Kevin McCarthy and Five Families: Towards a Fair Report of the Voting Process in the U.S. House of Representatives

Six Republican sources said that Kevin McCarthy agreed to reduce the threshold used to force a floor vote on ousting the speaker during private conversations this week.

Multiple of my citizens question the wisdom of going forward with that leadership, I want to have afrank conversation about who they choose 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.

McCarthy’s Friday afternoon call was with the so-called “Five Families,” who represent the various ideological groups in the House GOP. The California Republican outlined some demands he would be willing to give in to such as establishing a broad investigative panel and looking into the Biden administration.

McCarthy is not out yet, say his allies. “He’s playing the inside game to win the vote for speaker. “He knows exactly how to do that,” said former Speaker of the House Paul Ryan. I wouldn’t put him out of his misery even if he knew how to play a vote counting game.

The battle for control of the House is now the biggest unanswered question of this year’s midterm elections after Democrats kept their narrow Senate majority. According to CNN projections, Republicans have won over two thirds of the seats that they would need to take the majority.

The Role of the C Team in House Rules Changes: The Case for a Small Majority or a Supermajority?

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.

When asked whether McCarthy should get credit for delivering the majority, Norman responded: “The taxpayers that voted the representatives in deserve the credit.”

Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida, one of the five “hard no” votes, said on the call he would not be backing McCarthy, despite all the demands that he has given in to. Some of McCarthy’s concessions were called insufficient by a group of nine hardliners and they did say that progress is being made.

“With a slim majority, we shouldn’t be starting the C team,” Gaetz said. “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.”

Nancy Pelosi, the current House speaker, doesn’t know what her next move will be. Speculation has intensified in Washington over her political future and whether she will run again for the top leadership spot for House Democrats or if she will instead decide to step aside as a new generation of potential leaders waits in the wings.

“Of course. The California Democrat told Bash that people are campaigning and that’s a beautiful thing. “And I’m not asking anyone for anything. My members are asking me to consider doing that. But, again, let’s just get through the election.”

A lot is at stake because we will be in a presidential election. So my decision will again be rooted in the wishes of my family and the wishes of my caucus. All of it will not be considered until we know what the outcome of this is. And there are all kinds of ways to exert influence.”

Pelosi said she wants to see the election results before deciding if McCarthy has what it takes to be Speaker of the House.

I think we should get through the election. They haven’t won yet. They’ve been measuring the draperies, they’ve been putting forth an agenda. They haven’t won it yet. After the election is concluded, depending on who was in the majority, there’ll be judgments made within their own party, in our own parties, as to how we go forward,” Pelosi said.

“Why would I make a judgment about something that may or may not ever happen? No, I don’t think he has it,” she said. “But that’s up to his own people to make a decision as to how they want to be led or otherwise.”

Paul Pelosi, a Democratic Candidate in the California House of Representatives, and the Reaction of the Republican Party on the Electoral Campaign

Pelosi said that she was proud of the Democratic candidates for reelection and the red- to-blue ones, and that she would have rather seen the wave turn into a tiny trickle.

The speaker was asked if the attack on her husband had an impact on the election. Paul Pelosi was attacked in the couple’s San Francisco home late last month and needed surgery to repair a skull fracture and injuries to his hand and arm that were sustained during the attack.

It was more than just the attack. Nancy Pelosi said the attack was horrible and it was the Republican’s reaction. I mean, imagine what I feel as the one who was the target and my husband paying the price and the traumatic effect on our family.”

She attributed the trauma to the Republicans’ disrespectful attitude, and the horrible response they gave it.

“Each day takes us closer to recovery. It’s a long haul, but he’s doing well, comforted by the good wishes and especially the prayers of so many people throughout the country,” she said. “We thank them all for that. And again, so many who said, ‘I’m going to be sure to vote because this has gone too far.’”

The polarization crisis in the House and Senate is going to make sense, but I am not going to take anything away from my desk,” Scott said

House and Senate Republicans are gearing up for a tense series of closed-door meetings this week as the GOP grapples with what went wrong in the midterms and decides the political fate of its current leaders, who are under fire following last week’s disappointing election results.

McConnell has a relationship with the Senate Minority Leader. GOP sources told CNN last week that Trump is calling up his allies in the Senate to gin up opposition to the Kentucky Republican ahead of leadership elections in that chamber Wednesday.

He will be facing at least one opponent. Andy Biggs of Arizona, who chairs 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.

Florida Sen. Rick Scott, the chair of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, is among those calling for a delay in the Senate leadership election scheduled for Wednesday, saying it “doesn’t make any sense” to have them this week.

“A lot of people have called me to see if I’ll run,” Scott said. “Here’s my focus, is we still got to win Georgia. I am not going to take anything away from the table.

The Party of Donald Trump and the House Minority Whist Ranking: The Case for Left-Right Scattering in the November 2016 Midterm Elections

Trump aides and allies have privately criticized the head of the national Republican congressional committee, despite the GOP’s underwhelming gains during the mid-term elections. CNN has not yet projected which party will control the lower chamber, though Republicans appear on track to gain a narrow House majority. Emmer is competing against Rep. Jim Banks, an ally of Donald Trump Jr., for the position of House GOP whip.

Behind the scenes, the finger pointing has already begun, and those conversations are likely to accelerate as the full House and Senate return to Washington this week for the first time since the midterm elections.

Several of the candidates picked by Trump failed in key Senate races that helped decide control of the Senate. Plus McConnell’s super PAC spent more than any other group in Senate races – while Trump’s group spent a tiny fraction of that – a realty not lost on the Kentucky Republican’s allies.

“There’s a very high correlation between MAGA candidates and big losses,” said retiring Pennsylvania Republican Sen. Pat Toomey. “I think my party needs to face the fact that if fealty to Donald Trump is the primary criteria for selecting candidates, we’re probably not going to do really well.”

McConnell and Scott have also been publicly at odds all election cycle when it comes to strategy, with McConnell sounding the alarm about candidate quality while Scott opted to take a hands-off approach in the primaries.

When pressed on whether he would challenge McConnell for the top spot, Scott didn’t rule it out — even though he would have little chance of succeeding.

McCarthy will wait to start cutting deals with conservatives until he sees how the leadership elections play out, according to GOP lawmakers. McCarthy cannot afford to lose any of the lawmakers in the middle, so even that poses some risks.

“Basic political physics says you can’t appease the moderates and HFC all at the same time,” one senior Republican told CNN. You better hope it is not barbed wire, if you straddle that fence.

Donald Trump’s presidential victory realigned the interests of the Republican party. The new leader of the party tested Tea Party style opposition to spending with loyalty tests. McCarthy worked his way in to the good graces of Trump while both Ryan and Trump were at odds with each other. He claimed to The Washington Post that he delivered a jar of the red and pink flavors to the president after seeing that he liked them.

Trump has been eager to lock up public support from Republicans for his third presidential bid, with a separate GOP source saying he has been asking to see which GOP lawmakers have endorsed him in the media. Most of the top Republicans in the House support Trump’s bid for a second term.

A new Congress won’t be sworn in until January and control of the House has not yet been determined, but Republicans appear on track to recapture the chamber and the race to determine who will serve as the next speaker is underway.

A candidate forum will be held on Monday evening, followed by the Republican leadership elections on Tuesday, according to the schedule shared with CNN.

On the Race for the House Caucus Chair: Dennis Hastert, H.N. Livingston, and J.P. Banks

The last potential House speaker with a small majority was Democrat John Nance Garner in 1931. Dennis Hastert was the only first time speaker who came close to McCarthy’s current situation. After Newt Gingrich stepped down after the 1998 elections and his would-be successor Bob Livingston resigned due to revelations of an extramarital affair, Hastert had the advantage of being a compromise choice.

The first election on November 30 will be for the next House Democratic Caucus Chair and whoever is elected to that role will administer the rest of the leadership elections.

To be elected to any position in Democratic leadership, a candidate needs to win a majority among those present and voting. After the first round of voting if more than two candidates run and no one wins a majority, then the candidate with the least votes after the second round will be eliminated. The process goes on until one candidate is able to win a majority.

He doesn’t know if the majority will affect his bid. His pitch to members is similar to McCarthy’s.

Jim Banks of Indiana and Drew Ferguson of Georgia are competing for the post of Republican Study Committee chair.

Jim Clyburn is the House majority whip and the No.2 House Democrat. New York’s Hakeem Jeffries is the House Democratic caucus chair.

Joe Neguse of Colorado has decided to run for caucus chair in order to take over from 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.

Rep. Bob Good, Kevin McCarthy, and the Freedom Caucus: The Uphill Climb in McCarthy’s Amendment Campaign for House Speakership

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.

Several members of the Freedom Caucus met with McCarthy in his office on Monday to try to get concessions in exchange for their speaker votes.

The speakership is dependent on a compromise on the motion to vacate, which McCarthy previously said would not budge on. Even if McCarthy gives up some of his power in order to seal the deal, his willingness to negotiate shows how desperate he is.

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.

While the primary focus has been seeking rules changes that empower individual members and weaken the speaker, that is not the full scope of their issues.

He said they want to see this place change to reflect the will of the people, and acknowledge how broken it is. “It’s incumbent upon anybody that wants to lead to kind of lay out their vision and how they would change their portion of it.”

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy is hoping to pass a crucial test on Tuesday in his campaign to become House speaker despite an underwhelming midterm election performance that launched a search among conservatives for a challenger.

Idaho GOP congressman Mike Simpson said he would support McCarthy for leader. Simpson said that he had done a good job.

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

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 directed $2 million to Good for his race. A source said Good had to be given down so they could move on to the next question.

At the private intraparty meeting, McCarthy received a standing ovation from his colleagues. A source in the room said that McCarthy promised to take away power from Democrats if elected. And he mentioned his role in bringing Republicans to power.

Sources familiar with the conversation said that McCarthy and his allies were trying to convince moderate Henry Cuellar to switch parties. The idea was rejected by Cuellar. The GOP leader was not involved in these conversations as part of their strategy for the majority or for his speakership bid, said McCarthy’s spokesman.

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. His response: “These divisive social issues shouldn’t be brought to the House floor.”

How Kevin McCarthy Invented Lottery Games: Why the Young Guns Are Ready to Make History,” he recalled in 2005 interview with CSPAN

Kevin McCarthy claims that his political career began when he gambled in the California Lottery as a kid. “I scratched off my first ticket, all three. The most money you could win was $5,000. I scratch three of them and all three of them say $5,000. I have never played the game before. When I read the result, I have to go back up and ask if I won. I was one of the first winners in California,” McCarthy recalled in a 2005 conversation with high school seniors recorded by CSPAN. He reinvested the money to open a deli named Kevin O’s, then sold the business to help him pay his way through college. There he started working for his then-representative, Republican Bill Thomas, for the next 15 years. In 2002, he ran and won a seat in the California State Assembly where he was immediately elected party leader. “I never like to refer to myself as the minority leader, I refer to myself as the Republican leader. He said at the time he was proud of his party. When Thomas announced he would retire in 2006, McCarthy succeeded his former boss in Congress. McCarthy has never won a general election with less than half the vote, and he has only ever faced token opposition for the seat representing his hometown.

He was a member of the small government conservatives of the Bush era. The minimum wage bill was opposed by his first speech on the House floor. “I came to Congress to raise opportunities for everyone, not to hurt workers or small businesses,” he said. Often described as sunny and gregarious, with an insider’s savvy and an obsession with tactical politics, McCarthy was quickly dubbed a young “rising star” in the party, along with then Congressmen Eric Cantor of Virginia and Paul Ryan of Wisconsin. Together the trio were the minority party’s self-proclaimed “Young Guns” who wrote a 2010 book, went on a book tour, and produced a glossy Hollywood style ad to promote their agenda, and themselves. “Joined by common sense conservatives across the country. They are ready to make history. The ad stated that they were the Young Guns. McCarthy also did the work, he’s credited with helping recruit dozens of outsider candidates to run in the historic 2010 tea party wave, that delivered a Republican majority and with it made him majority whip, right below Cantor who became majority leader. With that majority came a more right-wing, confrontational style of Republican lawmaker, and the party’s “Young Guns” were also now part of the party establishment. Cantor was forced out in 2014 when he was defeated in his Republican primary by a candidate who ran to his right. In the aftermath, McCarthy became majority leader. “They elected a guy who spent a lot of his time going around recruiting many of these individuals to get the majority. Look, I’ve always had to struggle for whatever we wanted to overcome,” he told reporters, when asked if he was conservative enough to lead the Conference. House Republicans were able to take out their inability to get any work done on their own leadership because they continued to be stymied by a Democrat in the White House. After months of campaigning led by MarkMeadows of North Carolina, Speaker John Boehner resigned in the fall of 2015. After announcing a bid to succeed him, McCarthy withdrew from the race when it became clear that he didn’t have the support of the most conservative wing of the party. “If we are going to unite and be strong, we need a new face to help do that,” he said. The remaining “Young Gun,” Paul Ryan, reluctantly stepped in to the role and McCarthy remained the speaker’s deputy.

Trump supported McCarthy after the House Republicans lost the majority in 2018, calling him “My Kevin” in private. “We have a wonderful man, and he is going to be great Speaker of the House,” Trump said. During Trump’s first impeachment for abuse of power, the alliance between McCarthy and Trump remained strong. The day Trump was acquitted by the Senate, McCarthy tweeted out a video of himself tearing up the articles of impeachment cheering: “Acquitted for life!”

Kevin McCarthy made a promise: “I will never leave” even if the speakership fight goes to the floor.

If a group isn’t willing to play ball and be a part of the team, we will work across the aisle in order to find an agreeable Republican. I hope we don’t get there.

“I think Steve Scalise is going to have some problems,” one GOP member told CNN on Monday, adding: “If Kevin McCarthy doesn’t become speaker, then Steve Scalise has faint fingerprints on the dagger.”

Others privately fault Scalise for not being more forceful in his support for McCarthy or insisting he would stick with the California Republican no matter how long it takes. Some Republicans say that this will hurt him if he becomes speaker now.

“Obviously our focus is on getting it resolved by January 3,” he told CNN. “And there’s a lot of conversations that everybody has been having, Kevin, surely, with the members who have expressed concerns.”

Jim Jordan, the conservative set to become the chair of the House Judiciary committee, did not jump into the speaker race even though hardliners like Gaetz had urged him to do so.

“I will vote for Andy for speaker, subject to what we’re discussing,” said Rep. Ralph Norman, a South Carolina Republican after leaving a meeting in McCarthy’s office on Wednesday. He said that all this is positive. Regardless of what happens, we are having good change. You will see more of it.

A new group of seven Republicans on Thursday put out a list of conditions that need to be fulfilled in order to vote for McCarthy, but did not specifically threaten to vote against him if their demands are not met.

So showing voters in 2024 that GOP governance addressed key problems like inflation and the economy will be important. McCarthy plans to form a select committee to examine the threat posed by China, but he has focused most of his recent rhetoric on investigations of the Biden administration and conservatives’ desire to impeach Alejandro Mayorkas.

Currently, the majority of the House GOP is required to call for the so-called motion to vacate the speaker’s chair. There is a push by some hardliners for a single member to be able to call for such a vote, which they think is an important mechanism to hold the speaker accountable.

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 laughed and refused to say if he would visit the issue.

The impact of a January red wave was based on the idea that people were fed up with noise and fighting. I know wherever I go in my district, I want to know why people don’t get things done.

As McCarthy scrambles to lock down speaker’s votes, he also delayed the GOP’s internal elections for committee chairmanships. There was some speculation that one of the members competing for a gavel, Rep. Vern Buchanan of Florida, may retire early if he doesn’t win, which would make McCarthy’s math problem even tougher. But Buchanan vehemently disputed the notion.

Some Democrats have said they would be open to it, including one who said that some of his GOP colleagues had approached him about it.

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

New York Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, the next House Democratic leader, said, “there are no behind-the-scenes conversations” that he has had with Republicans to put up an alternative candidate. But he refused to rule out a scenario where his caucus would help elect the next speaker if McCarthy couldn’t get the votes.

“Democrats are in the process of organizing the Democratic Conference,” Jeffries told CNN on Thursday. “Republicans are in the process of organizing the Republican Conference. Let’s see what happens on January 3.”

The bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus co-chair, Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, who voted to impeach Donald Trump for inciting the Capitol insurrection and retiring congressman Fred Upton ofMichigan, who voted to impeach Donald Trump for inciting the Capitol insurrection, are included in some potential consensus picks.

It would require agreement from every single Democrat and the help of five Republicans. Upton said he has no plans to be in Washington that day, telling CNN: “I’ll be skiing.”

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. At a closed-door meeting, Westerman made the case to his colleagues.

Reply to Westerman’s Call for Action: The Case Against Destructive Campaigns Against President Donald J.C. McCarthy

“I’m concerned about January 3 getting here and us not being able to form a Congress and organize committees and getting delayed in pushing the policy objectives that we want to push,” Westerman said.

Westerman said that the discussion was beneficial for the party. But he added: “I’m not really excited about any type of destructive movement.”

If Mr. McCarthy does have a plan, he has not shared it with members of his leadership team, whom he has cut out of his deliberations about the speakership race in what some regard as a display of paranoia. He has been seen with Jeff Miller, a Republican lobbyist who is one of his closest associates, around the Capitol and RNC headquarters.

A person with ties to Norman warned that if McCarthy isn’t elected speaker, conservatives will cause a lot of harm to South Carolina. Those campaigns, Norman’s aide told CNN, have done nothing to influence the congressman’s position, but it does reveal the lengths some McCarthy backers have gone to exert maximum pressure on detractors.

When Nancy Pelosi in 2018 found herself about a dozen votes short of what she would need to secure the speaker’s gavel, she quietly picked off defectors, methodically cutting deals to capture exactly enough support to prevail. Ms. Pelosi, renowned for her ability to arm-twist and coax, won seven votes by agreeing to limit her tenure, picked up another eight by promising to implement rules aimed at fostering more bipartisan legislating, and won over her sole would-be challenger by creating a subcommittee chairmanship for her.

The California Republican made a series of pledges in order to appease the right flank of his party. Alejandro N. Mayorkas, the homeland security secretary, is being called on to resign or face possible impeachment. He promised Ms. Greene, who was stripped of her committee assignments for making a series of violent and conspiratorial social media posts before she was elected, a plum spot on the Oversight Committee.

He promised to hold public hearings about the security of the Capitol after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack. He has been quietly meeting with ultraconservative lawmakers in an effort to win them over. He urged his members to vote against the spending bill on Monday night.

The California GOP Candidate Whose Senate Wants to Reinvent the Republicans? The Case of McCarthy and the January 6, 2017 Attack on the US Capitol

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. Even the comfortable majority would become more volatile as a result of the ideological warfare being waged by the pro-Donald Trump extremists inside the party.

But his struggle to lock in the speakership and his possible futile future mission of amassing a governing majority amount to more than an inside-Washington brouhaha or internal GOP feud. If the House cannot pass spending bills, or if radical members of the Republican conference try to hold McCarthy hostage, the economic and social consequences could soon affect tens of millions of Americans. Government shutdowns, budget showdowns and an impasse over raising US borrowing limits could severely damage the US economy, the military’s readiness and the dollar’s reputation as a reserve currency.

The California Republican is facing a rearguard battle against members who want to make it easier to oust a sitting speaker and he is appeasing ex-president Donald Trump.

McCarthy has shown his willingness to abandon principle in the pursuit of power before. The most glaring example was his flip-flop on Trump’s culpability over the January 6 attack on the US Capitol. McCarthy said that the President bears responsibility for Wednesday’s attack on Congress. McCarthy added, “He should have immediately denounced the mob when he saw what was unfolding.”

Since a bipartisan framework agreement for which was announced Tuesday night, the current year-end tussle over whether to fund the government for a full year is so critical that it could dump a fiscal crisis on the lap of a weak and easily manipulated new.

Greene’s latest anti-detractors: a warning against the future of the government, or how to deal with them in the airwaves

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.

The same dynamic was at play when McCarthy declined to directly criticize the ex-president for meeting with white supremacist Nick Fuentes at a dinner also featuring Kanye West, the rapper now known as Ye, who has recently made a string of antisemitic remarks. In histrionic performance at the White House after meeting Biden and other congressional leaders last month, the House Republican leader wrongly claimed that Trump had condemned four times when he had never done so before.

McCarthy may be able to point out the possible usefulness of his opposition if Democrats can pass a broader funding deal in the final days of their majority. This became more likely on Tuesday when Senate Republicans and Democrats and House Democrats announced the framework agreement on an omnibus appropriations bill.

The split raises the likelihood of future tensions between Republicans in the House and McConnell, which will make it hard for some Republican senators to vote for a spending deal now.

On Friday, McCarthy took to the airwaves to argue the detractors threaten to put the entire House Republican agenda in peril, warning that basic decisions on legislating and investigating will be “all in jeopardy” – such as getting a new select 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.

Five GOP members have warned that they may vote as a bloc on January 3, meaning they will all vote if McCarthy has his way.

McCarthy said that there is only so many months to get out there and govern in a presidential year. You want to hit the ground running. If you lose a quarter, you don’t start well. You do not get new, stronger candidates. You don’t have more resources to give those candidates to get out the message.

“Right now, the emotions are high,” he said. There are different opinions about how best to deal with funding the government because we are running up against a holiday. I get that. But in the end, I think it’ll get done I think it will be an advantage for them next year, because it seems like it will be in the House. They will begin with a clean slate.

“We’re enduring the silly season of a campaign. 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.

And some of McCarthy’s fiercest critics, including Reps. Matt Gaetz of Florida and Ralph Norman of South Carolina, told CNN they see the five-person threshold as still too high, underscoring the significant challenge McCarthy faces as he works to lock down 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 Case Against George Santos: When the News About His Career and Education Fails: CNN’s Joe Obeidallah Revisited

The conference call McCarthy is holding with the ideological caucuses in the House will be a big topic of discussion, just four days ahead of the speaker’s vote.

“The ‘devil is in the details’ as far as threshold & other rule concessions,” Norman said. “Until the details are spelled out, in writing and sealed with social media posts, people will not move on votes.”

Dean Obeidallah is a former attorney and is the host of the “The Dean Obeidloh Show” on the radio. Follow him at@Dean Obeidallah. The opinions expressed in this commentary are his own. View more opinion on CNN.

GOP Rep.-elect George Santos has been making headlines since December 19 — when The New York Times published its jaw-dropping article documenting his litany of false claims about his work experience, education and just about everything in between. Santos admitted to misrepresenting his educational background in order to exaggerate his resume.

Santos also claimed that his grandparents fled the horrors of the Holocaust as Ukrainian Jewish refugees from Belgium — only to have this version of his family background contradicted by a review of genealogy records. (Santos’ campaign did not respond to CNN’s request for comment.)

Federal and state authorities have launched criminal investigations into Santos over his finances and fabrications. When he first ran for Congress unsuccessfully in 2020, Santos reported he had no assets, yet somehow he was able to lend his 2022 campaign $700,000.

One thing has remained constant throughout the twists and turns: GOP House leader Kevin McCarthy has not condemnedSantos. Not over his admitted falsehoods, his apparent misrepresentation about family members fleeing the Holocaust, questions regarding his campaign funding or even reports on his spending of campaign funds on travel to places such as Miami. CNN has not been able to get a comment from McCarthy.

McCarthy has also criticized the Biden administration’s border policy and played up accusations on Fox Business that the FBI worked to suppress news stories hurtful to Democrats.

Imagine if an incoming Democratic member of Congress was involved in a scandal. McCarthy likely would be screaming about how this representative-elect should not be in Congress and how the Democratic leadership needed to denounce this politician.

What does a first-time House speaker really have to say about politics? The case for the House and the congressional rules package for the 118th Congress

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).

His net favorable rating was found to be 30 points higher among Republicans. That’s certainly not bad. (Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell has notoriously low ratings among Republicans.) It doesn’t make sense to have a net favorability ranking of 30 points.

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. In late 2010 and late 2006 there were net favorability ratings above +50 points among the party faithful.

All of this GOP angst is a pretty decent reward for the Democrats after they lost the House majority. If nothing else, they’re watching a Republican Party that can’t seem to get its act together after a historically bad midterm for an opposition party.

Later Sunday evening, House Republicans unveiled their rules package for the 118th Congress, which formalizes some of the concessions that McCarthy has agreed to. The House adopts its rules package only after it selects a speaker, which McCarthy has not locked down, so there could be additional compromises made in the coming days.

In a “Dear Colleague” letter from the California Republican, he made his case for the speakership and offered additional promises, including ensuring that the ideological groups are better represented on committees.

Not long after Sunday’s call, a group of nine hardliners – who had outlined their demands to McCarthy last month – put out a new letter saying some of the concessions he announced are insufficient and making clear they’re still not sold on him, though they did say progress is being made.

“Thus far, there continue to be missing specific commitments with respect to virtually every component of our entreaties, and thus, no means to measure whether promises are kept or broken,” the letter, obtained by CNN, states.

Correspondence with Johnson, Gimenez, and McCarthy during a phone conversation on the House Way to Vote for the Legislative Speakership

Some moderates – who fear the motion to vacate will be used as constant cudgel over McCarthy’s head – pushed back and expressed their frustration during the call, sources said.

Johnson said he would swallow the low threshold if it helps McCarthy win the speakership, but he wasn’t happy with it because he didn’t think it was fair. Other members made clear that the rules package that was negotiated will be off the table if McCarthy’s critics end up tanking his speakership bid.

McCarthy was asked if the concession on the motion to vacate will win him the 218 votes. But he did not directly answer, though McCarthy said earlier on the call that people were “slowly” moving in the right direction.

Rep. Carlos Gimenez of Florida then repeated Diaz-Balart’s question, asking McCarthy to answer it. McCarthy told the people that they needed to close the deal in a couple days.

Gaetz was asked if he would vote for McCarthy if he agreed to bring the threshold down to single lawmaker, which was what he used to do before Nancy Pelosi changed the rules. Gaetz replied that McCarthy had refused to entertain that idea, but if he is making that offer now, than he would consider it.

The package released late Sunday includes giving five Republicans the power to call for a vote on deposing the sitting speaker; restoring the ability to zero out a government official’s salary; giving lawmakers 72 hours to a read bill before it comes to the floor; and creating a new select commit to investigative the “weaponization” of the Justice Department and the FBI.

The process for discharge petitions does not change because the rules package doesn’t do anything to alter it.

Other notable items that might be of interest: The rules package prohibits remote hearings and markups, does away with staffer unionization efforts and allows the House Ethics Committee to take ethic complaints from the public.

Four days before the House speaker vote, when his critics were still noncommittal about their support for his speakership bid, even after the California Republican had offered a number of key concessions – including making it easier to oust the sitting speaker – he attempted to give them the hard sell.

With just one day to go, a group of at least nine Republicans have made clear that they are not sold, despite McCarthys warnings and even after he gave in to some of their most ardent demands.

We are getting ready for a fight. We don’t want to start out in our new majority the same way, but you can’t really negotiate against the position of not guaranteeing anything in exchange for everything. Rep. Kelly Armstrong of North Dakota, a member of the centrist-leaning Republican Governance Group, told CNN.

I gave him a lot of credit. He’s brought everyone in and worked really hard to figure out a way forward. A way to make this place run better. But I get the feeling that not everyone is negotiating in good faith.”

McCarthy spent the week in between Christmas and New Year’s in deal-making mode, working the phones with critics and supporters alike to find consensus on rules changes designed to win over holdouts.

The Case against McCarthy: A Game of Chicken with a Frozen Speaker and a Promise to Become the Next Speaker of the House

He can only afford to lose four votes on the House floor, and so far, at least five Republicans have vowed to oppose him, with nearly a dozen other GOP lawmakers publicly saying they’re still not there yet.

That group is still pushing for a single member to be able to call for a vote toppling the speaker, which is what it used to be before Speaker Nancy Pelosi changed the rules, and they also want a commitment that leadership won’t play in primaries.

McCarthy had decided to delay races for committee chairs until after the speaker vote. He said it was to allow freshman members to have input in the process, but other members believe it was a way to insulate himself from potential criticism from members who end up losing their races.

During the holidays, McCarthy’s defenders pledged to him and each other that they wouldn’t allow a few members to control their conference.

The Freedom Caucus has been openly divided over McCarthy, and the opposition has worked together to play hardball.

The committee in charge of administrative matters sent a letter last week outlining the practical implications and pitfalls of a drawn-out speaker’s fight. Committees won’t be able to pay staff if the House Rules package is not approved.

The same memo, which was first reported by Politico and obtained by CNN, also warned that student loan payments for committee staff wouldn’t be disbursed if a rules package isn’t adopted by mid-January.

A battle over the next speaker can paralyze the House and the Republican majority from operating efficiently in their first days of office, with some of the harsher penalties falling on rank-and-file staffers.

Even with the race far from settled, boxes from McCarthy’s office were spotted by CNN being moved into the speaker’s suite last week – a standard protocol, but a sign he’s committed to seeking the job.

It is a bizarre game of chicken where both sides have ripped the steering wheel off the dashboard and are just going to pedal the metal, according to one member.

What will we learn next week from an incoming minority leader? The story of how a congressman likes to complain about the “intransigence of the holdouts”

It is still not certain if the 218 votes necessary to win the speakership would be enough for Scalise, which may lead to a lengthy and drawn-out floor fight in the chamber for the first time in 100 years.

Don bacon, a McCarthy supporter and Nebraska Republican, told us that Steve is very supportive. “He has been public that he is supporting McCarthy. I think someday he wants to be speaker He has to be tactful.

In a private House GOP call on Sunday, Scalise embraced his role as the incoming majority leader by laying out the agenda and the bills that would come to the floor this week – and even referenced McCarthy as the future speaker, according to a source on the call.

But some of the hardliners are not satisfied, pushing to lower the threshold to just a single member who can call for such a vote – something that other House Republicans fear would be a recipe for chaos and have vowed they wouldn’t support.

The member said that if McCarthy doesn’t get their votes then people will become more set against rule and operational changes.

Gaetz told CNN that he would need to agree to the same concessions as McCarthy. The McCarthy concessions are what make up a baseline for anyone.

Hard-liners have suggested that a new candidate could emerge but they refuse to name the person, which is upsetting many McCarthy allies in the conference.

“We shouldn’t be in a hurry to make a bad decision,” Good said, promising a new candidate would emerge on Tuesday. He wouldn’t say who or what the member was, but also wouldn’t say anything else about Scalise.

Rep. Dusty Johnson, a South Dakota Republican, said that he found it “incredible” that the same members pushing for a more “open and transparent” GOP conference are getting behind a “shadow candidate” they plan to “ambush” Republicans with at the start of the new Congress.

Johnson said that members were frustrated with the intransigence of the holdouts and that some of them were trying to cause trouble.

One GOP lawmaker said people shouldn’t believe that this is a noble cause. There is no reason to believe that this is anything but self aggrandizement. They want to push procedures that no one in Washington cares about so they can get more power.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/02/politics/mccarthy-floor-fight-steve-scalise/index.html

Markwayne Mullin Meets Rep. Scott Perry in the House of Representatives: “Don’t Change What Happens When Nothing Changes”

Sen.-elect Markwayne Mullin, an Oklahoma Republican and outgoing House member, met with McCarthy in his office on Monday. Mullin has been encouraging McCarthy with a simple message that he should stay put.

Pennsylvania GOP Rep. Scott Perry, a leading McCarthy critic who signed onto a letter with nine other Republicans circulated on New Year’s day, tweeted: “nothing changes when nothing changes.” The letter states that the times call for a radical departure of the status quo, not a continuation of the past.

There is only one thing that can happen in the House of Representatives when a speaker is elected. It’s the only leadership position mentioned in the Constitution.