Normally the vote is among party lines and between a majority candidate and a minority candidate (and assorted 1 vote each people). So why wouldn’t someone else in the majority party make a deal with the minority party - “Vote for me and with my caucus’ vote I’ll have a majority.” For example, if a moderate Republican had a caucus of let’s say 16 members and the Dems voted for them then they would have beat Whiner (oops Boehner) for SotH.
I admit like any coup there are major consequences even if you win but I’m surprised that in 112 Congresses (the 34th doesn’t count) no one has tried this.
The House must vote for Speaker on January third of the odd-numbered year (beginning of the session). Bringing up the vote again, later in the session, may not be as easy to accomplish, given that the pressing need does not exist.
It should be noted that the position of Speaker is not required to be an elected member of the House, they could in theory vote for, say, Charlie Crist, to put the squeeze on the extremists.
As I think on it, the biggest reason this has not happened is that congresscritters in competitive seats are more likely to show party loyalty in order to retain support from the party for re-election, and those in safe seats tend to be big soft bags of inertia, so where exactly a move like this would arise is unclear.
The simple answer is retribution. If you attempt a coup, you had damn well better be successful because if you don’t succeed, you will not have any chance for the good committee spots nor will you ever have any chance for a leadership position. Plus you won’t be able to count on support against your next primary challenger.
There was a time when I thought this might be a viable strategy for John Boehner to take, when it appeared that there might be a Tea Party revolt that threatened his Speakership in the next Congress. In essence, he would have to give up on wrangling the hardcore Tea Party-ish members of his own party in exchange for leading a tenuous coalition of Democrats and moderate Republicans. It would mean throwing out (or at least less-frequently adhering to) the “Hastert Rule”, in order to move forward legislation that could pass a majority of Congress (although not a majority of the Republican Party in the House).
I no longer think this is anything resembling a realistic possibility, but it’s still kind of fun to think about.
Apart from what has already been mentioned, what do those 16 House Republicans get out of it? To make a deal with the Dems, you would have to give them all sorts of concessions (control of some committees, or some token consideration). So if I’m a GOP member who hates Boehner, I’ll vote for him instead of having to hand over some control to the Dems.
For the same reason I’d vote for Obama again (if he was running) against virtually any Republican I can think of. Even though Obama has been a huge disappointment to me, he’s a FAR better alternative than the Republican pool of crazies with presidential aspirations.
No, and yes. Each party caucuses and nominates their candidate for Speaker. Members are threatened with waterboarding and other political punishments if they don’t vote for their party’s nominee.
So, in a Congress where there are 220 Republicans and 215 Democrats, each party will caucus. The GOP nominates Boehner, and the Dems nominate Pelosi.
Then on the first day of session, the vote is taken and should elect Boehner speaker by a 220-215 vote. However, each member remains free to vote for his or her preferred candidate. He will suffer political recriminations for bucking his party, but it is possible that enough on one side or the other will switch to make the vote more interesting.
This kind of thing is currently in effect in the Washington State Senate. There are 25 Democrats and 24 Republicans in that body at the moment (though at the beginning of the current coalition it was 26 and 23.)
The Majority Coalition Caucus consists of all 24 Republicans and two Democrats, and controls the Senate. How did this happen? Well, I don’t know for sure, but just so happens that the caucus elected one of the two democrats to be the Senate Majority Leader and the other to be President Pro-Tempore of the Senate.
Now, as background I should mention that Washington State in general doesn’t much like political parties. The state doesn’t (and can’t) keep any records as to which voter belongs to what party (What business is it of the government with whom I freely associate?)
Candidates may declare which party they prefer and the state will dutifully report that on the ballot, but any number of people may declare for the same party. For state offices, the top two candidates from the the primary advance regardless of party, even if they’ve declared the same party.
BOTH the major national parties hate this intensely. At one point there was noise at the national level to try to force the state to categorize voters for purposes of primaries … in response there was discussion within Washington State of the possibility of removing all references to political parties from official state forms, including on ballots. Both sides backed down.
