Speaker-designate Steve Scalise (R-La.) is struggling to win the support he will need to be elected to the top spot on the House floor, signaling what could be a sequel to his predecessor’s fight to win the gavel in January.
Scalise scored a victory on Wednesday by defeating House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) in the conference’s internal vote to become the GOP nominee for Speaker. But the tally was a slim 113-99 victory, with around a dozen votes for others or “present” — and even after Jordan swung his support to Scalise following the vote, it was unclear if his supporters would do the same.
At least seven Republicans say they plan to back someone other than Scalise; at least six others say they are undecided; and some have declined to comment on who they will stand behind — enough resistance to deny Scalise the Speakership on the House floor.
Democrats are all expected to unite behind Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) as their preferred Speaker, just as they did in lockstep through 15 ballots in January. That means Scalise, just like deposed Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), can only afford a handful of Republican defections.
But a second floor fight for the Speakership — a sequel to McCarthy’s marathon battle in January — would come with a dangerous backdrop: a war in Israel and a November government funding deadline, both of which loom over the divided GOP conference.
The House is set to reconvene at noon on Thursday, but it is not clear whether it will then move to a floor vote for Speaker.
Rep. Carlos Gimenez (R-Fla.) said he plans to vote for McCarthy for Speaker on the House floor. Republican Reps. Lauren Boebert (Colo.), Bob Good (Va.), Marjorie Taylor Greene (Ga.), Max Miller (Ohio), Nancy Mace (S.C.) and Lloyd Smucker (Pa.) are among those who have said they plan to vote for Jordan.
He just doesn’t have the votes. He can only lose four Republicans on the floor and many more than that are currently publicly opposed to him.”
It definitively looks like it, but GOP tries hard to not admit that.
Reminds me of a pj o’rourke quote
The Democrats are the party that says government will make you smarter, taller, richer, and remove the crabgrass on your lawn. The Republicans are the party that says government doesn’t work and then they get elected and prove it.
One of the few people on the right I ever had any respect for. In part because he had no qualms about criticizing his own side when they fucked up. And, of course, they fucked up all the time, so he was never short of criticism.
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It should be journalistic malpractice to call this shitbag Scalise and not David Duke without the baggage. He said it himself.
At this point, can they be called a singular party? Do we essentially have a three party system in place right now?
I don’t know that having a crazy off between two sects of the republican party would be considered two separate parties.
Just out of curiosity, when would that distinction be made? They already have different names, MAGA, GOP, Republicans. They have almost completely different ideologies and goals for the country. Where is the line drawn and we go “these are two distinctly different parties”? Is it just when they declare it?
Good question. I’m not sure I have a good answer to that. I do think the republican party as a whole has gotten more extreme in general over the past 6 years.
But, honestly I think a lot of that is a reaction to losing the electoral votes that they used to be able to get. It’s now become a fight for the party to exist, and they’ve decided rather than listening to what people want, they’d rather turn to fascism to hold onto power.
And there’s a good chance they will succeed.
I think the rest of the sane world should just start assuming they are different, kill the brand from the outside.
There’s a huge psyops operation from foreign countries like Russia, China, Vietnam, Iran, maybe more that are actively trying to undermine U.S. democracy, mostly to weaken U.S. influence worldwide.
Countries use propaganda against each other all the time. We do it to them, they do it to us. What doesn’t happen is anti-propaganda and teaching critical thinking skills, which I am learning a lot of people lack.
They are struggling for power over the legacy political machine that comes with the label Republican. Winner has a strong advantage.
This makes the most sense. They are all trying to hang on the the power of “the brand”
I think they have identical goals/ideology, it’s just differences in strategy on getting there. “Regular” conservatives think the exact same as MAGA people, they are just less willing to publicly admit it.
I think a large enough portion of republicans would disagree. The MAGAs break decorum that republicans have kept alive for decades. They have sound bites from 2016 about how picking the orange sandwich was a bad idea. This divide has been forming for years. I think it needs to be pointed out and accentuated.
It’s be such a nice surprise if the end result of this is the House devolving into everyone voting with their ideological caucus and we got more of a coalition system.
Pipe dream. So wish it would happen though…
de-volving? just keep in mind that this parliament is in this f-upd state because a FPTP voting system automatically reduces the amount of parties in a voted group, and see how far down it has brought your country. They have unlearned to communicate and compromise, so they ain’t nothing but mammals.
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Good.
He’s a white supremacist. I actually don’t think he can pull it off. I think that may be a bridge too far for some Republicans. Or at least, I hope it is. And I hope at least 5 feel that way.
I think that may be a bridge too far for some Republicans.
With the way the Republican Party has developed over the past 7-8 years, I wouldn’t bet on it.
The white supremacy is the only thing they like about him.
He is abrasive, weird and profoundly unintelligent. He is simply not one of the cool kids. That is why they don’t like him. Conservatives are much more simple than the public gives them credit for. The racism is the only part about him they actually approve of.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Scalise scored a victory on Wednesday by defeating House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) in the conference’s internal vote to become the GOP nominee for Speaker.
But a second floor fight for the Speakership — a sequel to McCarthy’s marathon battle in January — would come with a dangerous backdrop: a war in Israel and a November government funding deadline, both of which loom over the divided GOP conference.
Republican Reps. Lauren Boebert (Colo.), Bob Good (Va.), Marjorie Taylor Greene (Ga.), Max Miller (Ohio), Nancy Mace (S.C.) and Lloyd Smucker (Pa.) are among those who have said they plan to vote for Jordan.
And some are mad about the successful effort to kill a proposed rule change that would have temporarily raised the threshold to nominate a GOP Speaker candidate from a majority of the conference to 217 members — the number of votes needed to win on the House floor.
Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas), who led that effort to change the rules, said that people who had supported the 217 threshold suddenly flipped after getting pressure from K Street and beyond — and suspected that the whip operation against the amendment came from Scalise’s camp.
“I’ve been very vocal about this over the last couple of days: I personally cannot, in good conscience, vote for someone who attended a white supremacist conference and compared himself to David Duke,” Mace said on CNN.
The original article contains 1,320 words, the summary contains 232 words. Saved 82%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
