I remain torn here. The opportunity for the Democrats to engage in epic trolling by supporting McCarthy is hard to pass up, but in the longer term they have more to gain by acting like the adults in the room and simply continuing to all vote for Jeffries and let the Republicans flail about acrimoniously.
Looks like the Dems have come to consensus amongst themselves:
But voting for Jeffries isn’t the first vote, is it? I understood the first vote is an up and down “Does Kevin stay Speaker?”
Do the Dems want to vacate the chair, not knowing who the next Speaker will be, or do they want to stay with the devil they know?
From that article:
So it’s not really clear, but I cautiously predict the votes will be like this:
- MOTION TO TABLE THE MOTION (the “Shut the fuck up, Gaetz” motion): Dems will vote nay.
- MOTION TO OUST THE SPEAKER (the “Fuck you too, McCarthy” motion): Dems will vote aye.
- MOTION TO ELECT A NEW SPEAKER (the “Didn’t we just do this, you morons?” motion): Dems will vote Jeffries.
I think it’s extraordinarily unlikely that #3 will result in anyone to the right of McCarthy. The rage at Gaetz’s shenanigans will be through the roof.
The likeliest outcome, IMO, is that McCarthy eventually wins the speakership back (assuming the rules allow that).
Less likely is that a different weasel Republican, unaffiliated with Gaetz, wins.
Less likely is that a Republican switches to Independent and garners some Democratic votes as well as Republican votes and wins.
Less likely is that a Democrat wins with the support of some crossover Republicans.
Everything else is vanishingly unlikely, IMO, although we live in the weirdest timeline so who the hell knows.
From the Democrats’ standpoint it doesn’t matter - no matter who the Speaker is, if it’s a Republican they will never reach across the aisle on anything material. Whereas a massive bunfight amongst the GOP will keep them occupied and prevent them from doing anything characteristically stupid for a little while.
Yes, the vote to remove doesn’t involve Jeffries; it’s the vote for the new Speaker where he’ll be getting Dem votes.
Let’s play hypothetical.
McCarthy is out. What Republican(s) would the Dems like to see as Speaker?
I think the first vote is for if they do the procedure at all. It’s a motion to table the resolution or to go forward. If it’s not tabled, they vote on whether or not to remove him. If they remove him, they vote for Speaker again which could be McCarthy.
There may be more potential intermediate steps.
And maybe get their face on the TEEVEE some more!
Are there any non-extremists left in the party? Anyone willing to promote bipartisan bills and not just engage in petty obstructionism? Because if there are, I’m not aware of them.
The worst thing that could happen to Matt Gaetz is that he could win. I mean, he’d be an appalling Speaker but he may find (as McCarthy did) being the guy in charge isn’t as much fun as he might think…
I think you missed the part where the Freedom Caucus enters the room driving a teeny-tiny car and then 15 of them get out of the tiny car, and run around congress pretending to throw a bucket of water on one of them, but it turns out to contain confettii.
I’d almost have chosen Romney.
Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA) for one. That’s just off the top of my head.
Wrong House; otherwise I would have too (also, he’s stepping down at the next election).
Can the Democrats nominate someone not even in the House? If they could make Liz Cheney Speaker, with a few Republican votes, that would another epic troll!
We did this in -orama part one. The Speaker is not required to be a member of the House. It could be a former Representative or anyone.
If I have the time later I’ll look in the old thread for names seriously floated.
I think McCarthy will likely lose the vote today and be out on his ear. I predict someone to his right will wind up with the gavel.
This crap where McCarthy plays George McFly and Gaetz plays Biff has gone on long enough. The trouble is that any Speaker has to agree to give the loony caucus a sword to hold over his head to even get the gavel in the first place. They next guy is going to be just as screwed as McCarthy was. Fortunately, there is hope that Jeffries gets the speakership in 2025.
And that’s the thing here - should the Democrats decide to keep McCarthy, they know what they have and know nothing will get done, good or bad, before then. Sure, it sucks to be part of an organization so dysfunctional it cannot even do the basic work it was hired to do, but at least damage will be limited. If a wackier nut job than McCarthy ends-up in the seat, perhaps real problems can emerge. Another couple years of Republican civil war could be considered a positive here.
Expected vote to table the motion at/after 1:30pm ET today.
They’re going to be even more screwed, in fact. If McCarthy does get tossed, it just proves that the FC really is the group with the power, and anyone else who wants to become (and stay) Speaker will have to be entirely beholden to them. We won’t get even the half-assed pushback that we’ve been seeing from McCarthy.
i was hoping someone would do that in the first go round in january.
i bet at some point trump’s name will be thrown in.