Yeah this vote doesn’t really do anything but confirm once again that there’s no consensus among House Republicans over who should be Speaker.
…was about to say. Or at least looking like it.
And that’s the problem - if enough Republicans vote “present”, the Democrat’s candidate ends up as the Speaker. Of course, nothing then stops a Republican from calling for an immediate vote to declare the Speaker’s chair vacant again…
MSNBC is reporting that Emmer will bring a vote to the House floor this afternoon or this evening.
Being reported that the final vote was 117-97. Not exactly an overwhelming endorsement. And it means seven didn’t vote for either candidate.
Emmer needs to make clear to the Republican conference that the time for playing games is over. The nation needs the House to get back to work. They need to put on their big boy pants, come together, and vote for him. If they don’t, he’ll have no choice other than to deal with the Democrats in order to continue carrying out the important work of the House. See if that binary choice gets things moving.
Rep. Tom Emmer (R-Minn.) told Republicans behind closed doors after winning the party’s nomination for speaker that he’d like to go to the House floor this afternoon, according to Rep. Doug LaMalfa (R-Calif.).
But first Republicans will hold a roll-call vote “to find out where the problems are,” LaMalfa said — meaning how many Republicans are opposed to voting for Emmer on the floor.
LaMalfa is worried about whether Emmer can secure the support of the 217 Republicans he needs to become speaker, he said.
“We have the same five to seven to eight that I don’t know are going to instantly gravitate” to supporting Emmer, LaMalfa said.
The United States of America is being held hostage by “five to seven to eight” MAGA nuts. This is unacceptable.
the republicans should have enough fingers and toes to figure it out.
Prediction: There will not be a speaker elected today.
NY Times:
“Shortly after the vote, Mike Johnson, the other finalist, endorsed Tom Emmer and encouraged the conference to coalesce around the party’s nominee.”
That should help Emmer, since Johnson is an ultra-right Freedom Caucus-y guy. But who knows if it actually will.
If there’s a full vote tonight, I kind of lean towards Jeffries having the last 25 or so Democrats (alphabetically) stand by to see if Emmer seems on track to get at least 200 votes or so; if so, then he could have them slip out at the last minute and allow Emmer to win a majority. I don’t think it’s likely that we’ll get any better than Emmer.
But Jeffries has so far shown himself to be very savvy – I’ll defer to his judgment.
It just shows that Johnson at least understands how it is supposed to go. Too bad a huge chunk of the conference considers that to be “swamp” ways they don’t have to observe.
Agree on both points. We could do a lot worse. A lot.
I disagree. MAGA nuts is what the Republican Party has become. If anyone is holding hostages, it’s the 10 to 20 or so most moderate Republicans (whatever scrap is left of the Cheney / Romney / Bush type Republicans) who refuse to become Democrats and vote for Jeffries, which would be the most sensible solution out of this mess.
Asked how many “no” votes there have been for Rep. Tom Emmer (R-Minn.) in the roll call so far, Rep. Michael Waltz (R-Fla.) told reporters, “Too many.”
This is ridiculous. I was going to say, “this is getting ridiculous”, but we passed that point weeks ago. I truly don’t see this ending in anything but tears and a government shutdown. I know some say it would serve the Republicans right and only highlight their incompetence, but it’s not just politics for a lot of Americans. It’s a paycheck. It’s a mortgage payment. It’s groceries in the pantry and gas in the car. It’s not a bargaining chip or a gotcha moment. It’s survival.
In the roll call up and down vote, 26 said the wouldn’t vote for Emmer.
He’s toast
I still don’t understand why any sane Democrat would vote for a candidate whose campaign pitch for the job is ”to undo the damage that Democrats have done and expand our conservative majority”
If my congressperson voted for someone that promised this over Jeffries, or abstained in order to put this person in the line of Presidential succession over Jeffries, I’d move heaven and earth to primary their traitorous ass.
Every time someone promotes or even suggests the idea that this should happen, they enable the “both sides” rhetoric that is destroying the country.
FWIW, Trump has spent his morning trashing Emmer, I’m surprised that he’s only losing by 26 votes.
It would be the political equivalent of staying in an abusive relationship because the abuser can change.
The only way I think it works is if the Speaker is hated by the FC, accepted by rank and file Republicans and absolutely needs Dem support to stay in the job. The FC can force a vote to oust the speaker at any time, the R&F R’s will vote to keep him in, and the Dems are the swing vote that prevents a repeat of… whatever this is.
If that dynamic exists, the Dems can require a measure of ongoing bipartisanship to get broadly supported bills to the floor, else they’ll let the FC vacate the speakership again.
There’s something very powerful about having a two-ring circus, where in one ring the performers are carrying on a sober political seminar, and in the other ring the clowns are taking chainsaws to one another. The longer the two rings perform side by side, the clearer the contrast. It’s absurd to suggest that the political seminar needs to help choose a clown winner.
The extremists have stated their terms: unconditional surrender and submission of the majority to THEM, or all crashes down.