What will the Speaker vote look like?
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On Tuesday, 19 House Republicans repeatedly refused to vote to make House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy the speaker of the House. On the third and final inconclusive vote for speaker of the day, the 19 anti-McCarthy Republicans picked up a 20th vote, Byron Donalds of Florida.
But what exactly do the these Republican holdouts want?
Texas’s Chip Roy, one of the original 19 rebels, offered this answer on the House floor yesterday: “I want the tools or I want the leadership to stop the swamp from running over the average American every single day.
The statement is somewhat vague — the “leadership” Roy wants would be a speaker such as Jim Jordan of Ohio, but it’s not clear what “the tools” are that Roy could be given in exchange for a “yes” vote for McCarthy.
Roy elaborated somewhat in an interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper on Tuesday. “I need to make sure that the Rules Committee is structured in such a way that those of us who are what I would call fiscal conservatives” are able “to stop the sort of train of the swamp,” Roy said.
The Rules Committee governs how many amendments, if any, members will be allowed to propose to a given bill. It is the last stop before the House floor for any piece of legislation, and in recent years congressional leaders have increasingly bypassed the normal committee process to make it the first stop, too.
Arizona Republican Andy Biggs, another one of the original 19 anti-McCarthy Republicans, told National Review on Tuesday that the group wanted to ensure no more omnibus bills land on the House floor. “You’ve got to have a bill dealing with a single subject. You can’t go beyond it. Germaneness would mean you can’t have these massive omnibus Build Back Better bills, those types of things,” Biggs said. Asked whether that meant there couldn’t be any more “continuing resolutions” in which Congress passes a bill to continue funding all of government at existing levels, he replied that short-term continuing resolutions, funding government for a matter of weeks, would be acceptable in his view while a six-month continuing resolution would not be.
National Review reached out to Roy’s office asking if there are a specific number of seats the anti-McCarthy Republicans want on the Rules Committee, but did not receive any comment beyond what Roy has said publicly.
McCarthy made clear on Tuesday morning that he found the specific requests made by the holdouts unacceptable. “Last night, I was presented: The only way to have 218 votes [to be elected speaker was] if I provided certain members with certain positions, certain gavels to take over certain committees to have certain budgets. . . . They want a gavel that they can’t earn by the conference and themselves,” he said.
The fact that the 19 holdouts haven’t issued any precise ultimatums in public leaves room for negotiation behind the scenes and allows either side, or both, to settle for a face-saving deal. But for now, the battle over the speakership remains a stalemate, and the lack of clarity about the hard-liners’ demands makes it hard for both insiders and outside observers to guess at what such a deal might look like.
@George-K said in What will the Speaker vote look like?:
Texas’s Chip Roy, one of the original 19 rebels, offered this answer on the House floor yesterday: “I want the tools or I want the leadership to stop the swamp from running over the average American every single day.
I don't know about leadership, but he's certainly got a whole bunch of tools.
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Only anesthesiologists and surgeons might get this:
"Kevin McCarthy is repeatedly trying direct laryngoscopy, without using a different strategy or calling for help."
"Now look here, you Baltic gas passer... " - Mik, 6/14/08
The saying, "Lite is just one damn thing after another," is a gross understatement. The damn things overlap.
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From Nick Cataggio (aka Allahpundit):
I relish his personal embarrassment … no one in Congress save possibly Elise Stefanik has accommodated themselves to Trumpism in pursuit of power as cynically as McCarthy has. To watch him stymied and embarrassed repeatedly on the House floor by the Trump acolytes he courted at the brink of achieving his life’s ambition is justice too sweet for my weak prose to capture. We’d need a poet for the occasion.
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Much of the opposition boils down to spending and the fear that McCarthy will be another McConnell.
“Cry havoc and let slip the DOGE of war!”
Those who cheered as J-6 American prisoners were locked in solitary for 18 months without trial, now suddenly fight tooth and nail for foreign terrorists’ "due process". — Buck Sexton
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If McCarthy is sunk, then next guy up is Scalia?
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Much of the opposition boils down to spending and the fear that McCarthy will be another McConnell.
@Jolly said in What will the Speaker vote look like?:
Much of the opposition boils down to spending and the fear that McCarthy will be another McConnell.
If the Republicans absolutely need somebody with a 'Mc' in their name, maybe picking somebody Scottish rather than Irish would allow a bit more fiscal responsibility. The Scots aren't exactly known for their spendthrift ways.
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@jon-nyc said in What will the Speaker vote look like?:
@Jolly Scalise seems most likely to me.
You're right. Sorry for the misspelling. I'm not through the first mug yet...
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@jon-nyc said in What will the Speaker vote look like?:
@Jolly Scalise seems most likely to me.
You're right. Sorry for the misspelling. I'm not through the first mug yet...
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Only anesthesiologists and surgeons might get this:
"Kevin McCarthy is repeatedly trying direct laryngoscopy, without using a different strategy or calling for help."
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This seems comically absurd. How could he possibly accept this? Imagine the constant opportunity for any single representative to grandstand and blow up the house?
Mr. McCarthy privately agreed to more demands from the right-wing rebels that he had previously refused to countenance, including allowing a single lawmaker to force a snap vote at any time to oust him from the speakership, according to three people familiar with the negotiations who described them on the condition of anonymity, noting that they were ongoing and that no final deal had been reached.
Only non-witches get due process.
- Cotton Mather, Salem Massachusetts, 1692
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This seems comically absurd. How could he possibly accept this? Imagine the constant opportunity for any single representative to grandstand and blow up the house?
Mr. McCarthy privately agreed to more demands from the right-wing rebels that he had previously refused to countenance, including allowing a single lawmaker to force a snap vote at any time to oust him from the speakership, according to three people familiar with the negotiations who described them on the condition of anonymity, noting that they were ongoing and that no final deal had been reached.
@jon-nyc said in What will the Speaker vote look like?:
This seems comically absurd.
I was going to post about the
cavingconcessions. But, you're right. It's just stupid."Now look here, you Baltic gas passer... " - Mik, 6/14/08
The saying, "Lite is just one damn thing after another," is a gross understatement. The damn things overlap.
