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Anyone else watching the drama play out electing the Speaker in the United States House of Representatives? You can watch for free on C-SPAN. Today is the first day of the 118th Congress and the House's first order of business is electing a Speaker. Normally this is a pro-forma affair and whoever is the leader of their party cruises to victory on their first ballot. The last time a Speaker election went beyond one ballot was 1923, and that was resolved only after five ballots. So far today we've had one ballot in which Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) (the presumptive speaker) has not only failed to win a majority of votes cast and become Speaker, but to win even a plurality of votes in the ballot (the Democrats voted unanimously for Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY)). The current split in the House is 222 Republicans to 212 Democrats. So if every member votes then 218 votes are needed to win and McCarthy can afford to lose just 4 Republican votes (assuming no cross-party-voting). Currently McCarthy is on his way to lose a second ballot, with 19 votes having gone to Jim Jordan (R-OH). On the first ballot McCarthy lost 19 votes, mostly to Andy Biggs (R-AZ) but some to Other. Jordan has already exceeded Biggs total, but the voting isn't finished so it remains to be seen whether more people have fallen in line and voted for McCarthy or if Republicans coalesce around Jordan or some other candidate.
It seems to me the most likely outcome is Republicans eventually fall in line and elect McCarthy, but other outcomes are possible. Republicans could potentially coalesce around another candidate (Jordan seems possible). Since what's required is a majority of all votes cast Jeffries could win if enough Republicans abstain or don't vote, leading to a Dem speaker in a majority Republican house.
It's interesting to look at the drama today through the lens of the common complaints about infighting among the Democrats and the left. For all that discussion it seems the Democratic Party has gotten behind Jeffries as Pelosi's replacement in short order, while Republicans can't seem to reach consensus on who should be their leader in the House.
ETA:
At the end of the second ballot the results stand at:
Jeffries - 212
McCarthy - 203
Jordan - 19
This means McCarthy picked up no votes between first and second ballot. All the votes that went to Biggs/Other on the first ballot went to Jordan on the second ballot.
ETA2:
At the end of the third ballot the results stand at:
Jeffries - 212
McCarthy - 202
Jordan - 20
McCarthy now officially losing ground to Jordan. This is kind of funny because Jordan (at least by his own words on the House floor) doesn't want the job and wants McCarthy to have it.
ETA3:
The House just adjourned (Speaker still undecided) until noon tomorrow.
I think people in this thread are underestimating how dysfunctional this is. A party caucus in a legislature isn't just a talking shop for mutually sympathetic legislators - it is an agreement to accept party discipline in order to gain the benefits of power. The whole point of a caucus being in the majority is that the caucus votes internally on issues like who to support for the speakership, and then they all vote the same way. If you can't get the caucus to vote together, then you have a majority in name only. Despite the classic meme status of "I belong to no organised political party - I am a Democrat", the Democrats never managed to f*** this up in this way, even when their party was split between Northern leftists and Dixiecrats.
The incoming House republican caucus held its internal vote after the elections in November, and voted 188-31 (by secret ballot, which is the norm for internal party votes) in favour of McCarthy. The whole point of being a caucus is that all 222 Republicans are now supposed to vote for the duly selected Republican candidate (i.e. McCarthy) in the public vote. The rebels (who do not include Jim Jordan himself - he voted for McCarthy like he is supposed to, and indeed nominated McCarthy on the second public ballot) are the real RINOs here - they are not accepting the basic responsibilities of caucus membership. If the Republicans can't agree on a Speaker, then in a very real sense they are not the majority.
This is why we are not seeing a move to choose a compromise candidate (according to gossip on various right-wing websites, Steve Scalise is acceptable to both factions). McCarthy thinks he is entitled to the speakership because he won the Republican caucus vote and the Republicans are in the majority. And if the Republicans were an organised political party rather than a clown show he would be right. And the 188 Republican congressmen who voted for him think they are entitled to the benefits of being in the majority, and the 31 dissidents should vote with the party if they want to share in those benefits. And if the Republicans were an organised political party, they would be right.
If the Republican rebels don't climb down after making their point for the cameras and the majority Republicans negotiate, then there are not two organised parties in the House with the Republicans in the majority. There are three parties (Democrats, Republicans, and MAGAtards) with nobody in the majority. And Scalise wouldn't be a Speaker leading a majority party, he would be a Speaker leading a coalition.
Don't do this, please.
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What functionality is being blocked by such behavior? What interest of the constituents is being compromised?
If the Republicans were an organized political party, Trump would not have happened.
Your arguments are all about the rules of the system, but the system is supposed to serve concrete ends. A large percentage of Republicans do not believe those ends are being served by the existing system, and so they are revolting against that system.
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Well, Gaetz argument is “what is the use of power if it will never be used to accomplish our stated goals?”
So why is that dysfunctional? This is the one time he can probably get concessions for his political goals and he is doing so. The demands actually aren’t that unrealistic (and would probably be a good thing from a governor perspective ab initio). Parties aren’t about getting power for the sake of power. They are about getting power for the sake of accomplishing certain tasks.
In 2021, AOC and the squad voted for Nancy Pelosi for speaker, despite noisily disagreeing with her, and went on to enjoy the privileges of being part of a functioning majority. Compared to a non-functioning Congress or a Republican speaker, this helped accomplish their stated goals (notably by passing several huge spending bills).
If Gaetz and the Freedom Caucus vote for McCarthy they will help accomplish their stated goals (based on Gaetz's speech nominating Jordan, these seem to be passing the bills that need passing, standing firm against the Senate and White House on the budget, and investigating Deep State corruption) compared to a non-functioning Congress or a Democratic speaker - because these are goals which require being in the majority. Based on this Reason article the main substantive demands include bringing a non-serious agenda (a balanced budget, a large tax cut, a large spending increase on border security, and an unconstitutional term limits law) up for a vote. This obviously doesn't advance Gaetz's stated goals, because it doesn't do anything at all except make noise and waste floor time. I can't work out what the procedural demands the Freedom Caucus are making which McCarthy hasn't conceded (he has conceded on the Motion to Vacate issue, agreeing that any five Congressmen should be able to force a vote to remove him).
If the Freedom Caucus want to get more of their agenda through, they need more power, which means more seats. If a group of 20 reps can overrule 188 reps by threatening to throw their toys out of the pram, then this works for everyone - and the RINOest 20 reps have a stronger negotiating position than the Freedom Caucus, because they can cut a deal with the Dems.
Of course, it is possible that the Freedom Caucus are not seeking to advance their stated goals. Some people just want to watch the world burn, and it isn't that surprising if 20 of them got elected to Congress. There is also the ever-present possibility that politicians are grandstanding rather than trying to advance policy goals. (Never!) But if this is grandstanding, it is an unusually dysfunctional kind - AOC and other anti-establishment Congressmen managed to grandstand without gumming up the election of a Speaker.
At least some members of the freedom caucus probably expect to benefit politically from shutting the government down and preventing anything from getting done. Presumably no rinos or democrats do.
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Did it? What goals did AOC obtain?
Well this happened. I see trillions of spending that AOC supported and Republicans opposed there, much of which benefitted her constituents. None of it would have happened with a non-functioning Congress or a Republican speaker. I can also hear the wailing and gnashing of teeth by conservatives who don't like it, and even by Republican squishes like McCarthy. (I also think that the success of the Squad in Democratic primaries and in media noisemaking after their elections has contributed to a vibe shift among Democrats which pushed Biden and Pelosi leftwards in a way that isn't as immediately obvious as a big fight over the Speakership).
If you mean "What goals did AOC obtain that Pelosi opposed then you are asking the wrong question. People don't, or at least shouldn't, go into politics to count coup against their own parties. They shouldn't, but often do, go into politics to induce wailing and gnashing of teeth on the other side of the aisle. They do and should go into politics to pass bills they support and that benefit their constituents.
AOC couldn't beat Pelosi because she didn't have the votes. So she took what she could get, which worked out at more money than you could shake a stick at plus the stick. The same applies to Gaetz vs McCarthy. If he wants more power he should win more votes.
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Maybe this also serves as a sort of an illustration why, in other countries, the center-right often prefers formally cooperating with the center-left to the far-right, even if the center-right and far-right might agree on many topics. This sort of a "we're not giving a shit about how this process is supposed to work, we hate the process and we hate you!" -behavior is very typical of right-wing populist parties all over Europe, both nationally, locally and within the EU; simple agreement on a number of issues won't cover for the fact that it just makes those parties a highly unreliable partner, moreso than the theoretically opposed center-left parties which still understand the rules of the game and generally agree to play by them.
I agree. It sounds like self-justification on the part of the swamp, but legislatures really do only work if they are dominated by the kind of person who thinks that being in power is more fun than being right and noisy about it.
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Where have the far right been unreliable partners in Europe? They seem undesired as partners but have they been more unreliable than anyone else?
It wasn't due to the far right that the government in Italy collapsed for instance and I don't believe that the governments Denmark or Norway have had major procedural problems due to the right and the previous Swedish government collapsed due to the left.
We'll see how things go in Sweden with our current government but from my pov it seems like SD is very committed to appearing like a reliable partner and a serious party.
It seems to me that lack of cooperation isn't due to parliamentary reasons but rather social ones and PR.
It's a bit of a paradox, really; the far right generally gets to power on the basis of strong anti-systemic, tear-down-the-system rhetoric, but then is fairly pliant once in power.
I'm not really talking here about the actual behavior, though, more the general image that leads to center-right reticence (or, rather, is one of the reasons for that reticence). Even if such parties generally don't govern as they preach, you always have to account for the possibility that one of them might do so.
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Any concern over respect about process on the part of Democrats are insincere. For instance, by tradition (the same sort of tradition that requires a unanimous caucus), the minority party is supposed to control its own committee assignments. This didn't matter when it came to stripping Marjorie Taylor Greene of hers.
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