Some interesting things are happening at the state level on speakership
Pennsylvania Democrats upended as House speaker flips to independent
The day ended up surprising everyone when state Rep. Jim Gregory (R) of Blair County nominated state Rep. Mark Rozzi (D) of Berks County to be the speaker. The move was seconded by another Republican, Tim O’Neal of Washington County, who said, “We need an independent voice and an independent mind."
State House Majority Leader Joanna McClinton (D) agreed to support him, and within short order, Rozzi was elected speaker of the Pennsylvania state House.
Rozzi then proceeded to flip from Democrat to independent in his acceptance speech. “I am sure a lot of you didn’t see this coming today,” he said, then began discussing the importance of the independent voter in American politics owing to their putting “their fellow man first,” he said.
Rozzi then dropped the bomb no one saw coming that he was no longer going to be a Democrat, adding that he would not caucus with either party and would have staff from both parties.
State House Rep. Rob Mecuri, an Allegheny County Republican who was in the room when it happened, said it was a move no one saw coming. “It was a surprise result to be sure, but if Mr. Rozzi holds to his newly claimed independent status, this could be both an historic and welcome development for both my constituents in District 28 as well as citizens across the commonwealth of Pennsylvania who are looking for a bipartisan approach to our most pressing issues,” he said.
Ohio House Republicans elect surprise speaker with help of Democrats
The Ohio House got things off to an interesting start yesterday. The GOP supermajority previously agreed to elect state Rep. Derek Merrin, R-Monclova Twp., as its new speaker, but a faction of Republicans made a late push for someone else: Rep. Jason Stephens, R-Kitts Hill.
It worked.
Stephens' supporters banded together with Democrats and elected him in a 54-43 vote. Republicans theoretically could have elected a speaker on their own, but their caucus became divided after support for Merrin eroded.
"There was clearly division on the other side, and they needed our votes," House Minority Leader Allison Russo, D-Upper Arlington, said. "We took the opportunity to make sure that we were going to be working with a speaker who we felt like, at the end of the day, would work with us on the issues we could agree on."
If this sounds familiar, it's because the same thing happened when former Rep. Larry Householder was elected as speaker in 2019. Householder's tenure ended in federal corruption charges.
McCarthy did not win on the first round. With a 218 majority needed, the Democrat got 212, McCarthy got 203 votes. There were 19 votes for other candidates against McCarthy.
A second round produced the same result except there were more votes for Jim Jordan who supports McCarthy
Third round is beginning. Update. At the end of the third round there are now 20 votes for Jim Jordan who not only supports but nominated McCarthy.
If this keeps on going, I don't see how Republicans will benefit.
The image is that Republicans are not going to be able to do anything, even elect a speaker
I am reading that the nuttier factions of the Republicans are calling the normies in both parties the "uniparty".
ReplyDeleteI believe this is evidence of the slow crack-up of the GOP. The holdouts have no policy agenda, no alternative candidate, no interest in mutually constructive compromise. They are nihilists, agents of chaos.
ReplyDeleteIf the Republican Party breaks up, I would hope the Democratic Party would follow. Possibly a path forward to a multi-party system. And hopefully one of those parties will want to halve the military budget. >800B is insane. Enough is enough.
ReplyDeleteIf the GOP is breaking up, it's kind of a weird breakup, in this respect: the precedent I have in mind for parties breaking apart, and new parties being spun up, is during the 1-2 decades leading up to the Civil War. The old Whig Party, which for several decades was one half of the national two-party system which prevailed in those days, was finally broken to pieces by the forces pulling and pushing around the uber-issue of that time - slavery. The American Party, aka the Know Nothings, was one of those new parties that was born from the corpse of the Whig Party - it had a brief run with some success and some failures (and Donald Trump's iteration of the GOP may be its spiritual successor). The GOP itself was born during those times. And there were a number of other parties which came and went; you may recall that the 1860 election was a four-party, four-candidate affair.
ReplyDeleteBut what characterized the political turmoil of those times was: what caused people to leave old parties and join new ones was *issues*. People left the Whigs because it no longer could offer a coherent set of policies and principles, and new parties offered more appealing sets of policies and principles.
The GOP crack-up strikes me as different. It's not that different wings of the party are fundamentally disagreeing on issues like the economy or immigration; it's that the traditional wing is still interested in policy and governing, while the new, populist wing is interested in...things other than policy or governing. Certainly, they're interested in acquiring the reins of power. But not to govern. I think a big part of it is getting on right-wing television.
It's like this branch of conservatism has entered this bizarre era of post-governance.
One theory that has been floated to break the tie: apparently there is nothing in the Constitution which requires that the Speaker actually be a member of the House of Representatives. If no member of the GOP conference in the House can win the requisite number of votes, they might consider importing someone from outside the House to be the Speaker.
ReplyDeleteIt's a theory. The fact that it's never been done in the last 240 or so years suggests that it's probably a bad theory.
A few minutes after I wrote that previous comment, I ran across this from David French:
ReplyDelete"As I type this newsletter, the House Republicans are trying—and failing—to elect a speaker of the House. As Brendan Buck wrote yesterday in the New York Times, it’s been 100 years since the House failed to elect a speaker on the first vote. So we’re watching history.
"It’s not the good kind of history to watch, however. It would be one thing if the dispute blocking Kevn McCarthy’s ascension to power centered around competing Republican visions for directing the House and governing the United States. As readers know, there are profound ideological differences within the GOP, and a debate over policy and ideology is well worth having.
"But that’s not what’s happening here. Instead, it’s an unserious fight with serious consequences. McCarthy is getting exactly what he deserves. After January 6, he failed to lead. Instead, he swallowed what was left of his pride and traveled down to Mar-a-Lago to make amends with Donald Trump.
"Yet he’s not being punished for that grotesque capitulation. Instead he’s facing yet another act of “burn it down” disruption from many of the same figures—including Matt Gaetz, Paul Gosar, and Lauren Boebert—who’ve built their entire brands around trolling, rage, and rebellion. "
Btw, in the same newsletter, French announces that he will be joining the NY Times as an opinion columnist at the end of this month. I wonder if that means that one of their teeny-tiny stable of conservative columnists is leaving.
DeleteDavid French has been writing in the Atlantic Magazine lately plus he has had a newsletter. I wonder if he's going to quit the Atlantic. I hope not because I like reading him. I have a subscription to Atlantic, courtesy of my son, and I don't to NYT.
DeleteI think you are right that the burn-it-down branch of the Republicans are not interested in governance. They seem to be more interested in being celebrities and entertainment ( if you can call it that). It seems that some people enjoy watching train wrecks and dumpster fires.
I read French in The Atlantic and get his newsletter. I also have a digital NYT subscription (about $100/ year). I first became aware of French when he was writing for National Review in the run- up to the 2016 election. His work there gave me a tiny bit of hope. I don’t know if he quit because NR had become too extreme on the right or if they pushed him out. After he was gone NR pretty much fell towards the lowest common denominator in conservativism. But he will reach far more people at NYT than he did atNR, so a good thing he’s not at NR anymore. Maybe Douthat will go. French is religious - an evangelical - and he’s way smarter than Douthat. So maybe he can also fill the «religious conservative » slot. However, I will be sad if he has to leave The Atlantic - it has many good writers, including French.
DeleteIf more republicans/conservatives were like French I wouldn’t lie awake at night fearing for what my grandchildren might face in this country when they are adults.
I’m with Stanley - both parties need to breakup and, hopefully, pave the way for a new system that will produce better government. The GOP,has given up on serious policy making and governance. They have a purely power- hungry, vengeance driven agenda. Their « policy » comes down to Own the Libs. For 8 years they did nothing but obstruct Obama. For 8 years they promised to get rid of Obamacare. Well, suddenly the GOP was in charge and the emperor could be seen to have no clothes. No policies, only unbridled lust for power.
"The GOP,has given up on serious policy making and governance. They have a purely power- hungry, vengeance driven agenda. Their « policy » comes down to Own the Libs. For 8 years they did nothing but obstruct Obama. For 8 years they promised to get rid of Obamacare. Well, suddenly the GOP was in charge and the emperor could be seen to have no clothes. No policies, only unbridled lust for power."
DeleteAnne - yes, all of this is spot on.
Besides French's Atlantic gig, he also has a senior position at The Dispatch, a new venture which spun up when he, Jonah Goldberg and one or two others left National Review a few years ago. (If anyone is looking for a locus of responsible conservative commentary, The Dispatch is a good site to check out.) In his newsletter announcement of his new NY Times gig, French also said that he's going to be winding down some/much of his Dispatch responsibilities. He didn't say anything about The Atlantic, so I assume that gig will continue. It's another mainstream-ish publication where he can reach a broader, and probably bigger, audience than NR or The Dispatch.
Another comment on the still-unfolding GOP Speaker debacle: this is from Janan Ganesh in the Financial Times, as quoted by Jim Geraghty's National Review daily newsletter:
ReplyDelete"Drama, more than governmental incompetence, is what stops populists holding power for long. It wasn’t Trump who invaded Iraq. It wasn’t [Boris] Johnson who made a farce of Britain in the financial markets a few months ago. Had each man been more circumspect in style, but no different in their administrative performance, he might be in office yet. But that drama is innate to populism. It can’t be fixed. Bored out of its mind by the technical act of governing, this is a movement that lives on spectacle. . . .
"Put another way, fascism is about winning and doing. Populism is about losing and cocking a snook at the winners. As a movement, it is at its happiest as a large minority of the electorate: enough to sustain its own media ecosystem, provide earning opportunities for grifters and perhaps sway the official policy of the day."
Geraghty goes on to explain that "cocking a snook" = "thumbing a nose".
What I don't get is why McCarthy is still persisting after losing the vote four times. It ought to be obvious by now he isn't winning any popularity contests. If he does somehow manage to win the speakership, it's going to be an uphill battle to get anything done, and he probably isn't going to be in that position long, either because he gets maneuvered out of it, or because he decides %$#@ it. Ask John Boehner how much fun it was.
ReplyDeleteMy pesky day job makes it difficult to follow the events in real time, but I understand McCarthy's record over the last two days is now 0-6, and his bloc has shrunk by at least one. Scalise may be the guy. Or not. Nobody knows how this problem will get solved.
ReplyDelete...and now I'm reading he's 0-11. Apparently he hasn't coaxed a single Republican holdout into his column since this started? I think he's capitulated on everything he has available to capitulate; he reminds of the old stereotype of the guy walking away from the poker game wearing nothing but a barrel held up by suspenders.
ReplyDeleteJim, LOL over that poker game imagery, it's oh so true.
DeleteIf a majority of Republicans and Democrats got together, they could end this power grab by 20 Republicans. Simply alter the rules to allow a plurality of votes to elect the Speaker. That has been done in the past.
ReplyDeleteThe 20 Republicans would have to back McCarthy or lose the Speakership to the Democratic candidate
Unfortunately, we cannot see beyond partisanship. That has led to extremists being able to hold their own party hostage to their positions.
I see that McCarthy has won after the 14th try. He finally got the Preciousss. For all the good it's going to do him.
DeleteAbout the ones holding the party hostage, .my sister called them the "bully caucus". The shoe fits.
"The Precioussss". Yes, haha, it's always about the ring of power.
DeleteMcCarthy's problem with changing the rules to a plurality would have been: the GOP majority is so small that, in the votes in which the 20 rebels were sticking together, Hakeem Jeffries was getting more votes than McCarthy (albeit still not a majority).
Delete