The Republican Speakership battle

This is why you don't cave to terrorists.

They actually fucking said this:



There ya go, folks. Biden is incompetent, anti-American and senile.... but sure he can deal with any major global crisis that might pop up whilst we're dicking about.

Sounds like it might be time for some executive orders, since the House can't pass any legislation...

Just checking in and seeing the 8th is also not gonna work for McCarthy.

Already at nine Donalds and three Others. Guessing they were Trump.

There clearly isn't going to be movement on this, so I'm not sure what McCarthy thinks he's going to be accomplish.

Even if he somehow becomes speaker, he's been politically wounded and probably wouldn't last long anyway.

Time for McCarthy to do the right thing and put the country's interests ahead of his own ambitions. Find another candidate.

Nm, did math wrong. No movement except two Donalds moving to Other.

Hoping this is finally Jeb's moment to shine.

Apparently at least one of the Others was Bobo. She was trolling McCarthy by pretending she was gonna vote for him but instead voted for Kevin Hern.

This is a very serious person who is very serious about governing.

Gotta say, I'm not unsympathetic to the single-subject legislation and germane amendments rules Rosendale is pushing.

I agree that we should have a functional Congress where vital legislation can be passed via Regular Order.

But we don’t. Congress is broken. And taking away the tools necessary to get vital legislation passed isn’t going to magically fix it. It is just going to make it impossible to pass vital legislation. (Which is the point.)

The shenanigans the Clown Caucus are pulling right now are the best advertisement for why we currently MUST HAVE those tools.

This is exactly why I want to see them continue to fight it out, we desperately need change in congress.

There goes another four Republican votes against McCarthy.

Unless a Democrat flips (lulz), it's going to a tenth vote.

The reading clerk looked and sounded annoyed that Donalds wasn't there to vote for himself.

If my calculations are correct (no math in the Red Room), it looks like McCarthy lost a vote this round...

And, no movement for what the 7th round in a row (I’m not counting shuffling back and forth between non-McCarthy Rs)?

I’m not sure if it was a threat or what but Mick Mulvaney was on BBC just now saying he is hearing more and more about someone left of McCarthy pulling moderate Rs and Dems together.

If the Ds go along with it they’ll likely have the vast majority of the members of the coalition so better get some real good concessions.

My calculations are not correct (not surprisingly).

Apparently McCarthy lost that vote at the fourth round.

The very first round had him with a 19 vote deficit. By the third round, it was up to 20.

By the fourth round, he was down by 21 votes and there's been zero movement since.

Correction. It looks like there was one no-show. So McCarthy only got 200 instead of his usual 201.

Round 10 begins.

And we'll be going to an 11th vote.

For those wondering the record it’s 133 made in 1856 after two months.
There were more than two parties making coalitions at that time and they eventually agreed to plurality wins. I can’t see the Rs agreeing to plurality this time since the Ds have the votes at the moment.

What’s the process (if there is one) of moving the election of Speaker from majority to plurality winner?

I read about a moderate R threatening it as a ‘nuclear option’ to get the Clown Caucus in line but it seems fantastical to me.

Jinx!

I think the only reason they did it in 1856 is because the “opposition party coalition” would still win under plurality rule because the democrats just didn’t have the votes. I can see it happening here if Kevin can get over 212 votes…but how he’d get the majority to vote for plurality wins rules in the fist place is unclear to me.

According to CBS, they threatened to propose a plurality vote, but Banks won 103-100.

I can see McCarthy doing something stupid like directing some of his allies to vote yes with Democrats on a plurality proposal, to try to force the Republicans to fall in line. I think that's why Gaetz said he'd vote for Jeffries before McCarthy, to warn him off of doing that.

French Hill's nomination speech for McCarthy started with thanking the Clerk, Cheryl Johnson. Someone yelled to interrupt "Johnson for Speaker!" I hope someone nominates her.