They want to grind the government to a halt. For those kinds of people, this speaker vote mess seems like exactly what they hope to accomplish. They’re getting to set the agenda for the House even though they are just a small minority. They’re leveraging their power to get choice committee assignments. That kind of power is going to be very attractive to some people.
It seems like if the House were to go to a system where the Speaker just had to get a plurality of the votes it would put an end to this. A minority faction of the majority party would cause the other party to become Speaker if they didn’t support their own side.
Interesting tweet from Melanie Zanona, a CNN journalist
Well almost every other ideological faction does care about governing.
Who in the democratic side would want this outcome?
Also as a bit of an aside, the only time these hardball tactics make sense strategically is in a unified government. Even in the current circumstance, even with the most conservative house leadership possible, they still need democratic support to pass a budget.
It just happens that when there is a unified government, the president has enough influence to get his caucuses to reach a consensus, and thus far we haven’t had a president who wanted this type of drama.
The only other way is if there’s an actual majority support for government shutdown (which we definitely don’t have here).
Short answer is that the leadership has lost its power, due to the rise of self-funded Representatives who aren’t interested in legislating.
In the old days, candidates needed financial support from the central party organization. That in turn meant that the leadership had levers of power over the members. Now, the members can self-fund by the internet, and don’t need party support, so they are free to ignore the leadership.
As well, if a new member wanted to get on good committee seats, they needed to work with the leadership. But now, the FC group doesn’t really believe in government and isn’t that interested in legislation (see Jordan’s legislative record in 16 year: 0 bills passed), so they’re not that interested in plum committee seats.
By increasing gridlock to the point that the House stops functioning, they are winning and advancing their goals.
Other thing - I agree with the majority requirement because part of the job of the speaker is to represent the majority caucus. Now obviously this doesn’t mean that they get votes from 100% of their caucus on everything, but it does mean that they have enough of a consensus that they can reasonably run the chamber and negotiate on behalf of the majority.
Even before this rebellion, McCarthy couldn’t credibly do that which is part of the reason that we nearly had a shutdown. I don’t think going further in that direction makes sense - it would result in even weaker leadership with even less ability to represent the majority.
Reverse momentum. Interesting.
I read a reddit rumor that the third vote will be at the same time tomorrow.
But is there a currently a majority caucus? Or are there two separate groups forced to pretend that they’re a single party by the House rules?
It’s a quasi coalition government.
You’re correct, there isn’t.
The GOP differences are so irreconcilable that they aren’t able to pretend to be one party. The way forward, given we aren’t a parliamentary system and can’t just call an election, is to find some way for the closest thing the house to a majority (which I’m going to call the “keep the government open caucus”) to find a way to do that while saving face.
But there are other non-parliamentary countries out there, often with PR, that means more than just two parties. How do they handle it?