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PaperclipPerfector  2yr ago (text post)   26771 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 16, 2023

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Here we are two weeks after Kevin McCarthy was first removed as Speaker for the United States House of Representatives. About to have our first vote on the House floor to try and select the next Speaker.

It's been a bit of a tumultuous two weeks. At the beginning of last week Steve Scalise (R-LA), Jim Jordan (R-OH), and Kevin Hern (R-OK) announced their candidacy for Speaker. Hern subsequently dropped out before any internal polls of the conference had been done. Scalise won the initial round of internal Conference votes over Jordan on Wednesday 113-99. Over the course of Wednesday and Thursday around 20 Republicans came out as hard no's on Scalise, more than enough to deny him the Speakership. Scalise subsequently dropped out leaving Jordan as the presumptive candidate. On Friday, shortly before the internal Conference vote, Austin Scott (R-GA) declared his candidacy for Speakership though went on to lose the internal vote 124-81 to Jordan. While there have been subsequent developments indicating many of Jordan's critics have come around the margin in the House is so close there may still be enough to deny the Jordan the Speakership.

This is a presently ongoing event and I'll update as the situation develops and I am able.

ETA:

As of the time of this writing the first ballot is still being counted but five nine Republicans have voted for someone other than Jordan, meaning he will not be Speaker on the first ballot.

ETA2:

At the end of the first ballot the votes stand at:

212 - Jeffries

200 - Jordan

20 - Other

2 - NV

With 2 NV that means the total to win is only 216. House now in recess rather than another vote. This vote total is within a couple of votes of where McCarthy was for the first three days and eleven ballots in his Speaker campaign. Hopefully this one doesn't take so long.

ET3:

No more votes today, House has gone home.

Will there be a house speaker in time to even have a discussion about averting a government shutdown?

Given the margin that the previous CR passed by I have to think the same set of Reps could decide on some Speaker, at least long enough to pass another CR. They could always be removed later by a motion to vacate.

I've been considering a longer effort-post on the topic to tie it in with other conversations about "credible accusations", but since we're doing this today, I just want to mention my favorite Jim Jordan subplot is his putative involvement in the Ohio State wrestling sex abuse scandal:

The Ohio State University abuse scandal centered on allegations of sexual abuse that occurred between 1978 and 1998, while Richard Strauss was employed as a physician by the Ohio State University (OSU) in the Athletics Department and in the Student Health Center. An independent investigation into the allegations was announced in April 2018 and conducted by the law firm Perkins Coie.

In July 2018, several former wrestlers accused former head coach Russ Hellickson and U.S. representative Jim Jordan, who was an assistant coach at OSU between 1987 and 1994, of knowing about Strauss's alleged abuse but failing to take action to stop it. Jordan has denied that he had any student-athlete report sexual abuse to him.

The report, released in May 2019, concluded that Strauss abused at least 177 male student-patients and that OSU was aware of the abuse as early as 1979, but the abuse was not widely known outside of Athletics or Student Health until 1996, when he was suspended from his duties. Strauss continued to abuse OSU students at an off-campus clinic until his retirement from the university in 1998. OSU was faulted in the report for failing to report Strauss's conduct to law enforcement.

So, the scandal is that some wrestlers got groped by a physician 30 years ago and the claim is that Jim Jordan "knew about it" and failed to put a stop to it. Of course, none of them bothered to mention that Jordan knew about it until a few decades later when he became a rising figure in the Republican Party. What's the available evidence on the matter?

In June 2018, at least eight former wrestlers said that reported that then-coaches Russ Hellickson (head coach, 1986–2006) and Jim Jordan (assistant coach, 1987–1995) were aware of the abuse by Strauss but failed to put a stop to it.[37][38][39] Jordan's locker was adjacent to Strauss's, and while he was assistant wrestling coach, he created and awarded a "King of the Sauna" certificate to the member of the team who spent the most time in the sauna "talking smack".[40]

Former wrestling team members David Range,[41] Mike DiSabato and Dunyasha Yetts asserted that Jordan knew of Strauss's misconduct. Yetts said, "For God's sake, Strauss's locker was right next to Jordan's and Jordan even said he'd kill him if he tried anything with him".[42] No wrestlers have accused Jordan of sexual misconduct, but four former wrestlers named him as a defendant in a lawsuit against the university.[43][44][45] Several former wrestlers, including ex-UFC fighter Mark Coleman, allege that Hellickson contacted two witnesses in an alleged attempt to pressure them to support Jordan the day after they accused Jordan of turning a blind eye to the abuse.[46][47]

So, basically, "come on, he had to have known". With the standard of "credible accusations" applied to Kavanaugh and Jordan, I find it hard to believe that anyone could be truly innocent. The necessary ingredient for a scandal appears to be finding someone willing to say that a few decades ago he must have known that something bad for going on. Seriously, how the hell is anyone supposed to defend against that allegation? What can you even say other than, "uhhh, no I didn't"?

For what it's worth I feel the same about Trump's rape civil lawsuit. "Did you violently rape this woman in a store changing room almost 30 years ago?" What possible defense could you have other than saying you didn't do it.

Judge clarifies: Yes, Trump was found to have raped E. Jean Carroll

"Trump 'raped' her as many people commonly understand the word 'rape,' ” Kaplan wrote.

Thanks for clarifying that, civil court judge. This literal he-said she-said based on 27+ year old memories has convinced us all that Trump's violently raped a woman in a clothes store. He unambiguously says he didn't do it and obviously no evidence exists 3 decades later, but that doesn't count.

I think this is missing some relevant context for those quotes. They were made as a reply to Trump's lawyers arguing that his conviction for sexual assault was not relevant to his parallel defamation case since he was only convicted of sexual assault, not rape. So the question of what, exactly, was encompassed by the term "rape" was relevant in the defamation case. Carroll argued it was used colloquially, Trump argued it was only the specific crime.

At least part of the issue's that there's a mess of allegations, here. Some of them are just creepy combined with the rest of the stuff (eg, he'd buy students expensive dinners); others are the sorta thing that justify pitchforks and torches on its own.

TOSU's college locker rooms were allegedly a nest of peeping toms and exhibitionist masturbation, and a lot of people unrelated to the lawsuits giving allegations that Jordan knew about (and reacted to!) Strauss being part of that. See page 55 here. This is pretty bad behavior unless you're in a gay bathhouse, and honestly a little distasteful even there, but it was also allegedly not just Strauss, and while it's illegal it's usually the sorta thing that just gets you banned rather than arrested. There's not a good count for how many times this happened, but eighty-four students said they observed it at least once; there's basically zero chance Jordan was unaware of it.

Then, separately, Strauss was also inviting random people photo sessions, sometimes having the photo subject pose topless or in wrestling singlets, then groping them. That's wildly inappropriate given the power disparity. The investigation found 16 students who described this behavior, most of them encountering one or two incidents before avoiding the man entirely after that, and since we're mostly talking the 1980s or early 90s, there's a lot of very good reasons that they would not have told everyone contemporaneously, or that everyone would have recognized what Strauss was doing -- even for some gay people in the 80s, this would have looked like 'just' really awkward overtures rather than grooming. A larger number were targeted for photography in their underwear as part of medical studies Strauss lead, but this is not as clearly abuse rather than just creepy given the abuse. Jordan probably would have heard of at least some of this, but probably not in detail, and it's not certain.

Then you have a lot of molestation pretending to be medical exams, ranging from groping them beyond any necessary testicular exam to unnecessary rectal exams. This seems to have been the largest category, with 122 athletic students being targeted, some with multiple incidents. This was and is legally and morally sexual assault, but not all victims realized it at the time, and the extent it was present in earlier complaints rather than rumors is not well-established. By 1994, there had been both internal and external complaints, but it's not clear if Jordan would have been involved in the resolution of those complaints, as a lot of this occurred through Strauss' access to the medical care team rather than through the school's sports program, but he might have heard of some rumors.

Then you have overt sexual assault or, to borrow from Oprah, rape-rape. This ranged from performing unnecessary digital rectal exams and then grinding an erection against the victim to digital or oral sex to try to create an erection or to completion. There are clear reports of this behavior by January 1996, and Strauss used some shaming tactics that probably would have prevented earlier victims from coming forward, and the investigation found 44 students who described behaviors along these lines. Again, much of these happened under the auspices of TOSU's medical care side rather than its sports medicine one, and most of the complaints along these lines were from the end or outside of Jordan's tenure, so it's not clear that he would have been involved but might have heard rumors.

And then you have the molestation of minors, which was the highest-profile allegation. The investigation found a couple people who probably were abused in manner related to Strauss's position in high schools, but only one gave a first-hand account, and that account was not clearly abuse. There's not much obvious reason why Jordan would have been aware of these allegations.

Strauss apparently committed 47 rapes over a period which included Jordan’s entire tenure as assistant coach. After which he was finally ousted in a “closed-door hearing”. Clearly enough people were aware of his tendencies. Why assume that didn’t include his assistant coach?

By analogy, let’s say your resume mentions that you were managing accountants at Arthur Andersen until, say, late 2000. Would an employer be wrong to ask some pointed questions about your knowledge of Enron? To assume that, as someone on speaking terms with various convicted fraudsters, you might have had some involvement?

Now, that doesn’t make any specific accusations credible. I don’t find it reasonable to blame Jordan, and saying “no, I didn’t” should be fine. It would be even less reasonable to try and blame you or me, given that we’re several degrees more distant from any such situation. We are obviously “truly innocent.”

I think it’s a terrible standard of evidence even in the court of public opinion. Simply positing that a person was in the general vicinity of whatever bad behavior is enough for these things to be used to smear people. I get especially suspicious of such “he was there” smears when the person isn’t accused until they become a public figure.

If you worked for Anderson for fifteen years including the time around 2000 and the Enron scandal, that doesn’t mean much by itself. And if you had some reasonable connection to bad actors or activity, it shouLd be able to be easy enough to actually name the people or activity you were surrounded by. And if for some reason nobody can point to anything specific in the time between the incident and whatever public office people want to stop you from getting, the motivated reasoning involved makes the sudden “outing” seem less about a scandal and more about political wrangling over a position of power.

Isn’t that the point, though?

There is some level of association at which I should assume he knew what was going on. Coaching these kids, managing the locker room, and working alongside the rapist clears that bar, IMO. That’s ignoring any statements from the alleged victims!

I want to stress that I don’t really care, and don’t find such knowledge to be some sort of disqualifier. I just think it’s reasonable to assume he knew.

Sorry, the deficit brinksmanship was last month’s news.

If they weren't cowards, the House would call a de facto snap election by voting to expel themselves en masse.

At least a handful of reps said Jordan could count on their vote only for the first round, so we might see decreasing support. Then again, they're in recess so he can horse trade, cajole, threaten, whatever, so I've got no idea which direction it'll go.

After their internal ballot, 55 people people voted against him in what was supposed to be a secret vote. Freedom Caucus folks then published their numbers and encouraged people to call in and harass them, and most of them fell in line. According to a few sourcs, including Tim Burchett, Jordan allies were even threatening to support primaries against holdouts. So idk what's really at his disposal, but he's certainly not afraid to fight for it.

Once again I'm astounded the Republicans don't do the thing everyone else in the world does where they have an internal party vote and then everyone is bound to vote for the winner on the floor of Congress or they get expelled from the party.

Because unlike Westminster systems where the party as an apparatus actually matters Americans get politicians who only have to a win a primary to be their parties candidate and the election for the seat. At best, the regional party committees exercise some influence but no formal power over who can and cannot be the candidate. They cannot stop someone they absolutely do not want from running, becoming the candidate and then getting elected. It's gotten even more chaotic with the recent trend towards open primaries where the candidate for a party can be elected by any registered voter.

The problem is that, in this scenario as with McCarthy's ouster, the threat would be empty because carrying it out would not actually serve the interests of the people carrying it out. Maybe the threat of doing so would, but it's actual execution wouldn't. Either the 20 Representatives are just expelled from the Republican Conference, in which case they are still Representatives and much less likely to vote Jordan for Speaker, or they are expelled from Congress altogether, in which case Democrats would now have the majority.

Well you obviously have to accept the potential for losing a few members who call your bluff. That happens from time to time, and it theoretically can cost a government its majority. But the alternative is what we're seeing - the potential for half a dozen people in a party room of over 200 to completely derail your agenda and plunge you into a situation where you can't even elect a speaker. That's completely untenable.

Frankly I think the US has only just started to move towards getting serious about playing hardball politics in the last 10 years or so, and that's why they are only just now confronting issues that everyone else experienced and dealt with ages ago. The filibuster is still alive, for goodness sake - something like that doesn't ever survive in a genuinely ruthless political culture.

My impression is that Republicans would rather have the formal majority, and so be "in power", rather than actually be able to enact any particular agenda via legislation. There are lots of things (committees) you can operate even if you can't win a vote on the floor. I think there's also a perception that a substantial part of the Republican base support these holdouts and so there would be electoral backlash of unknown magnitude by expelling them. Maybe you get party discipline but if you lose the majority and potentially future majorities by doing so you definitely won't be enacting your agenda.

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Because everyone who didn’t want to go along would just be an independent who runs as a Republican in the next election.

How likely are they to win in that scenario though? E.g. in a world where Matt Gaetz can't put an R next to his name, does he beat the Republican candidate? Presumably the party brand is worth a lot, I don't see too many independents in US politics.

This is the wrong way to figure this out, but....

On August 30, 2016, Gaetz won the Republican primary with 35.7 percent of the vote to Greg Evers's 21.5 percent and Cris Dosev's 20.6 percent, along with five other candidates.[37] This virtually assured Gaetz of victory in the general election; with a Cook Partisan Voting Index of R+22, the 1st is Florida's most Republican district, and one of the most Republican in the nation.

In the November 8 general election, Gaetz defeated Democratic nominee Steven Specht with 69 percent of the vote.[38] He is only the seventh person to represent this district since 1933 (the district was numbered the 3rd before 1963).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matt_Gaetz#U.S._House_of_Representatives

Just for spit balling, let say he keeps 35.7 % of the republican vote as a 3rd party candidate

.357 x .69 = .246 for Gaetz .643 x .69 = .444 for Republican Gaetz replacement 1 - .69 = .31 for Democratic Replacement

That looks like they should threaten to kick him out

running the numbers if he keeps 50% of the Republican vote

.5 x .69 = .345 for Gaetz and his Republican replacement .31 for his Democratic replacement

That looks like risking turning a safe district blue

I suspect the people whose careers are riding on these decisions, can get better data to run the math on if they want it

Gaetz would, presumably, run as a Republican and win the primary. Republicans in particular have a problem with non-establishment approved candidates winning primaries.

Could they, theoretically, ban him from a Republican primary? Sure, but the most likely result of that is that he runs as an independent, the Republican base in his district is split, and a democrat gets elected, so they won’t.

It really depends. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) won a write-in campaign for Alaska Senate in 2010 after losing the Republican primary. Depending on the particular makeup of their district "expelled from the Republican Conference for refusing to elect Jim Jordan" might actually be a good thing.

have an internal party vote and then everyone is bound to vote for the winner on the floor of Congress or they get expelled from the party.

I was under the impression that this was a specific trait of Leninist parties, which might contain the answer as to why the US Republicans don't do it.

No, this is how political parties work in many countries. In the UK, MPs can be expelled from their party for voting against the whip.

Precisely - the whole point of a party caucus is that everyone is expected to vote in line with the majority of the caucus, at least on important procedural votes like Speaker elections. You accept a degree of party discipline in order to get the benefits of being the majority. The details are different in Parliamentary systems, but the principle that anyone who votes against their party on a confidence motion (or who fails to show up for the vote without a good excuse) is kicked out of the caucus ("has the whip withdrawn") is utterly mundane. The last time this happened in the UK was to pro-European rebels against Johnson, and the time before that was to Eurosceptic rebels in the Major era. In both cases rebels were kicked out even though it left the government without a majority.

Right now there is no majority caucus in the House, because the Republicans lack the party discipline to be a real caucus, and neither the mainstream nor the MAGA factions are anywhere close to 218. The reason why this has become a clown show is that the Republicans are still acting like they are in the majority, even though they are not.

It's incredibly normal in parties on both the left and right around the world. Eg in 2018 the (right wing) Australian Liberal party changed PM following a 40-45 split in a leadership contest while they had a one-seat majority.

I just don't see how you can expect to control the floor in a finely balanced legislature unless you enforce some party discipline.

Or you could just have no say when you get whipped in the House of Commons in the UK.

Getting whipped in the house actually has a very different meaning in thr U.K. due to the English moral traditions.

The British sex scandal anthology series on Amazon is currently in production on season three, AFAIK.

Depends on what you mean by "giving up" I guess. It took 15 rounds to elect McCarthy back in Jan. Probably depends on whether Jordan thinks he can convince the holdouts to vote for him. Personally I'm not sure what he could offer them. I did hear rumors that two Republicans had floated doing some kind of unity Seakership and voting for Jeffries, but they would need three more to join them to have the votes.

I did hear rumors that two Republicans had floated doing some kind of unity Seakership and voting for Jeffries, but they would need three more to join them to have the votes.

Empowering someone that's pretty far-left (~80th percentile among House Dems) for "unity" is the most centrist Republican move possible.

The last I heard was that the Democrats were willing to amend the rules to make Patrick McHenry (the interim speaker nominated by McCarthy) de facto speaker, at least for long enough to deal with the backlog of must-pass legislation with bipartisan support. That isn't an offer to vote to make him regular speaker, but I would say he is now the Schelling point for a bipartisan speaker if that is what the Dems and RINOs decide they want.

NyTimes is doing a good live counter: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/10/17/us/politics/house-speaker-vote-tally.html

God the republicans are such losers. 3 votes for McCarthy is just absolutely pathetic. Put your stupid petty grandstanding nonsense aside.

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