This headline on the Maddowblog sums up the situation perfectly:
An excerpt:
His biggest weakness was that McCarthy wanted so, so badly to be Speaker. And seriously, just looking at the last generation of politics, actually wanting to be Speaker for the Republicans is a sign you need your head checked.
Which is reasonable. Have the lineup of replacements in an unforeseen contingency come from people you know are already working there and won’t be elsewhere occupied.
Each abstention on either of the votes would have been a half vote in McCarthy’s favor. So that’s not really letting Republicans clean up their own mess.
Something I haven’t seen addressed: My understanding as part of concessions to get McCarthy elected in the first place was the rule that any one member of his party could bring up to vote to force him out. Does that rule stay in place for the next guy?
It’s part of the approved Rules of the House, which stand through the term regardless of who is Speaker unless amended. Or rather, the requirement from the past few Congresses that the motion to vacate have a certain threshold of support was stricken from the written rules
It’s an asshole move, but I wonder if it’s a strategic asshole move. We’re speculating about what powers the acting Speaker has, and here he goes, exercising a power before the Speaker’s chair is even cold. If no one challenges his authority to act on this, it suggests he has authority to act on other things, and if he can act on other things, he can act on all things.
So he pulls an asshole move, on the theory that it’s so public and so egregious that any who is inclined to challenge the existence of his authority to act will do so right away, and the issue will be settled.
Right – it is asserting that as SPT he is in charge of running the place administratively, not only calling another round of endless votes for who’s the next chump who’ll hold the seat at Matt Gaetz’s pleasure.
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And some people here were getting a bit too het up about it. The “hideaway” as far as I can tell is NOT a “safe room” hers by right. It’s a courtesy extended to some key members so they may be close at hand for private meetings or last-minute consultations and work undisturbed by regular office traffic. He is breaching tradition in a rather dick move but little more than that.
What bothers me about it, if it’s not part of some cunning plan, is the sheer pettiness of it. This was his first act, and it was directed against a political opponent who is largely symbolic these days, and done at a time that she’s not even in Washington. And he did this before he did anything else, at a time when his desk is overflowing with other, far more important, a lot of them being things that need doing right away.
If this wasn’t a plan, it shows he has an astoundingly petty set of priorities.
as i understand it you need 2 things as speaker, trust and fear. mccarthy had neither.
there should be a balance for moving legislation forward and protecting your most vulnerable seats. mccarthy did not have that balance.
there is talk of jordan’s name being put forward. scary that.
Ah, yes. The “own the libs” plank. One thing is sure about that idea - it would be a true loyalty test. Every vote would put on record their fealty to Trump, or not. I would hope some of the saner GOP house members would pull Mr Nehls aside and discuss things.
There is a rule that you cannot be speaker of the house of your under indictment for a crime, which could result in 2 years or more of imprisonment.
Cite:
What carrot and stick do you use, though?
“Hey, people who don’t like Trump won’t support this?”
“And?”
A CBS article on how we got here: Why oust McCarthy? What Matt Gaetz has said about his motivations to remove the speaker of the House - CBS News
This part from Gaetz was almost award-winning in its hypocrisy: "“He’s (meaning McCarthy) the product of a corrupt system that rewards people who collect large sums of special interest money and then redistribute that money in exchange for political loyalty and political favors,” Gaetz said.
That was a separation of powers issue. This consideration does not arise when the House makes its own rules.
I don’t really want to get into the weeds on the definition of “cynical” or value judgments about the same. Republicans are the bad party and they screwed up. Democrats are the good party and I want them to win. If it’s “cynical” then so be it.
But to entertain the question, and repeat what I said in my post: the leaderlessness of the Republican party is likely to cause some legislative and/or budgeting outcomes that I consider objectively bad, that would harm Americans, and that Democrat voters would consider bad outcomes. (i.e. a prolonged and unresolved government shutdown). If Democrats tipped the scales toward those harmful outcomes because they knew Republicans would get blamed, that definitely walks the line between “shrewd” and “cynical.” Given that this harm could be major and ongoing until the next Congressional term, and the payoff is not certain, I’m going with “cynical”.
I don’t follow. 8 Republicans voted against McCarthy, 210 for. If all Democrats had abstained, the MAGA faction’s motion would have failed decisively, no? That’s the mess I refer to. It would have gone away if Democrats hadn’t helped it pass.
But this still doesn’t speak to the question I asked, what likely good outcome do Democrats see here? The next Speaker will be a Republican who will be more cowed by the MAGA base. I can’t see how Democrats see better Democrat outcomes from that. Democrats sided with MAGA and will get a MAGA outcome. Obviously (hopefully) they see realistic possibilities I don’t, I’m asking what they are.
Possibly Jefferies goes up to Republican leadership and hands them a list of Republicans they are willing to vote for as Speaker. Unlike McCarthy, Jeffries is a good enough politician to make that a win for the Dems.
McCarthy has lied and lied, again and again, and falsely blamed Democrats, again and again, for everything his own and the rest of the GOP’s fault. Why would Democrats trust anything he says? Further, McCarthy has been part of the GOP attempt to rehabilitate Trump, and deny culpability for the Jan 6th attack, as well as Trump’s many other anti-American words and actions.
Why would anyone expect the Democrats to support him? How is it good for the country, beyond the very short term, to reward this sort of morally abominable behavior by keeping him Speaker? Better for the country to let everyone see the true state of the Republican party.
The way I read it, you have to “step aside” if already the speaker when indicted. It doesn’t say anything about somebody who was indicted in the past.
Perhaps Trump will be indicted a fifth time (or sixth time, depending on how you count). If so, he could beat out McCarthy for the short-speakership record.
I’d ask you to read my post again. I agree that McCarthy is a garbage person, he and the Republicans fully deserve what they get, blah blah blah. It’s satisfying to see Democrats mete out some much-deserved punishment to Republicans who are asking for it.
I’m not interested in beating that dead horse. My question is, other than electoral advantage, how do they see this enabling Democrats to further their legislative & governance priorities before the next election (including the very basic priority of keeping the government funded).
Ultimately, the only way anyone can fix the mess that is the US Congress is if they get the non-MAGAt Republicans to understand that if they work with the MAGAts, nothing will ever get done. MAGAts will just keep pushing for more and more concessions, moving the goal posts even after they’ve “won” the last go-round on negotiating. They need to learn, really truly, deep-down learn, that you cannot compromise with MAGAts. Not “Should not” compromise, but literally can not compromise.
At that point, they’ll marginalize the MAGAts, and will have to reach across the aisle at least a little bit to get the votes needed to pass anything.