So, Now What House GOP?
Photo by A Yee, CC BY 2.0
Day 20 with no Speaker of the House starts off with Republicans not only far away from electing a new one, but with nine candidates – and maybe more – to sort through.
It’s Day 20 without a House speaker.
It’s hard to fully grasp the scale of this disaster for House Republicans and the Congress as a whole. But one thing is clear — the American public is fed up with the standoff.
Even if GOP lawmakers are able to agree among themselves on a speaker soon — far from guaranteed based on what’s happened during the last several weeks — they’ve now spent the better part of a month on this internecine battle. They’ll have gained nothing while their three most high-profile members — former speaker Kevin McCarthy, Majority Leader Steve Scalise and Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan — have either been ousted or rejected by their colleagues.
And whoever finally gets the speaker’s gavel will preside over a House Republican Conference riven by anger and bitterness. We’re not sure what, if anything, House Republicans can accomplish during the remainder of this Congress.
A reminder — government funding runs out on Nov. 17, while President Joe Biden is seeking $105 billion for wars in Ukraine and Israel, plus aid to Taiwan and new border-security money. The House can’t do anything about any of this until it gets a speaker or a speaker pro tem is elected.
Let’s be clear: We’re doubtful that any of the nine Republicans running can garner 217 votes on the floor.
But we are sure of this — the House will have to act this week. Enough Republicans plus 212 Democrats are out of patience. They want the House back in business ASAP, however it’s done.
Rep. Mike Kelly (R-Pa.) told us on Friday that he’s prepared to offer his resolution to elect Speaker Pro Tem Patrick McHenry to the post if Republicans can’t unite behind a speaker. Rep. David Joyce (R-Ohio) has a similar proposal. That would allow the House to take action on Israel and the other critical issues it faces.
But Kelly and Joyce would need Democratic votes to pass this. So far, Democrats have waited out the internal GOP crisis, saying they’re prepared to act in a bipartisan manner when Republicans are ready. That decision point is rapidly approaching.
The other possibility is reinstalling McCarthy as speaker. We don’t see this as terribly likely. McCarthy’s opposition has probably swelled beyond the original eight conservative hardliners who voted to oust him, despite some very vocal GOP support. And he would want the motion to vacate changed, which would require Democratic help.
The reality is that GOP leaders are going to need Democratic support to avoid a shutdown, pass a new farm bill, reauthorize the FAA or do anything at this point.
So basically, House Republicans are at their last gasp this week. Either they unite behind a speaker or a number of their members will go to the floor and seek Democratic backing to break the stalemate.
State of the race. The top contender — the latest of the trio of elected GOP leaders to mount a bid for speaker — is House Majority Whip Tom Emmer.
We’ll say the same thing about Emmer that we said about House Majority Leader Steve Scalise — he has a very solid whip operation, which gives the Minnesota Republican massive institutional advantages over his rivals. Rep. Guy Reschenthaler (R-Pa.), a newbie to leadership with a good read on the conference, is running Emmer’s race for speaker.
But the fact that nine lawmakers are running signals that Republicans aren’t content with Emmer, and they’re certainly not afraid of him.
For the moment, Emmer is the frontrunner. He’s nearly certain to advance to the second round of voting inside the GOP Conference. His team believes he’ll eventually advance from the conference as the party’s nominee, probably winning in the third or fourth round of voting.
But as we saw with Scalise, strong whip operations don’t mean everything. Former President Donald Trump’s orbit is vehemently opposed to Emmer’s candidacy. Emmer’s team is hoping Trump himself stays neutral publicly, but that seems unlikely. Trump-linked sources are already circulating oppo research on Emmer’s DUI and voting history — including his vote to have the federal government recognize same-sex marriage. Emmer’s team says he’s been loyal to Trump. The Minnesotan backed Trump in 2016 and 2020, while Trump keynoted numerous events for Emmer as NRCC chair.
McCarthy, who previously endorsed Jordan for speaker, has now endorsed Emmer. But remember that these races are intensely personal affairs. Emmer won a very competitive race for whip in January, making enemies with allies to Reps. Jim Banks (R-Ind.) and Drew Ferguson (R-Ga.) in the process.
The lawmakers making calls for Emmer include Reschenthaler, Georgia Rep. Buddy Carter, Kansas Rep. Jake LaTurner and Minnesota Rep. Brad Finstad.
The rules: Republicans will hold a candidate forum today at 6:30 p.m. Then they will begin voting tomorrow.
The election process is relatively straightforward. The lowest vote-getter is booted each round until there’s only one candidate left.
If you have nine candidates, you don’t have any.Report
Election denialism is hurting the GOP as it seeks a speaker.
https://davidpepper.substack.com/p/sore-losers-and-suckersReport
The punchbowl analysis strikes me as accurate. If Jeffires can finesse this it’ll be incredibly helpful for the party but I am hesitant to even think about it for fear of jinxing it.Report
The Republican plan seems to be trying to wiggle out of it by blaming Democrats and this is the one thing they have lock-step discipline on generally.Report
Sure but the GOP can’t get what they need by screeching at the Dems. I am assuming their underpants gnome strategy is:
1. Blame the Dems for bringing down McCarthy.
2. ????
3. A chastised group of moderate Dems contribute enough votes to put in a new right wing Speaker who runs on a platform of stomping his boot on the Dem faces??
It’s nonsensical. The public isn’t going to give a fig that the Dems voted for their own candidate like every minority party in history has done. They especially won’t care for that excuse if the government shuts down in November.Report
The American public has been down on the GOP before for shutdowns but IMO it has never resulted in the kind of loss that needs to happen for the GOP to learn a lesson because of gerrymandering and other issues. The Gerrymander is not good enough to keep the GOP in control of the House forever but it is strong enough to protect the miscreant caucus and more Republicans than not.
I don’t think Republicans will learn unless there is something like 10 or so 2006, 2008, 2018 blue waves in a row. As it stands right now, all Republicans generally need to do is wait two years.Report
And the most likely scenario for 2024 is that Republicans will see only modest losses, most likely due to Dobbs.
In other words, the vast majority of people who voted GOP in 2020 will likely vote GOP in 2024.
So, again, there are no “Moderate” Republican voters. Even the ones who make pleasant mouth noises will enable and nurture the chaos before they pull the lever for any Democrat.
I don’t like this state of affairs but it is a sobering truth. The way we talk about Republicans reminds me of how people talk about the Palestinians, which is to conjure up some imaginary sensible moderates who can be reasoned with and compromised with.
I wish they existed in statistically significant numbers, but I just don’t see any evidence for it.Report
Yeah, it is almost time for an election prediction post…Report
In a sensible world, a situation like this would lead to some kind of compromise/power-sharing agreement with the Democrats. It could occur through enough Republicans joining with 212 Democrats to make Jeffries the Speaker. It could occur through Republicans giving concessions to Democrats in exchange for making someone like Dan Bacon the speaker. Those concessions could be that certain committees have equal number of Democrats and Republicans on them and co-chairs with equal power. Plus probably dropping the bad faith investigations into Biden which are doomed to fail even more than Benghazi.
But we do not live in a sensible world, we live in a world where the 18 or so Republicans in Biden districts fear being primaried from the Right but figure that they can be mealy-mouthed enough on abortion to survive a general against a Democrat but laying it thick on things like crime and inflation. There is also the fact that polarization now means the most moderate Republican is still way more conservative than the most conservative Democrat in Congress and this seems to be enough from preventing either a principled or even a venal switching of sides to give Democrats a thin majority.Report
Can the Democrats put forward someone more moderate than Jeffries?Report
(A) Why should they?
(B) Are there enough Republicans who will vote for someone with a (D) after their name?Report
Demanding a (D) would be bad overreach. The Dems should offer to support an (R) in exchange for modest policy concessions. As Yglesia said: Dems should not give their support away for free but they should be recruitable for cheap.Report
I wasn’t suggesting a Democratic Speaker. Pinky was — just not Hakeem Jeffries. (His objections to Jeffries I will leave as an exercise for the reader.) In any event, I don’t think it possible that enough Republicans will vote for even a Pinky-approved Democrat. That’s probably why almost nobody is suggesting a Democratic Speaker.
Can the Republicans put up a Speaker palatable to Democrats when combined with procedural and policy concessions? They probably could. They probably won’t.Report
What do you think a more moderate Democrat would do, if elected Speaker, that would appease a sufficient number of Republicans? Could a candidate who promised to do those things hold on to enough (D) votes to win?Report
“Keep the gravy train rolling, rolling, rolling.”Report
I don’t think it could happen. But it seemed the sensible question to ask Saul, who wants either one of the most liberal Republicans or one of the most liberal Democrats.Report
Eh, if I were bargaining with the GOP I’d leave the impeachment inquiry and inquiries into Hunter alone. If there’s nothing there, which seems to be the case, then letting the GOP continue to beclown themselves about it isn’t a bad idea plus the flak they’d get from their base for closing that element down would be so bad they’ve be virtually assured never to agree to it.
Better to empower the current temp speaker in exchange for budget bills along the debt ceiling bill lines and aid to Israel and Ukraine; anything more than that’d be gravy.Report
I was going to disagree with this, citing the fact that GOP lawmakers who have discretely admitted they have nothing actionable on either Joe or Hunter Biden nevertheless loudly crow about “New Evidence!” every week or so get amplified by the FOX and leave people like my ConservaBoomers quite convinced that the President is corrupt and his son is the money mule.
But upon further reflection, no, some sort of deal that brought those Nothingburger Inquiries to a close would be cited by those same not-beholden-to-facts lawmakers and amplified again by the FOX into “A corrupt deal to protect themselves and their corrupt leader!” and then it would just be more proof that the Democratic party (strike that, it’d be “Democrat Party,” no “-ic” at the end to turn it into an insult) is all in on the grift. So yeah, I think just leave those open now, and await the hoisting upon the petard.Report
Your thoughts and mine align quite precisely counsellor. To give the GOP something to shut those inquiries down is to give them a pair of massive gifts; the gift of whatever they get PLUS the gift of the inquiries being shut down and all the messaging they could do on it. It would be an ultimate self own for the Dems.
No. I would not pay a bent nickel to end those inquiries. Even the BSDI media struggles to hold in their contempt each time one of those inquiries loses their minds over the equivalent of a torn subway coupon that Hunter had in his wallet in ’14.Report
Think of it in terms of bargaining with both sides: you don’t care how a majority of votes is assembled, simply that a majority agrees to vote for you as Speaker and some set of bills you’ll bring to the floor. What bills would you propose?
I’d settle for (1) six-month continuing resolution, (2) an aid bill with some combination of Ukraine/Israel/Taiwan/domestic disasters, and (3) FAA authority to enforce their rules. The majority that’s going to vote for me can bang out the aid bill on their own. It would be nice if they passed some sort of stipend for my personal expenses, since I’m not a member of the House and don’t have that salary. Pass those bills, and I’ll recess until Jan 3, 2024. Enjoy your holidays, y’all :^)Report
A Republican would need to find the Democratic votes and get Jeffries to allow his caucus to vote their consciences. For the former, there could be an array of deals for districts with a large Jewish population, or lots of agriculture, or a recent influx of immigrants. And there’s always room for informal agreements to run bad, underfunded candidates against Democrats in purple districts. Any one of these would look tacky, but if they were all made at once they could pull in up to half of Democrats, easily enough to overturn the one-man veto as well.
For Jeffries, he’d be smart to permit it just for the purple district promise alone, but he could ask for more and probably get it. Something procedural.
Under these circumstances, the Republican candidate would be smart to promise to retire from leadership or possibly the House in 2025. Everybody gets cover.Report
Yeah you’re both right. There are a ton of deals to be made and with the Dems showing marked discipline it’d be pretty easy to get the business all the moderates and the Dems want done with only 30 or so GOP votes for cover.
And watching the right fringe absolutely lose their minds over it would be a bonus.Report
I will also point out that any civilized system would deal with something like the House paralysis by installing a “caretaker government” and then having snap elections. Belgium went something like three years with a caretaker government and civil servants administering things. However, our Constitution can theoretically mean that this can continue until November 2024 or beyond because there is no mechanism for calling snap elections or installing a caretaker government.
I don’t think they intended for this to happen but it is a kind of win-win scenario for the ultra-right wing Republicans in super-red districts who wanted the Government to shut down and who will not suffer any negative blowback if the Government shuts down.Report
When the SSI, social security and Medicaid checks stop they will suffer blow back. When government contractors run out of money and can’t get new invoices paid they will suffer blow back.Report
Most other governments are smart enough where they don’t shut down basic forms of governance if a budget doesn’t get passed.Report
It is worth noting that even Congress — well, past Congresses at least — were smart enough to permanently appropriate some things. SS and Medicare roll on through the shutdowns. I suspect that DoD would have acquired some minimum permanent appropriation along the way except that the Constitution forbids it.Report
Oh there will be a great many things continuing, all done by people who aren’t getting paid.Report
My son’s girlfriend and he spent a great deal of effort this past summer deciding whether she should accept an offer from the U of Wyoming to lead one of their climate study groups. There were a variety of pluses and minuses, but one of the important ones was that she would no longer be under the threat of her NCAR/NOAA-based pay* stopping for an indeterminate time. I’ll see them again in November and will find out how they’re dealing with Wyoming.
* Two shutdowns ago was actually easy. She was working on a contract from DoD, whose funding has been appropriated, that said, “improved weather forecasting software”. In private conversations off the record, DoD had said “Be sure the code can be quickly turned around to support improved climate modeling.”Report
So the thing is if the contracts or university doing the work has already been forward funded, they can do the work when we shut down. And most of our offices forward fund for precisely this reason.Report
“I have many wonderful friends wanting to be Speaker of the House, and some are truly great Warriors. RINO Tom Emmer, who I do not know well, is not one of them. He never respected the Power of a Trump Endorsement, or the breadth and scope of MAGA–MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN! He fought me all the way, and actually spent more time defending Ilhan Omar, than he did me–He is totally out-of-touch with Republican Voters. I believe he has now learned his lesson, because he is saying that he is Pro-Trump all the way, but who can ever be sure? Has he only changed because that’s what it takes to win? The Republican Party cannot take that chance, because that’s not where the America First Voters are. Voting for a Globalist RINO like Tom Emmer would be a tragic mistake!”Report
One wonders how this plays. Emmer is no moderate.Report
Emmer seems to be going down before he can get a floor vote: https://www.cnn.com/politics/live-news/house-speaker-vote-10-24-23/index.html
The crux of the problem is that there are eight or so Republicans in super-red districts that really don’t care if the Federal Government does not function until January 2025 or later. The rest of the GOP is too scared of being primaried to make a deal with DemocratsReport
The other part of the problem is even now, with no appropriations bills on the table, much of the federal government won’t actually shut down. Whether forecasters will still deliver forecasts, the FBI will still investigate crimes. Medicaid claims will still get paid. Some DoD civilians will report to work supporting the uniforms, who will all be working. All unpaid of course. Which will cool the public into thinking government does not intact need to cost as much as it does or be as big.Report
Mike Johnson of Louisiana has won the gavel with 220 votes. Now we will see if he can govern his caucus.Report