I was thinking about what Gaetz’s motivation is. The FC will not win the Speakership and they won’t get more concessions from the new Speaker than they got from McCarthy. I thought it was so he would be known (in his own head and his buddies) as The Kingslayer but it may be what Alfred said to Bruce Wayne about Heath Ledger’s Joker
“Some men just want to watch the world burn.”
I read it differently, but we’re in uncharted waters. As a practical matter, I very much doubt that Patrick McHenry has any desire to be the one to try to pass a compromise federal budget through the house in 45 days. He wants his ass out of the Speaker’s chair as fast as humanely possible.
All right, let’s start with predictions! Who gets named the next Speaker and when?
I’ll start: Steve Scalise by the end of this week.
Are we going to have a new unit of political time even shorter than a Scaramucci?
CNN said the same thing, that essentially all McHenry could do was manage the election of a new speaker.
If, in fact, McHenry has all (or most) of the speaker’s usual powers, I’m betting the job is his for as long as he can stand it.
Much like Daddy Trump, he wants to burn the country to the ground so he can be King of the Ashes.
By the way, the most recent vacancy in the Speakership to occur during a Congressional session was in 1961 when Sam Rayburn died in office. Speakers Jim Wright and John Boehner both resigned during a Congressional session, but waited until their successors had been approved by the House (i.e. no vacancy).
In Rayburn’s case, his successor was not voted on by the House for two months. But I’m pretty sure they were operating under different rule then.
In the side-effects category, I am amused but not at all surprised that satirist Randy Rainbow will now not have to “eat [his] MAGA hat”.
John McCormick was majority leader when Rayburn was Speaker. After Rayburn died in November 1961, McCormick acted as Speaker until he was elected in January 1962. Modern sources, however, cast him as Speaker from 1961-1971. That seems to be flatly wrong.
I took a look at newspaper articles from 1961 and not a single one named McCormick as Speaker. Almost all simply said he was expected to succeed Rayburn. (There was a now odd kerfluffle. McCormick was Catholic while President Kennedy of course was famously and unprecedentedly Catholic. Mike Mansfield, the Senate Democrat leader, was also Catholic. That would put the top three positions into Catholic hands. Nobody so much as mentioned Lyndon Johnson. Talk flew that Albert Rains might challenge him. Rains was a Southern (i.e. Alabaman) Baptist who was considered too liberal for the post. Things do change.)
I couldn’t find a word in that quick search that talked about what powers McCormick had. Or even if Congress was in session over that period. Surely some wonk out there is working on it.
I can’t find record of a single piece of legislation passed during that interim (roughly Thanksgiving to New Years). I suspect in the days before debt ceilings and such, taking six or seven weeks off during the holidays was no big deal for Congress.
PUT HER IN THE WRITER’S ROOM!!! xD
We’ve got a candidate!
Those actually aren’t bad proposals. But why is he going to jail on behalf of the party that has NOT done any of those things? He needs to question his life decisions.
I was gonna say… I can’t believe I’m actually liking his platform. What vortex did I fall into?!
I’m suspecting some sort of whoosh is going on. Or he is one very confused person. Can’t decide which.
Well, that didn’t age well.
>kowtows<
Trump.
Unfortunately that is actually possible. It’d be unprecedented…but it is possible.
I can’t imagine he’d want the job though. It is actually a lot of work. But he might want it if he thought it would save him from 90+ indictments.
Didnt someone post a cite showing that the House rules- (which can be changed of course) require that the Speaker be a Member?
Oh, bad news-
4. Members of the House cannot be sworn in without a speaker.
But if no speaker is elected, incoming House members cannot take an oath or be sworn in on the House floor, according to the U.S. Code of Law.