Rep. Steve Scalise is dropping out of the speaker’s race after House Republicans failed to coalesce behind him in the aftermath of Kevin McCarthy’s historic ouster.
House Republicans met behind closed-doors for more than two hours Thursday afternoon, where the Majority leader urged his detractors to explain their opposition to him in front of the conference. After the meeting ended, Scalise huddled with those opposed to him in his office. And Republicans scheduled a second members-only conference meeting for Thursday evening.
But the opposition to Scalise as the next speaker only grew Thursday, with roughly 20 Republicans publicly opposing him. Scalise needs a majority of the House to be elected speaker, meaning he can only afford to lose four votes.
I’ve unpinned the Megapost as it’s more clear than ever that the US House is completely rudderless.
Will re-pin if that changes.
Be ready to not pin it for a while
Sure looks that way, doesn’t it?
Democrats should start quietly approaching moderate Republicans and go:
"Look… Vote for Jeffries. Yeah, yeah, you’ll lose your next election, but that’s just tearing the band-aid off.
"You know your caucus is a shit show, we know it’s a shit show, everyone knows it’s a shit show, and the majority of your voters have lost their minds. You’re trying to hold a coalition of sane and insane Republicans together, and that’s a political dead-end anyway.
“So go out with a bang, by doing the right thing and saving our country. We got so much bad shit going on in the world right now, we need a functional House. End your political career on an act you can be proud of.”
What I’m naively optimistic for is a center Republican to come forward with a deal with center house Dems and a few center Reps and create a coalition governments.
Basically trade a few committee seats and offer a floor vote on a couple Dem bills.
They don’t even have to guarantee passage. And everyone can win the messaging when the bills don’t pass. GOP can say they are “fighting DEM spending and waste” DEM can say “they are trying to make your life better but those dirty GOP are ruining it”
Word leaked that the dems had 1 yea vote from the GOP. That could just be a savvy operative acting as a chaos agent, but it could be that has already started to happen.
I would expect best case they would gavel him in only to “get shit done” with Israel to take the pressure off, but it’s possible.
They shouldn’t use Jefferies. They should put up a Democrat like Angie Craig (D, MN), Don Davis (D, NC) or Bishop Sanford (D, GA) a significantly more “blue dog style” Democrat that a R who votes for can go back to their state and justify woth something like, “There are Republicans who are just there to muck things up. I had a choice between a moderate Democrat who could free us up to assist Israel and Ukraine now or a Republican who would take months to confirm if ever!” You can defend that politically, especially in a farm state like Nebraska or Kansas where that type of pragmatism is still culturally values.
Not a bad idea. It also shows a willingness to compromise and work across the aisle from Democrats, which is a striking difference from the Republican mess. I don’t expect Republicans to take it, but it’s important to show people that Democrats want to act in good faith here.
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Posting again.
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.
Pj o’rourke
Put another way, dems only need 4 to get minority control of the speakership….
… why the hell they’re not negotiating, I dunno….
GOP needs to exhaust every bad option before doing the right thing.
“Americans can always be trusted to do the right thing, once all other possibilities have been exhausted” -Winston Churchill
Also, Winston Churchill: “Fuck those Indians and Africans”
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House minority leader Jeffries has said they are open to negotiating, but the republicans aren’t going to allow a democrat as leader when they have the majority. As dysfunctional of a majority it is. Maybe in 3 weeks as time starts running out we’ll get closer to across the aisle talks. But things are so partisan now that the rep base will eat their own people alive if they dare gasp compromise.
After reading the politico article about the right wing media, I’m kinda tempted to call into Mark Levin’s show to congratulate him on pushing the Republican party towards the fate of the Whig party.
That facist fuck was the catalyst that pushed all of the radio, TV, and online right wing forums into Cuckoo land.
“If you see smoke it’s not a speaker, someone just set the place on fire,” GOP Rep. Ronny Jackson with a literally 🔥 vibe check.
This for the folks that have forgotten, was trumps whitehouse doctor that said he may live to 200 because hes so healthy, and was credibly accused by the Pentagon of being drunk on the job and of sexual harrasment of staff. He resigned, and then won a seat in congress in Texas.
So if yall motherfuckers ever thought of running for congress and gave up for literally any reason, just remember old “harrassy drunky doc” and try again.
He traded his last shred of dignity for the seat but most normal people would pull their punches and keep their dignity.
Who do they even go to, Emmer the majority whip? Has he been House of Cards-ing everybody this whole time?
Can’t send military aid to Israel while the house is speaker-less. By the time a speaker gets chosen, we might not want to send (military) aid.
Another one bites the dust
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Republicans are worried that Scalise is facing grim prospects of becoming speaker, an impasse that threatens to prolong the GOP’s leadership crisis that has left the House paralyzed and unable to move on any legislation.
Former President Donald Trump, who endorsed Jordan, was sour on Scalise’s speakership candidacy in a Fox News Radio interview, pointing to the House majority leader’s recent cancer diagnosis.
As the number of holdouts has trended in the wrong direction, some House Republicans are weighing whether it is time to move onto other options as the pressure mounts to address pressing needs like the war in Israel and government funding.
Another idea that came up during the closed door conference meeting was whether Republicans should try to expand the powers of interim Speaker Patrick McHenry of North Carolina, so the House can pass legislation, like a resolution for Israel, multiple lawmakers told CNN.
A group of more centrist Republicans are circulating a letter asserting that McHenry should have more temporary power, sources told CNN – a sign of desperation as the GOP scrambles to coalesce around a speaker.
On Wednesday, Rep. Anna Paulina Luna said after meeting with Scalise that she felt “comfortable” enough to support his speaker nomination, after he spoke to her about the Oversight Committee’s impeachment investigation into President Joe Biden.
The original article contains 1,537 words, the summary contains 218 words. Saved 86%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
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And he was the frontrunner. The only other person running was Jordan, with way less support.
With how fractioned the House Republicans are right now, Democrat support for Hakeem Jeffries technically makes him the frontrunner right now even without the majority.
Not that that matters, since a majority is needed. It will make next month and the expiry of the 45 day budget bill extension interesting if there’s no Speaker to even bring it to a vote.
How many Republicans would be to vote for Jeffries? Seems like about 15-20 Democrats would need to support Scalise for him to get the vote.
Exactly. Less than a hands worth are needed to flip things the other way. Let’s hope there’s still enough Tuesday-type Republicans to get that to happen.
