Likely the ones Jeffries already articulated.
At least, not at the moment - right after the morning prayer and Pledge of Allegiance, it went into recess “subject to the call of the chair” without the usual quorum call that normally comes before a Speaker vote. However, Marjorie Taylor Greene seems to be under the impression that there could be a vote to empower McHenry sometime later today.
Well it’s a question of degree.
There’s a difference between:
- Do what the FC wants, even if it’s not that popular among Republicans as a whole, because they have sufficient leverage to depose you
and: - As “caretaker” speaker, the only way the FC can get rid of you is to find a candidate with essentially unanimous support
OK, this oversells it a bit, as the FC still has FOX news et al behind them, but still, it’s different, and that’s all I am saying.
McHenry question.
In practical terms, how is giving the Speaker Pro Tem limited speaker powers any different from electing someone like McCarthy as Speaker Full Stop and limiting his powers by agreeing to the demands of various other Represenatives?
In other words, this appears to be a quantitative difference rather than a qualitative difference, which means that they’re de facto just subverting the process of electing a Speaker.
If I’m understanding this correctly (and please tell me where I’ve gone wrong), I think this is almost as problematic as not having a Speaker. I really don’t like to see democratic norms and processes upended because they’re hard.
True, but at the same time, you don’t want Congress to grind to a halt because of an intra-party dispute. “Acting” positions are not optimal, but sometimes needed to keep the government running.
I saw that clip and another from a different republican saying something similar. Obviously some strategist behind the scenes realizes this is going to be used against them in the next election and wants to change the narrative. I can’t tell if it’s stupid, brilliant or brilliantly stupid. It’s certainly bold. I can’t help but think it will only convince those that would vote Republican no matter what.
R: “The Democrats could have stopped us from doing stupid shit, but they did not, so it’s the Democrats fault that we did stupid shit.”
It’s really the logic of a small child, who has no understanding of their own agency or responsibilities.
So yes, Republican voters will nod their heads in agreement.
I hope any media types who get that line from a GOP congressperson will immediately ask: “How many times did you vote for Nancy Pelosi?”
Did McCarthy ask Democrats to vote for him? I mean, that seems to be Election 101, to ask people to vote for you, but what do I know, I’m not Speaker of the House.
Yeah but who is nowadays?
And it would not surprise me at all if what happens this afternoon is the R conference moves a proposal for Acting Speakership without any negotiation or horsetrading neither with their own dissenters nor much less accross the aisle, as just “vote for this or it’s your fault things fail”.
Or an abuser. “I wouldn’t have had to X if you had / hadn’t done Y…”
This zing needs to be acknowledged.
Isn’t that what got Kevin in trouble in the first place, getting Democrats to vote against what the Nuts-o-Group, I mean Freedom Caucus, wanted?
So, these GOP Congressmen are saying it’s the Democrats fault because they didn’t help Kevin out of a jam created by the Democrats helping Kevin out of a jam?
That’s GOP logic right there.
I think this is a good possibility. They put out a resolution to empower McHenry with no guarantees that he’ll bring up a clean CR, Ukraine aid, etc., and dare Democrats not to vote for it. After all, this is what centrist Democrats have been saying they wanted.
If Republicans want to empower McHenry with no guarantees of anything the Democrats want, they can do that, as they have the majority of members in the House. If they can’t do that because they can’t get all their members on board, that’s on them for not having a cohesive and coherent Party.
Of course it will be spun as “Democrats fault for not saving us from ourselves”, because that’s the only thing the current Republican crop knows how to say.
Looks like the McHenry plan will not be moving forward, according to CNN:
Florida Rep. Byron Donalds said that the House GOP Conference will not move forward with a resolution that would grant interim Speaker Patrick McHenry more power in his role.
“No. It’s not going to happen,” Donalds said as he left the three-hour-long GOP meeting. … Donalds said the votes “are just not there” for the resolution.
These muppets just can’t agree on anything. They are no longer a party with any kind of leadership.
Latest scuttlebutt seems to be that the GOP Caucus as a whole does not support the “empower McHenry” ploy. So that won’t be coming up for a vote. But they don’t have the votes for Jordan, nor do they have an alternative candidate…
May you live in interesting times…
MSNBC just reported that McHenry himself said he does not want the role expanded. He is adamant that he is merely a placeholder, and he wants to see Jim Jordan become Speaker. So it’s a no-go for several reasons.
Could this be like Dick Cheney helping to find the next VP?
This shit is insane.