The Freedom Caucus Revisited: Putting McCarthy on a RIGHT THINGS to the epoch of Speakership

But McCarthy’s detractors said it’s an issue very much still on the table and think he may end up needing to embrace it if he still doesn’t have the speaker votes by January 3. GOP sources told CNN there’s potential room to negotiate to give members more power to call for a vote to oust the speaker – perhaps by allowing the vote to occur if a certain number of members call for one, rather than allowing a single lawmaker to call for a vote as the hardliners want.

“I’ve heard from multiple of my constituents who question the wisdom of proceeding forward with that leadership,” Biggs said, adding that there needs to be a “frank conversation” about who they elect for the top job.

Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado said it was a “red line” for her, but not everyone in the Freedom Caucus is united on whether to make that a hard line.

But the group’s push to extract concessions from McCarthy has exacerbated tensions inside the party. One GOP lawmaker said that they are a bunch of selfish people who want to get the attention of other people. They are trying to balance effectiveness with warm embrace of their social media followers.

The Virginia Republican also predicted that “there will be a challenge to (McCarthy) as a speaker candidate,” a possibility that CNN first reported was under consideration by the group.

CNN has yet to project which party will have control of the House of Representatives, though as of Friday morning, CNN has projected that Republicans have 211 seats to Democrats’ 198.

The Norman Family: Politics, Politics and Politics of the House, Senate, and Senate Minority Voting Commission (PWPLC)

Norman said the group hopes to formalize a lengthier list of all the rules changes they are seeking. They are also pushing to delay next week’s internal leadership elections, though there is no indication McCarthy plans to do so.

The taxpayers who voted for the representatives deserve the credit, according to Norman.

More than any potential first-time speaker in the past 30 years, McCarthy had more GOP-held seats to work with. If he couldn’t get the 218 votes then under much more favorable circumstances, one might wonder how he can get to 218 now?

Gaetz said the C team should not have started with a slim majority. “We need to put our star players in a position to shine brightest so that we can attract more people to our policies and ideas.”

The next Congress will not be in place for another few months, and control of the House will not be decided until January, but Republicans look poised to take over the chamber.

If Pelosi decides to run for the top position in the House Democrats again, it will be clear that she isn’t ready to relinquish her position atop the caucus. Pelosi, a towering figure in Democratic politics, commands widespread support among her members and is viewed as an effective leader within her party.

Republicans are scheduled to hold a candidate forum on Monday evening, followed by leadership elections on Tuesday, November 15, according to a copy of the schedule shared with CNN.

The First Three Months in Congress: How Do We Stand Against McCarthy, Banks, Ferguson, and the Chief Democratic Whip? A Conversation with Ember and Biggs

And if McCarthy does become speaker, his net favorability rating of -19 points among all adults would by far be the worst for any first-time House speaker in the last 30 years. He’s far more unpopular than either Gingrich (-9 points) or Pelosi (+18 points) were among all Americans when they were first elected speaker. Both of them later became political targets for the minority party to exploit.

House Democratic leadership elections have been announced for Wednesday, November 30. Voting will take place behind closed doors via secret ballot using an app.

The candidate for the position of Democratic leadership needs to get the majority of the votes to be elected. If more than two candidates run and no one wins a majority, the candidate with the fewest votes after the first round of voting will be eliminated and voting will proceed to a second round. Until one candidate wins a majority, that process continues.

He’ll face at least one opponent: Rep. Andy Biggs of Arizona, a former chair of the far-right House Freedom Caucus. Biggs announced on Newsmax on Monday night that he would run against McCarthy, while acknowledging it would be “tough” to beat someone who has “raised a lot of money” to elect his colleagues.

Emmer is running against Reps. Jim Banks of Indiana, the Republican Study Committee chair, and Drew Ferguson of Georgia, the chief deputy Whip, for the post.

Ember said that he still plans to run, but he didn’t know if a smaller majority would affect his bid. But his pitch to members is similar to McCarthy’s, saying: “we delivered.”

Meanwhile, Rep. Jim Banks of Indiana, a Trump ally and the head of the conservative Republican Study Committee, also officially declared his candidacy for the whip’s position. And Rep. Drew Ferguson of Georgia, the current deputy whip, is also vying for the post, arguing that his experience on the whip’s team will be even more valuable in a slimmer majority, where the chief vote counting job will be crucial for governing.

“Of course. California Democrat told Bash that people were campaigning, and that was a beautiful thing. I am not asking anyone for anything. My members want me to do that. But, again, let’s just get through the election.”

The Party of Leaders: The Case Against Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, Sen. J.C. McConnell During the Senate Majority Leader Elections

House majority leader is a position that Jim Clyburn is currently in, as well as being the House majority whip. Massachusetts Rep. Katherine Clark serves in the role of assistant Speaker and New York Rep. Hakeem Jeffries serves as House Democratic caucus chair.

Colorado congressman, Joe Neguse, has announced that he will seek the caucus chair to replace Jeffries who is term limited.

The race to lead the party’s campaign arm, DCCC chair, is starting to take shape up after the current chair Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney of New York lost his reelection.

Democratic Rep. Tony Cardenas of California announced his race for the spot on Friday but others are being floated as well including Reps. Ami Bera and Sara Jacobs of California.

Trump reaffirmed his support for McCarthy’s leadership bid in an interview with Fox News last week and he has since been working the phones to persuade Republican allies to back him, particularly conservative members who remain skeptical of McCarthy.

McCarthy has worked hard to court Greene, from having weekly meetings with her in his office to promising her better committee assignments after Democrats kicked her off committees for incendiary remarks.

A different GOP source said that Trump has been asking for support from Republicans in order to lock up endorsements from the GOP caucus in the media. So far, House GOP Conference Chair Elise Stefanik has been the highest-ranking Republican to officially back Trump’s 2024 bid.

A small, but vocal, group of GOP senators has been calling to delay their leadership elections so they can have a “family discussion” about why the GOP underperformed. One of the republican senators has publicly pledged to oppose McConnell’s bid for GOP leader.

As his team prepares to conduct leadership elections on Wednesday, McConnell has been calling his colleauges to shore up his support. They are planning to have a GOP air-clearing session on Tuesday.

McCarthy is trying to find a compromise that will satisfy his critics enough to earn their vote as speaker, but still be reasonable to the rest of the House GOP.

A compromise on the motion to vacate – which McCarthy previously said he would not budge on – could be key to unlocking the votes he needs to secure the speakership. And his willingness to negotiate on the issue also shows how desperate McCarthy is to seal the deal, even if it means giving away some of his power.

Rep. Bob Good, who said McCarthy faces “an uphill climb” to the speakership, said they’ve asked McCarthy to bring to them his proposal for running the House.

The Conversation About Kevin McCarthy and the Resurrection of the House Intelligence Committee: a Congressional Perspective on the Legacy of a Broken American Society

Perry said that while their primary focus has been seeking rules changes that would empower individual members – and weaken the speaker – that is “not the limit” of their issues.

He wants to see this place change dramatically, to reflect the will of the people and to acknowledge how broken it is. It is incumbent on anyone who wants to lead to lay out their vision and how they would change their portion of it.

Kevin McCarthy is hoping to succeed Speaker Pelosi even though he failed to pick up many votes in the election, a result that led to a search among conservatives for a challenger.

Idaho GOP congressman Mike Simpson said he will vote for McCarthy for leader. “He’s done a good job,” said Simpson.

“It’s not only delaying that,” McCarthy said of recruiting GOP candidates. “It’s being prepared to not only defend the majority, but grow the majority.”

During a closed-door leadership candidate forum on Monday, Virginia Rep. Bob Good, a McCarthy critic, complained that a Super PAC aligned with McCarthy opposed some pro-Trump candidates, and criticized McCarthy for not calling to congratulate him when he won his primary, according to a source in the room. McCarthy said he directed $2 million to Good. Good had to be cut off from speaking so they could ask a question, the source said.

At the private intraparty meeting, McCarthy received a standing ovation from his colleagues. McCarthy has said that if elected he would kick Democrats off the House Intelligence Committee. He made clear that he was responsible for returning the Republicans to power.

Two sources familiar with the conversation say that McCarthy’s allies have been attempting to convince moderate Henry Cuellar to switch parties in hopes of padding their slim margins. Cuellar flatly rejected the idea. (McCarthy’s spokesman said the GOP leader was not involved if these conversations took place and said this is not in any way part of their strategy for the majority or for his speakership bid.)

At the private forum, Minnesota Rep. Tom Emmer, the National Republican Congressional Committee chair, was pressed on his vote in support of a bill to codify same-sex marriage earlier this year, according to a source in the room. He stated that these divisive social issues shouldn’t be brought to the House floor.

Kevin McCarthy made a promise that he wouldn’t quit the speakership race even if the fight goes to many ballots on the floor.

If GOP hardliners refuse to bend, he would be willing to work with Democrats to find another more moderate Republican to secure the 218 votes needed to become speaker.

“If at some point, if Kevin did take his name out, then you would have good people (running). Scalise would probably be the guy,” one GOP lawmaker said.

Scalise has repeatedly vowed to support McCarthy and refused to speculate on whether he would jump into the race if the GOP leader can’t get the votes.

“No, I’m not going to get into speculation at this time,” he told CNN. Our main focus is to get it resolved by January 3. Kevin has talked with the members who have expressed concerns.

Even though Gaetz and others have urged him to seek the speakership, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-GA) decided against jumping into the race even though he was set to become the chair of the House Judiciary Committee.

After leaving a meeting with McCarthy in his office on Wednesday, a South Carolina Republican said that he would vote for Andy for speaker. He later added: “All this is positive. We are having good change regardless of what happens. And you’ll see more of it.”

In addition to those five, a new group of seven Republican hardliners on Thursday laid out a list of conditions to earn their vote, although they did not specifically threaten to vote against McCarthy if their demands aren’t met.

McCarthy has begun brokering some rules changes to empower rank-and-file members and vowed to boot some Democratic lawmakers from their committees and sketched out a plan for his investigation into Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.

And the anti-McCarthy group is also still pressing for a process that would allow any single member to hold a floor vote on ousting the sitting speaker, which was wielded over former Speaker John Boehner before he was forced out of the job by the far right in 2015.

McCarthy has been adamantly opposed to restoring the “motion to vacate the chair,” and a majority of the House GOP voted against the idea during a during a closed-door meeting last month. McCarthy was asked if he would visit the issue, but he laughed and refused to answer.

“I think that’s one of the reasons that we didn’t see a red wave … the idea that people are sick and tired of the noise, and they’re sick and tired of the fighting,” Rep. David Joyce, an Ohio Republican, said of the impact of a January 3 floor fight. “And I know I get that wherever I go in my district is, ‘why can’t you guys just get things done?’”

In the first days of the new Republican-controlled Congress, there could be a huge confrontation with the White House over Biden’s spending plans and domestic agenda, because members are committed to cutting Biden’s spending plans and domestic agenda. McCarthy might use a confrontation to shore up his vote in the speakership campaign because it’s a high risk but could backfire with a national electorate.

Some Democrats have said they would entertain the idea, including Rep. Henry Cuellar, a moderate Democrat from Texas who told CNN some of his GOP colleagues have approached him “informally” about it.

Joyce also said some members have reached out to him about potentially running, but he dismissed it. Kevin is the new speaker at the end of the day.

Hakeem Jeffries said there were no behind the scenes conversations about putting up an alternative candidate. If McCarthy wasn’t able to get the votes, the caucus would helpelect the next speaker.

Jeffries said Democrats were in the process of organizing the conference. The Republican Conference is being organized. Let us see what happens on January 3.

There are some people who voted for impeachment of Donald Trump and others that voted for bipartisan problem-solving.

But that would require agreement from every single Democrat and the help of five Republicans – no easy feat. He will be skiing, and he has no plans to come to Washington that day.

But Republican Rep. Bruce Westerman said this has happened before – nearly a decade ago in his state where minority Democrats in the Arkansas legislature joined forces with a handful of Republicans to elect a GOP speaker of their choice. Westerman privately made this case to his colleagues at a closed-door meeting this week.

The 2012 Capitol Instability: What Donald Trump really wants to see in the next Congress and what he can do about it, and why he shouldn’t

Westerman said he was concerned about not being able to form a congress and organize committees in time to push policy objectives on January 3.

Westerman added that the discussion over changing House rules is good for the party. But he added: “I’m not really excited about any type of destructive movement.”

The tiny GOP House majority that takes over in January, after a disappointing midterm performance, would mean a fragile governing mandate for any party at any point in American history. The ideological struggle being waged by pro-Donald Trump extremists inside the party would make even a comfortable majority volatile.

McCarthy’s increasingly bitter campaign for the speakerSHIP threatens to leave him as a tool of the most radical members in his conference and could result in him not being able to hold the job in the long term.

The California Republican is fighting a rearguard battle against members who want to make it easier to remove a speaker because he only has a small political power base.

The steps McCarthy is taking to try to secure the speakership – and the future complications that may entail – were evident on Tuesday when he gave Greene, the Georgia Republican, a pass for her latest effort to mock the trauma of the Capitol insurrection. The congresswoman had said over the weekend that had she been in charge on January 6, 2021, the riot would have succeeded and the mob would have been armed. She later insisted she was being sarcastic after the White House complained her comments were a “slap in the face” to law enforcement and against fundamental US values.

Why is the tussle at the end of the year so critical for the future of the government? A question that McCarthy has not done anything wrong with Fuentes

This is one reason why the current year-end tussle over whether to fund the government for a full year – a bipartisan framework agreement for which was announced Tuesday night – or for just a few months is so critical since it could dump a fiscal crisis on the lap of a weak and easily manipulated new speaker next month.

Asked by CNN’s Manu Raju on Tuesday about Greene’s latest inflammatory comments, McCarthy shrugged them off: “Oh, I think she said she was being facetious,” the possible future speaker answered. His attitude was not a surprise; it was consistent with his attempts to rewrite the history of the worst attack on US democracy in modern times, for which he briefly said Trump bore responsibility.

McCarthy declined to criticize the former president for meeting with a white supremacist who had made antisemitic comments while he was in office, instead opting to allow the former president to meet with someone else. In a histrionic performance at the White House after meeting Biden and other congressional leaders last month, the House Republican leader falsely claimed that Trump had condemned Fuentes four times, when he hadn’t done so once.

CNN’s Raju and Melanie Zanona reported Tuesday that McCarthy had signaled at the White House meeting that he’d be open to a large bill. But while Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell worked on such a measure Tuesday and declared it “broadly appealing,” McCarthy told his members that he was a “Hell no” on the measure.

The split will likely lead to more strained relations between Republicans in the House and McConnell, which could make it harder for GOP senators to vote for a spending deal now.

“Well, we’re still continuing to talk, but they have not moved,” McCarthy told conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt. The difficulty here is that we are the only Republican entity that has stopped the Biden administration. We are going to be the only ones who are able to move forward. But it would delay everything, getting committees up and running, being able to do the things that you know we need to get done from the very beginning.”

McCarthy warned that some decisions on legislating and investigating would be in jeopardy because of the threats from detractors, including getting a new committee on China up and running. McCarthy can only afford to lose four GOP votes on January 3, assuming all members are in attendance and vote for a specific member.

As five GOP members warned they may vote as a bloc on January 3, McCarthy made a dire warning.

I know that it would be difficult for them to keep up with unfinished business this year and next year, because they have a narrow majority.

The silly season of a campaign is continuing. For most of us, that’s over after you get elected. But he’s running for speaker of the House, so the silliness is still evident,” he said.

Some of McCarthy’s fiercest critics told CNN that they think the five-seat threshold is too high, showing how much McCarthy faces in securing the speakership.

A five-person threshold, however, may be too low for the moderate wing of the party, some of whom have privately suggested they would be willing to agree on a 50-person threshold.

The Devil Is in the Details: The First-time Speakers of the House GOP had fewer seats than their Partymate had power of incumbency

All of this will be a major topic of discussion during a crucial conference call on Friday afternoon that McCarthy scheduled with the various ideological caucuses in the House GOP, just four days ahead of the January 3 speaker’s vote.

The devil is in the details, said Norman. People wont vote until the details are spelled out and sealed with social media posts.

Indeed, all other potential first-time House speakers in the last 90 years had at least 230 seats in their majority. Speakers whose party held fewer seats than that all had the power of incumbency (i.e., having been elected to the position at least once before).

A CNN/SSRS poll last month found that his net favorable (i.e. favorable minus unfavorable) rating was +30 points among Republicans. That is not bad. (Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell has notoriously low ratings among Republicans.) But a net favorability rating of +30 points isn’t really good either.

McCarthy has the second-lowest net favorability rating among his own party members of all first-time potential speakers in the last 28 years. Only Gingrich’s +24 points in late 1994 was lower. Net favorability ratings above 50 points for Pelosi in 2006 and late 2010 stood out among party faithful.

Is All This GOP Angst Really a Consolation Prize for Democrats after the GOP Voting Cut Cut-Split?

Either way, all of this GOP angst is a pretty decent consolation prize for Democrats after losing the House majority. They are watching a Republican Party that is struggling to find its footing following a bad midterm for the opposition party.