The House Speaker’s Challenge: When McCarthy vs. Boebert would be a Hard Line, but only a Red Line

He has mused publicly — purely in jest, his aides later insisted — about wanting to hit her with the oversized wooden gavel used to keep order in the House.

McCarthy is not sure if he will get enough support in his party to become House speaker. But even before the vote, his authority is already weakening by the day – in a way that could make him a speaker who is in office but not in power.

Ms. Pelosi told a news conference that she didn’t know what Mr. McCarthy was talking about.

Kevin McCarthy lost his race for House speaker for the sixth time in a row on Wednesday and after that he proposed more changes to his proposal to get 218 votes, which would allow only one member to call for a vote to oust the speaker.

“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.

The member claimed that the conferences have different styles and flavors. “The dynamic is different. McCarthy is fighting for his political life.”

McCarthy’s allies have pushed the idea of “Only Kevin” in order to try and rally around a consensus candidate. There is potential for the process to drag out for hours or even days if McCarthy is unable to convince some of the holdouts to back him.

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CNN hasn’t projected which party will have control of the House of Representatives, but it is likely that Republicans will have more seats than Democrats.

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.”

However, later in the call, Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz – one of the five “hard no” votes for McCarthy – said they would not back McCarthy, despite all the concessions.

Gaetz said that the C team shouldn’t start with a slim majority. We need our stars to shine, so that we can attract more people to our policies and ideas.

And yet, House Republicans are poised to kick off their new majority on Tuesday without a clear sense of who their leader will be – raising the prospect of a brutal, once-in-a-century floor fight that could delay establishing committees, conducting oversight or legislating. The conference will gather one last time on Tuesday before the speaker vote, which McCarthy’s supporters are hoping for a last-minute resolution, but are bracing for the worst.

Both McConnell and McCarthy are moving full steam ahead with their planned leadership elections this week, and the Senate GOP will also meet Tuesday for its weekly closed-door lunch, where the internal blame game is sure to heat up.

GOP sources said on Sunday that Biggs is considering a challenge to McCarthy, according to CNN. McCarthy and his team are prepared for this possibility.

Florida Senator Rick Scott is calling for the Senate leadership election to be delayed this week, saying it doesn’t make sense.

“From a governing perspective, it’s important that Republicans don’t start January 3 by going face down and not having some clarity as to what we’re going to be able to accomplish” GOP Rep. Steve Womack of Arkansas told CNN. “We need to be able to hit the ground running and demonstrate to the American people that the trust and confidence they’ve given to us by giving us a majority, albeit slim, was a good decision.”

It’s a stunning reversal of fortunes – and potential moment of reckoning – for the once-bullish GOP, with party leaders now scrambling to quell the brewing rebellions in their ranks and explain why the election did not go their way. And the disappointing results have scrambled other leadership races as well, with Rep. Tom Emmer of Minnesota – the head of the House GOP’s campaign arm – now facing a tougher time becoming the House GOP whip, a position that will only become available if Republicans indeed capture the majority – still not a guarantee.

“They’ve been measuring the draperies, they’ve been putting forth an agenda. Pelosi told CNN that they hadn’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.”

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.

Trump and his allies have tried to make McConnell the fall guy for the GOP’s lackluster midterm performance, accusing McConnell of spending recklessly in states where Republicans faced significant headwinds at the expense of candidates in more competitive contests.

“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.”

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One Republican lawmaker pointed out that McConnell and McCarthy are dealing with different conferences and political dynamics, which explains their sometimes conflicting approaches.

Even though he would have little chance of succeeding, Scott didn’t rule it out when asked if he would challenge McConnell for the top spot.

McCarthy is still working to seal the deal, with enough hardliners threatening to deny him the top job on Tuesday and his allies growing increasingly anxious that he is giving away his power for nothing.

One senior Republican told CNN that political physics states that you can’t appease moderates and HFC at the same time. If you straddle that fence, you might hope that it’s not barbed wire.

The new House Republican majority is locked in a once-in-a-century fight to elect the next speaker after GOP leader Kevin McCarthy failed to secure the support needed to win in three rounds of voting on Tuesday.

On the Democratic side, Nancy Pelosi, the current House speaker, has not yet made clear 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.

The Republicans are scheduled to hold a candidate forum and leadership elections on Tuesday, according to a copy of the schedule shared with CNN.

Jeffries Voted Like a Whip: Why he’s So Glad You Don’t Want to Vote, But He Can’t Fix That

If all the Democrats voted for Jeffries, McCarthy would lose four of the 222 Republicans, but he’d still have a majority in the House. The names of all the members were called to vote in alphabetical order. McCarthy was denied a majority before the House clerk was through the “C’s,” and 19 Republicans voted for someone other than McCarthy – leaving him 15 votes short.

House Democratic leadership elections have been announced for Wednesday, November 30. It will be done in a secret ballot using an app.

To be elected to any position in Democratic leadership, a candidate needs to win a majority among those present and voting. 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. That process continues until one candidate wins a majority.

He said that he doesn’t know if a smaller majority will affect his bid. But his pitch to members is similar to McCarthy’s, saying: “we delivered.”

The head of the conservative Republican Study Committee unofficially declared his candidacy for the whip position, as well as being a Trump ally. 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. Well, you know that I’m not asking anybody – people are campaigning, and that’s a beautiful thing,” the California Democrat told Bash. “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.”

Kevin McCarthy in his search for a challenger to the House Speaker post-cardenas term-limited Republican caucus chair

Currently, Maryland Rep. Steny Hoyer serves as the No. 2 House Democrat, in the role of House majority leader, and South Carolina Rep. Jim Clyburn serves in the role of House majority whip. The assistant Speaker and the caucus chair are New Yorkers.

The co-chairman of the Democratic Policy and Communications Committee in Colorado, Joe Neguse, has announced he is running for caucus chair to replace Jeffries who is term limited.

Following the reelection loss of the current chair, Sean Patrick Maloney of New York, the race to lead the campaign arm is starting to take shape.

On Friday, Democratic Rep. Tony Cardenas of California announced he was running for the spot and others are being talked about as well.

Kevin McCarthy is trying to pass a crucial test on Tuesday in his campaign to become Speaker of the House despite an lackluster election performance that triggered a search for a challenger.

Idaho GOP Rep. Mike Simpson said he’ll support McCarthy for leader, noting the GOP gained House seats the last two elections. Simpson said that he had done a good job.

“If we don’t unify behind Kevin McCarthy, we’re opening up the door for the Democrats to be able to recruit some of our Republicans,” said Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene.

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. Good had to be gaveled down in order to cut him off from speaking so they could move to the next question, the source said.

McCarthy has made public promises about how he would rule over the House, such as threatening to launch an impeachment inquiry into Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and vowing to not take up bills from any GOP senators who backed the massive year-end spending package – both top priorities of the right.

But McCarthy’s allies have recently attempted to convince moderate Democratic Rep. Henry Cuellar to switch parties in hopes of padding their slim margins, according to two sources familiar with the conversation. Cuellar flatly rejected the idea. McCarthy’s spokesman said that the leader was not involved in any of the conversations and that this was not in the plan 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. His response: “These divisive social issues shouldn’t be brought to the House floor.”

As a right-wing faction threatens to tank his speakership ambitions, House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy delivered a promise: “I’ll never leave,” making clear he has no plans to drop out of the race even if the fight goes to many ballots on the floor.

Representative Ken Buck of Colorado said that Kevin knows that this is his last chance and that he will play this for as long as he can. He withdrew so he could have this chance. He’s not going to have this chance again.”

“If at some point, if Kevin did take his name out, then you would have good people (running). One GOP lawmaker said that they thought scolise would be the guy.

If McCarthy isn’t able to get the votes, you wouldn’t know if Scalise would jump into the race.

The congressman told CNN he was not going to get into speculation. “Obviously, our focus is on getting it resolved by January 3. Kevin has had a lot of talks with the members who have expressed concerns.

At one point, Jim Jordan, a hero of the right, stood to nominate McCarthy for speaker, but for 19 of his rejectionists to vote against him because he didn’t want the job. Jordan is interested in lacingrating Biden’s appointees as chair of the Judiciary Committee.

The South Carolina Republican left a meeting in McCarthy’s office on Wednesday and said that he would vote for Andy for speaker. He later added: “All this is positive. Regardless of what happens, we are having good change. You will see more of it.

A group of five ‘hard no’ votes went public with their opposition to McCarthy after his win on the secret ballot. There was more pressure on the Republican leader to cut a deal after another group formalized their demands in a letter.

The McCarthy holdouts will be out of committee assignments as well as other ways to try to stop the threat from their right-wing colleagues. That includes weighing whether to oppose a rules package if it includes reinstating an arcane tool that would empower any member to bring up a floor vote to oust a speaker at any time, as well as the longshot idea of teaming up across the aisle with Democrats to elect a speaker if the race goes to multiple ballots and no one budges.

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.

The GOP congressman of Tennessee told CNN that it was up to McCarthy to do whatever he wanted as long as it didn’t compromise our values. Burchett acknowledged that if McCarthy accepted the demand to add vacate the chair to the rules package it would be “utter chaos but if McCarthy supports it and can live with it, I’ll be for it.”

The idea that people are tired of the noise and fighting was one of the main reasons for the January red wave. I know that wherever I go in my district, people want to just get things done.

McCarthy has fallen down in his authority and the question of whether his words reflect his reduced authority should be looked at with concern, because a speakership could be a weak one.

Democrat Sen. Jeffries Tells the Story of a Possible Republican Speaker at the GOP Conference in South Dakota, Rep. Cuellar Rejoinder

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 will be the new speaker at the end of the day.

Jeffries said there are no behind-the-scenes conversations that he has had with Republicans to put up an alternative candidate. If McCarthy couldn’t get the votes, he wouldn’t rule out a scenario where his caucus would help choose the next speaker.

Jeffries told CNN that Democrats are working to organize the conference. The Republican Conference is being organized. Let’s see what happens on January 3.”

Some of the potential consensus picks include retiring congressmen who voted to impeach Trump and co-chairs of the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus.

That would require agreement from every single democrat and the help of five republicans. He told CNN that he would be skiing that day and that he had no plans to be in Washington.

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 was making a case to his colleagues in a closed-door meeting.

The Conference of the House and Senate Ways to End Things: The Case for Wall Street and the Post-Primordial Collision of South Dakota Senator John Thune

“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.

The discussion about changing House rules is good for the party. He said he wasn’t excited about any destructive movement.

But Republicans in the House are livid for another reason. Kevin McCarthy or whoever will be the Speaker of the House would have had more power in pushing for spending cuts if Senate Republicans had refused to do a deal.

It was just the latest split between two GOP leaders who have been at odds over a range of issues this past Congress. Bills to bolster the nation’s infrastructure, new gun safety programs and a ramp up of semi-conductor chip production all became law with McConnell’s support and over McCarthy’s opposition.

And now as Congress is wrapping up its work for the year to fund federal agencies through next fall, McCarthy and McConnell are headed on a collision course, underscoring the competing political forces in their respective conferences that the two will have to work through next year when the GOP takes power in the House.

The conference of the House and the Senate are different and can be seen as so, according to Senate Minority Whip John Thune, a South Dakota Republican.

Some people want to end things. A non-negotiable for him is if McCarthy wants to shut thegovernment down rather than raising the debt ceiling. That suggests the economy will be at risk from future funding fights.

The basic tasks of a functioning government will become high-stakes standoffs. Spending battles will shift from arduous tight-rope walks to outright warfare. And the looming debt ceiling deadline next year and the potential for catastrophic debt default drew enough concern from White House officials that they weighed a push to address it in the current Congress to take it off the table entirely.

Mitch-McConnell and Kevin McCarthy aren’t going to roll the House on a new spending package: The Eagle in the Atmosphere

“Everybody’s probably got a reason at the moment to oppose it,” said Sen. Richard Shelby, the Alabama Republican and top GOP appropriator, said of McCarthy. “They may oppose it on philosophical grounds, maybe opposes it on political grounds.”

“We’re on defense,” the Kentucky Republican told reporters. “We’re dealing with the cards we were dealt.” He said that they could raise money for defense programs, but not for other domestic programs.

If Speaker McCarthy wants to force budget cuts in a new spending deal next year, he will have to give in to his devil-may-care faction, one of the many opportunities for brinksmanship that is already available. But starting off Republican House control with a government shutdown would reward voters, who signaled a desire for normalcy in the midterms, with instability.

Even as McCarthy signals his staunch opposition to the massive spending package, some of his critics are complaining about how the process is playing out.

“You’ve got Mitch McConnell preparing to roll the House right now on additional trillions of dollars in spending,” said Rep. Scott Perry, a Pennsylvania Republican and the chairman of the far-right House Freedom Caucus. “Tell me how something changes here. I’m interested to hear, but right now, I don’t see anything changing.”

House GOP leadership is formally whipping against the one-week short-term spending patch to extend this Friday’s deadline until December 23, and Republican sources believe leaders will likely whip against the omnibus bill as well. McConnell is likely to vote for both packages.

“Bicameral tension has been a feature of our Constitutional republic,” said Rep. Dusty Johnson, a South Dakota Republican. Mitch McConnell and Kevin McCarthy are going to be fine.

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. Instead, he has been spotted in recent days near the Republican National Committee headquarters and a Republican lobbyist who is close to him.

Representative Scott Perry of Pennsylvania, the current Freedom Caucus chairman who was involved in efforts by Mr. Trump to remove the acting attorney general who stood by the results of the 2020 election, has also been involved in the talks. He lashed out at Mr. McCarthy’s allies, accusing them of leaking information to reporters.

Nancy Pelosi secured her speaker’s gavel after picking off defectors who were unwilling to support her, and cutting deals to win 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 number of pledges to appease the right flank of his party. He traveled to the southern border and called on Alejandro N. Mayorkas, the homeland security secretary, to resign or face potential impeachment proceedings. 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 conduct public hearings into the security failures that contributed to the attack at the Capitol. He has been quietly meeting with ultraconservative lawmakers in an effort to win them over. And on Monday night, he publicly encouraged his members to vote against the lame-duck spending bill to fund the government.

Republicans won control of the House through democratic means. But their far smaller-than-expected majority is offering extra leverage to the kind of pro-Trump extremists many voters appeared to reject in last year’s midterms.

But the prominent role for the right already evident in the incoming Republican House risks further identifying the party with the politics that repelled so many voters across the key swing states the GOP must reclaim to recapture the White House in two years. If McCarthy only gains the speakership by unleashing the most militant voices in his caucus, his victory could quickly prove Pyrrhic for the GOP overall.

The congressman wanted to be speaker for a long time. He was willing to do many things in order to get the job, like taking a liking to former President Trump.

McCarthy used to be avuncular and smooth-talking Republican and has turned into some of the combative defiance of “Make America Great Again” as badges of honor.

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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.

McCarthy said she thought she was being facetious when she made the inflammatory comments. 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.

It was the same dynamic when McCarthy refused to criticize the ex president for meeting with a white supremacist at a dinner that also features a rapper who has made antisemitic remarks. 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.

Several members of the House GOP are currently talking about kicking these members off their committees as a result of their rebellion against Kevin McCarthy.

It is unclear if moderates will follow through with hardball tactics that the far right is known for, especially if it could backfire on McCarthy. GOP sources don’t think McCarthy’s supporters will ultimately take it down because Opposing the rules package could upend any careful negotiations between McCarthy and his detractors.

The tea party backlash to the obama administration has not ended the GOP civil war. It was responsible for the departures of Republican House Speakers Paul Ryan and John Boehner and was put into overdrive by Trump. The turmoil erupted as soon as the party had a sniff of power, as radicals seek to destroy a party establishment that has already shifted far right to appease them.

“People need to recognize we don’t need to double down on failed policies and failed candidates,” said Rep. Nancy Mace, a South Carolina Republican. The most successful people in the midterms were those who are left of center and right of center.

After changing a number of of his original hold outs, the fate of Rep. Matt Gaetz came down to him, and he found himself on the receiving end of ire from his GOP colleagues.

He told CNN they were in a community of common fate. “We have to acknowledge that the ship isn’t going anywhere if five people won’t row in that direction. And that’s true on impeachment, it’s true on the speakership vote, it’s true on the budget, it’s true on policy choices.”

What concessions are going to be made, and what other deals are going to be cut, those are some of the questions that remain unanswered. Womack asked. We should be careful that we don’t give a lot of leverage away.

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McCarthy held a conference-wide meeting on Wednesday to let his members continue debating rules changes and other concessions despite there still not being a resolution on the motion to leave the chair.

House Republicans unveiled their rules package on Sunday night, which formalizes some of the compromises that McCarthy has agreed to. There could be additional compromises made in the coming days, as the House adopts its rules package only after it selects a speaker.

GOP members of Congress are talking about different points of view, and it shouldn’t be a surprise, says Rep. Mario Jackson-Balart.

Even amid the high-stakes negotiations, members from competing factions have had time to have some fun with one another. All of Capitol Hill came together at a Christmas party in his office, including anti-McCarthy lawmakers. At one point, Burchett rode the skateboard of Gaetz’s wife, near the fountain with a plate of Cheez Whiz and Ritz crackers.

Rep. Blake Moore, a Utah Republican who identifies himself as part of the governing wing, said at the end of the day, the various factions actually agree on most things and dismissed the idea it would be tense next year.

“I’ve said this over and over again: there is not this, like, enormous amount of drama,” Moore told CNN. “I’ve met with House Freedom Caucus members to chat on what we agree on. And it’s an enormous amount.”

The White House has quietly begun to prepare for the new reality on Capitol Hill by looking for issues that can draw bipartisan support, and they have already found two key groups: moderate Republicans with a proven track record of working across the aisle and the incoming.

For Biden and his team, who capitalized in their first two years in office on a number of moderate or bipartisan-minded Senate Republicans willing to work across the aisle on shared priorities, there are now opportunities among House Republicans that in large part have all but promised to declare outright legislative war on the White House.

The White House legislative affairs director’s office has information on how Biden’s first two years in office were marked by bipartisan legislation which had been approved by House Republicans.

Instead of the “red wave” predicted by Republicans, however, Biden’s party expanded its Senate majority and stunned House Republicans – and many Democrats – by nearly fighting to a draw in the chamber.

“When you have Republicans representing Biden districts heading into a presidential election cycle, there’s no question it adds a different element in terms of their approach – and ours,” a senior administration official said.

Officials said that the preparations for the months ahead are in the early stages. The focus is still on closing the final days of unified power in Washington, DC by securing the passage of the annual defense policy bill and a sweeping bipartisan spending agreement that includes significant new funding to assist Ukraine’s war effort.

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McCarthy, after the meeting, told reporters he “can work with anyone,” but noted the new Republican majority clinched in the midterms signaled “America likes a check and balance.”

But the continued uncertainty across Washington about McCarthy’s pathway to the speakership has tacitly created another reason for what serves as somewhat of a wait-and-see posture in terms of engaging House Republicans.

After two years of seeking out ways to connect Biden, a 36-year Senate veteran with a keen awareness of the importance of even the smallest of priorities back home for elected officials, to rank-and-file members from both parties, the effort will to some degree track and expand on what officials leaned on in their first two years.

But as officials confront a landscape that has closed the door on the Democrat-only legislative pathway that led to two of Biden’s most consequential legislative wins – the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan and his cornerstone $700 billion economic and climate law – those efforts take on a new level of salience.

I will continue to deliver for the American people across the aisle. And it’s not always easy, but we did it the first term,” Biden said in his post-midterm election news conference last month. I will work with my Republican colleagues. The American people have made clear, I think, that they expect Republicans to be prepared to work with me as well.

The preparation under way will follow the Outreach from the White House to the newly elected members. Each member of the White House’s legislative affairs team is charged with liaising with a list of individual members and at least one committee, a senior White House official said.

“We’re content to let them shoot at one another at the moment,” a senior administration official said. The president has driven a clear way in which we approach the importance of these relationships. It will be reflected in the next Congress.

A pair of those incoming New York Republicans – Reps.-elect Anthony D’Esposito and Michael Lawler – said they both see an opportunity to work with the White House to pass legislation, though they have yet to hear from the White House.

D’Esposito said House Republican leaders have assured him they understand the need for bipartisanship to hold onto the majority in 2024 and “that there are going to be times where perhaps the members from Long Island have to put their vote in support of things that are going to deliver for Long Island.”

In the election of a campaign chief for the House Democrats in suburban New York, it was noted that everyone was given more power when there was a small majority. To make sure that the conference passes legislation that the conference can get behind and that it passes the Senate and is signed by the White House, should be the objective.

The hard right group of House Republicans who hold significant sway inside the conference give emphasis to both Trump and the Freedom Caucus, one House Republican told CNN. “But we go nowhere without our freshmen – and while I’m not sure they’ll use it, that creates very real leverage.”

How does this end? House precedent dictates that members continue to take successive votes until someone secures the majority to prevail. Until a speaker is chosen, the House is essentially a useless entity. It can’t pass legislation or swear in members.

A senior White House official declined to say whether the White House would focus on trying to strike bipartisan agreements with Republican leadership or try and peel off moderate Republicans through the use of discharge petitions, calling those decisions premature.

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 votes on January 3 if all of the members vote for a specific member.

The five GOP members who had warned they might vote as a bloc on January 3 are Gaetz, Andy Biggs of Arizona, Bob Good of Virginia, and Matt Rosendale of Montana.

He said the emotions are high right now. “We’re running up against a holiday, trying to deal with this issue of funding the government and there are different opinions about how best to do that. I am aware of that. I think it will get done. and I think it will set the stage for next year and it seems to be at least in the House next year, that would be an advantage for them. They will start with a clean slate.”

We are 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.

Reply to Comment on ‘Inappropriate manipulation and public opinion’ [J.C. Brown, Phys. Lett. A 16-Year Old Paper’]

Editor’s Note: Patrick T. Brown is a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, a conservative think tank and advocacy group based in Washington, DC. He was employed by the Congress’ Joint Economic Committee. You can follow him on the social network. His views are his own. View more opinion on CNN.

The 4,155-page omnibus spending bill negotiated by the Senate Appropriations Committee was released Monday night, and Congress hopes to have it passed by Christmas.

Devotees of good government have plenty of reason to complain about the process. Forcing lawmakers to vote for bills that no one could have read in their entirety has become a crutch Congress relies on too often, even to just keep the lights on.

The Republicans don’t want to hear it, but this product will pay dividends when it comes to removing a potential stumbling block from their path.

That group includes Representative Chip Roy of Texas, the former chief of staff to Senator Ted Cruz, who has weaponized his procedural knowledge to force delays in House proceedings and call for an overhaul of the chamber rules. It also includes Dan Bishop of North Carolina, whom Mr. McCarthy’s foes chose as their consensus pick. Mr. Donalds has said that he doesn’t want the position, but has joined negotiations.

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Republicans might not like it, but the silver lining of something getting passed isn’t lost on them. Without an appropriations deal, the federal government would have been facing a temporary extension of funding that would expire early next year. That would have been a golden opportunity for the firebrand caucus of the GOP to inaugurate their time in the House majority by provoking a government shutdown.

In the past, the Republican-led shutdowns resulted in poor poll numbers for GOP leaders and failed to achieve much policy change. There’s very little reason to believe this go-round would be any different, and some members may be secretly breathing a sigh of relief to have that taken off the table.

Republicans have a lot to complain about but they have reason to be upset that there wasn’t more assistance for parents and families.

The Child Tax Credit, a Biden-era expansion of the tax credit, was always a joke for Progressives as no work requirements could be found in the credit, not to mention many Republicans. The White House said it had to only reverse course at the last minute to expand the program, because they wanted no work requirements.

If a deal on the CTC were to have been struck, Democrats should have been having serious talks over the past year with Sens. Mitt Romney of Utah, Marco Rubio of Florida, Mike Lee of Utah or Josh Hawley of Missouri, all of whom have proposed variants of pro-family tax reform. Democrats will have some time to explore areas of common ground after divided governance.

Another common-sense initiative that fell victim to partisan bickering was legislation that would have brought much-needed clarity to the legal landscape around accommodations for expectant mothers in the workplace. The Pregnant Workers Fairness Act, which was endorsed by conservative pro-life groups and left-leaning women’s organizations, got caught up in questions about whether business could be forced to provide benefits to women who choose abortion.

Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana has helped lead bipartisan talks to resolve some of these concerns and get the act included as an amendment to the omnibus, but the very fact that the negotiations went down to the wire shows how too many in Congress on both sides prefer culture war battles to compromise.

And, of course, there is a whole slew of pork barrel spending, ranging from the offensive to the absurd, that Republicans will take no small deal of pleasure in running against, such as $575 million in grants for “family planning/reproductive health” in the name of biodiversity, or $3 million for bee-friendly highways.

That doesn’t mean there’s nothing good in the omnibus. Aside from the big-ticket items that keep the government functioning, Congress included funding for a task force and hotline on maternal health, and ordered a study on the impact of tech use on teen mental health outcomes.

Enhancing funding for the child care block grant, as well as extending funding for low-income mothers for up to a year after birth under Medicaid, were some of the things they increased.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/21/opinions/republicans-omnibus-spending-deal-brown/index.html

What will the media tell us about a five-person threshold for the next unified speakership bid in the House GOP? The battle is on the devil

For now, avoiding a self-destructive wound could be the best gift the Republicans could ask for from the era of unified Democratic control. And the fact that 21 GOP senators voted yes on a procedural motion to advance the deal suggests many in the upper chamber know that.

One of the numbers that has come up in recent conversations between McCarthy and GOP lawmakers – and which has not been previously reported – is a five-person threshold, according to two of the Republican sources.

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.

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

Norman said the devil is in the details. “Until the details are spelled out, in writing and sealed with social media posts, people will not move on votes.”

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.

The nine hardliners put out a new letter after Sunday’s call saying some of the concessions that McCarthy announced are insufficient and make it clear they are still not sold on him.

There are no means to measure the effectiveness of our entreaties because they are missing specific commitments, according to a letter obtained by CNN.

Moderates are angry that the motion to vacate will be used as acudgel over McCarthy’s head and pushed back during the call.

Rep. Dusty Johnson of South Dakota said he wasn’t happy with the low threshold McCarthy agreed to, though he indicated he would swallow it, but only if it helps McCarthy win the speakership. 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 pressed by Mario Diaz-Balart if this concession will win him the 218 votes he needs. McCarthy said on the call that people were slowly moving in the right direction, but he did not directly answer.

“I think after that, they’ll talk to Leader McCarthy and hopefully close up a deal,” the Ohio Republican told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins on “CNN This Morning.”

Lawmakers worked over the weekend to finalize the rules package. McCarthy told Republicans on the conference call that he agreed to the threshold of five people on the motion to vacillate in order to appease them.

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.

Lawmakers can use the process for discharge petitions that allow them to force a bill to the floor if 218 of them support 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.

But now with just one day to go, a group of at least nine Republicans have made clear that they’re still not sold – despite McCarthy’s warning and even after he gave in to some of their most ardent demands, which he outlined during a Sunday evening conference call.

“To be honest, we are preparing for a fight. Not the way we want to start out in our new majority, but you can’t really negotiate against the position of ‘give us everything we ask for and we won’t guarantee anything in return,’” Rep. Kelly Armstrong of North Dakota, a member of the centrist-leaning Republican Governance Group, told CNN.

Kevin got a lot of credit from me. He brought everyone in to work 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 Freedom Caucus is Fighting Back Against McCarthy: Insights from the Republicans Over the Past Two Years and Their Impact on the Speaker’s Campaign

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.

Before Speaker Nancy Pelosi changed the rules to allow a vote to oust her, that group had been pushing for a single member to be able to call for a vote.

McCarthy postponed 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 feel that it was a way to insulate himself from potential criticism from members who lose their races.

An aide to Norman said that if McCarthy is elected Speaker, his South Carolina district offices would be flooded with calls from voters who had received calls from someone warning them what would happen. The aide for Norman told CNN that the campaigns have done nothing to influence the congressman’s position, but that it did reveal the lengths some McCarthy backers have gone to exert maximum pressure on detractors.

In phone calls and text messages during the holidays, McCarthy’s defenders vowed to him and each other they wouldn’t let a handful of members control their conference.

The Freedom caucus is deeply divided over McCarthy, but they are working in tandem and playing hardball.

Last week, the committee in charge of administrative matters wrote to the speaker detailing the practical implications and pitfalls of their fight. The memo said that the committees will not be able to pay their staff if the 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.

Two of them are Ringleaders of the fight to block McCarthy: Lauren Boebert of Colorado and Matt Gaetz of Florida. The speakership stalemate is not just a fresh indication of the turmoil still racking the GOP after the far-right forced out two previous GOP speakers. It suggests the new GOP House majority will be perennially dysfunctional and – given the capacity of a few lawmakers to grind the chamber to a halt at any moment – chaotic political crises are likely to dominate the next two years.

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

The ongoing standoff between the pro- and anti-McCarthy groups is being described by one member as a game of chicken where both sides remove the steering wheel off the dashboard and pedal to the metal.

How the GOP will lose ground in swing states before Trump takes office: The Case of the MAGA-Like Activists of the House Integrity Project

No matter how they resolve Tuesday’s vote choosing the next speaker of the House, Republicans appear poised to double down on the hard-edged politics that most swing state voters rejected in last November’s midterm election.

The speaker will be subject to the constant power grabs of a small group of members who want to dominate in congress, according to a CNN political commentator. “You’re going to have this group on the far right that is going to continue to push the leadership to go further right on issues.”

The House requires members to vote until someone is able to get the majority needed to prevail. The House had not failed to pick a speaker on the first roll-call vote since 1923, when the election stretched for nine votes.

Tom Davis, who served as chair of the National Republican, believes that there is only one candidate with the experience and money that will prevail because the party base will close their ranks if there is no speaker. “And the vast majority of the Conference is loyal to him.”

Whether McCarthy wins the speakership, or conservatives (in a less likely scenario) succeed in installing an alternative to his right, Democrats believe all these early markers guarantee that the House GOP’s most militant members will be front and center in defining the party over the next two years.

The Congressional Integrity Project is a Democratic-aligned group which has been created to respond to the coming House investigations of the Biden administration. The die on the next two years will be cast by giving these people power and the podium.

Dach and other Democrats believe the House majority will help reinforce the GOP’s image as a party that is hostile to conservatives by making hardliners such as Jordan and Greene visible, and letting them pursue conservative grievances.

The real show will be these extreme, powerful MAGA types, Dach insists. “Every day that they are on a committee, every day they are on television, is a bad day for the entire Republican Party.”

Michael Podhorzer, the former political director of the AFL-CIO, notes that the GOP has cumulatively lost enormous ground in those states since Trump took office.

There were only one Democratic governor and four Democratic Senators in the five states when he was sworn in, according to Podhorzer. “In a month, four of the five states will have Democratic governors, 9 of the 10 Senators are Democrats, and three of the state legislative chambers are led by Democrats.” Democrats have done nothing but win in those states because they are not going to be able to get Republicans to vote for them.

“It was two midterms happening at the same time – depending on whether you were in a place where that new bubble of Democratic voters believed they had to come out to beat MAGA again,” Podhorzer argued.

The Last Two Years: The War Between the Reformed and the Censored Congress: The Case of Rep. Jonathon Donalds

That won’t make much of a difference for Republicans in places where they are already strong. In the November elections, Republicans mostly consolidated their control of red-leaning America by maintaining their hold on governorships and state legislatures in many of the states that pursued the most aggressive conservative agendas over the past two years.

“nothing changes when nothing changes” is the sentiment of a leading McCarthy critic who signed onto a letter with nine other Republicans. The letter states that the times demand for a radical departure from the status quo and not a continuation of the past.

After all, the speaker of the House, in addition to conducting the House’s business and being a key cog in the process of passing legislation important to people, is also a leader in party messaging.

If anything, McCarthy got weaker with each roll call, even if one senior GOP source told CNN he would never back down and “we’re going to war.” Some GOP members are now referring to the rebels as “the chaos caucus” or “The Taliban 20,” CNN’s Manu Raju reported.

Donalds had voted for McCarthy on the first two votes, but told CNN that he had failed to close the deal. When his name was called minutes later, Donalds announced he was voting for Jordan, McCarthy’s first defection.

But when a red wave never materialized in the November midterms, the razor-thin majority that resulted for Republicans empowered a small band of conservatives – long distrustful of McCarthy – to make demands.

Over the last two months, a scramble for the speakership has unfolded, with strategy sessions with close allies on Capitol Hill, intense negotiations over rules changes, and non-stop phone calls with members.

Trump’s circus-style politics that caused so much chaos in the GOP are back again, even though he is no longer in the White House. Even though lawmakers cannot be sworn in until a leader is selected, the GOP couldn’t take power since they couldn’t agree on a speaker.

On a surreal day, the 118th Congress opened with Republicans fighting Republicans, while Democrats – who should have been mourning their lost majority – were joyous at the GOP circus they beheld.

Republicans decided to adjourn for the night rather than take another failed speaker vote after the House gaveled back into session. The roll-call vote was tight but GOP leaders hoped the talks would convince McCarthy’s opponents to vote for adjournment.

“I didn’t think we were going to get any more productive by continuing on the day,” McCarthy told reporters late Tuesday. But he insisted he wouldn’t be dropping out of the race.

“It’s not going to happen,” he said, adding, “We only need 11 more votes to win,” implying that he thinks he can get a number of members to vote present, which would lower the threshold he’d need.

Gaetz was on the floor on Tuesday joking that maybe the right person for the speaker of the House isn’t a person who has sold shares in himself for more than a decade.

Benghazi: The Case for a Republican-Leading Committee to Investigate a Democratic Candidate with Neglecting Trump

The ex-congressman of Washington state, who voted to impeach Trump, lost the primary to a candidate backed by the ex-president, who went on to lose the election to a Democrat.

Some question how much Trump actually tried. He hasn’t posted anything on his social media platform to boost McCarthy on the day of the vote.

Democrats are going to use it to make political capital out of the fact that Republicans should be kicked out of power at the first chance in the next election. “I just watched House Republicans plunge into utter chaos on the House floor,” Jeffries told Democratic donors in a fundraising email. “This changes everything for Democrats. We now have a huge opportunity to step in and show what we can do.”

“We want to implement that agenda if we can either be the conference who comes together to do that or we can let a select few prevent us from being able to do that.” said Utah Republican Rep.

Former Speaker John Boehner and Republican Majority Leader Eric Cantor, and later Speaker Paul Ryan, were all tormented by a rejectionist wing of their own party on simple matters of governance. Funding the government, preventing default on the full faith and credit of the United States, providing emergency relief to states and communities ravaged by natural disasters, and reauthorizing essential programs all became dramatic, high stakes fights.

“Everybody thought Hillary Clinton was unbeatable, right?” McCarthy said on the air. A select committee and a special committee were put together. What are her numbers today? Her numbers are dropping.

The ostensible reason for the GOP-led Benghazi investigation was to find out what happened in an attack on an American embassy in Libya, where four people died – not to hurt Clinton. Clinton was the front-runner for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination.

What McCarthy’s Agenda for the House of Representatives (President) Barack Obama Needs to Fix the Problems in Washington and What They Can Do to Fix It

McCarthy world was worried about looking weak and bleeding support, so they felt it was important to reverse the narrative, even if it was not moving the needle among the fiercest McCarthy foes.

The base of support for Trump was maintained and he endorsed a number of candidates. They lost in swing districts in the primaries.

At the 11th hour, he tried to play tough guy, threatening the defectors with stripping them of committee assignments. That appeared to have the reverse effect of what he and his allies were intending.

Was it worth it for McCarthy or anyone with ambition, to make choices about what they believe and how they’re willing to compromise, in order to achieve their goals?

At the end of the day, the job of speaker isn’t supposed to be about one person’s ambition but what they can get done to fix problems in the country, and this is taking place at a time when people are already cynical about the intentions of politicians in Washington and what they are trying to accomplish.

For all the talk in Washington of “Dems in disarray,” this is again another example of the chaos that continues to surround House Republicans. With just a four-seat majority, how can they govern if they’re going through all this just to pick a leader?

The fight against McCarthy: How we fight, what we don’t want, and what we can’t do to stop what Trump tells us

The reason: Voting to adjourn would require 218 votes, and Democratic sources say they would actively whip against a motion to adjourn. Plus some Republicans would likely vote against it as well.

The same member said the statement made by Trump that he was in full support of McCarthy was meaningless because it was more useful than if he had blasted McCarthy.

Another member warned that after Tuesday, it’s clear that the opposition to McCarthy is personal – meaning there may be little that he can do to turn the tide at this point.

As the votes stretched on Tuesday, the situation appeared to become even more dire for McCarthy, as the vote count in opposition to his speaker bid grew.

I disagree with Trump. This is how we fight. This isn’t Trump’s – and I support Trump. I don’t agree with it. The man is going to be harassed by Kevin, said Norman. In another sign that Trump’s spell may have broken, Boebert said that her “favorite president” had called rebels opposing McCarthy and told them to knock it off.

Gaetz is a long time ally of Trump, but he refused to bow to the president’s desire for a McCarthy speakership.

There was a Georgia congressman trying to convince a colleague to speak to former President Donald Trump on the phone.

The person briefed on the call said a lawmaker had told Trump that he should run for speaker himself. Trump demurred and continued to push this person to support McCarthy, claiming that he would be a solid “America First” supporter.

The Problem is in the House: House Speaker Economy Debt Ceiling is a Pain for the House of Representatives, A New York Stock Exchange Trader

It’s a good reminder to be careful what you wish for because of the dramas playing out in Congress. Every so often, government needs to get stuff done, and that’s why complete paralysis is bad.

“We’re watching a slow-moving trainwreck collide with a dumpster fire,” Isaac Boltansky, director of policy research at BTIG, told CNN in a phone interview. This is a clear sign that we will have problem for the entire congress, which raises the risk of a debt ceiling default.

One New York Stock Exchange trader, a self-described conservative, told CNN on Tuesday the situation in the House is “disturbing” because it suggests lawmakers will struggle to get even more important things done.

This is not real. The party can’t get its [stuff] together. It’s a disgrace,” said the trader, who requested anonymity to discuss the situation candidly.

The past few days have shown just how ung overnable the GOP majority in the House appears to be, even if Republicans coalesce around a consensus candidate for speaker.

In the past, brinksmanship over the debt ceiling eventually gave way to a compromise, though often not until significant pressure was applied by business leaders, financial markets — or both.

“Our concern is that an increasingly populist GOP is less tied to big business influence, while a narrow majority amplifies their influence,” Benjamin Salisbury, director of research at Height Capital Markets, wrote in a note to clients on Wednesday.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/04/economy/house-speaker-economy-debt-ceiling/index.html

Inflation, Cooling, and the House: The Nathaniel P. Banks Campaign for Speaker of the House in 1856

The big question is whether the US economy is about to get into a recession, and how long the Fed will keep up its fight against inflation.

On Friday, McCarthy’s fate will not be on investors minds but on the monthly jobs report and efforts to cool the labor market.

Andrew spoke of the House speaker race as noise and dismissed it as a big, fat nothing-burger for the market.

The stalemate in the House is an indicator of how hard it will be for lawmakers to respond to a crisis in the next two years.

Greenspan, senior economic adviser at Advisors Capital Management, said in a discussion posted online that inflation will not cool enough to avoid “at least a mild recession” induced by the Fed.

Thomas Balcerski is the Visiting Professor at the Ray Allen Billington Visiting Professor of U.S. History and a Fellow at the Huntington Library, Art Museum and Botanical Gardens. He is the author of “Bosom Friends: The Intimate World of James Buchanan and William Rufus King” (Oxford University Press). He tweets about presidential history @tbalcerski. The opinions are of his own. View more opinion on CNN.

History shows that the speaker of the House won’t be elected by the final number of ballots, so we need to be ready for a lengthy battle. In today’s politics, Americans have sadly come to expect nothing less.

In either instance, a compromise of some sort – whether by choosing a new candidate for speaker or by placating the splinter faction in some significant way – has usually been the result. If history is any guide, we may once again be living a version of one of these two scenarios.

In 1855, the race for speaker faced its most serious challenge yet. With no Democrats or former Whigs to reach majority, a compromise candidate was found in Nathaniel P. Banks of Massachusetts, a member of the nativist American Party. After 133 ballots were held, Banks was elected speaker and William Aiken, Jr. of South Carolina was defeated by a wide margin. Instead, Banks ultimately defeated Aiken on February 2, 1856.

The House of Representatives was divided again four years later, with a majority of Republicans wanting to put Rep. Sherman in the chair. The Republicans were unsuccessful in using the plurality rule to end the debate. Sherman stepped aside to encourage Republicans to back William Pennington, a freshman congressman from New Jersey. Pennington was elected the speaker after 44 ballots over eight weeks.

The first choice candidate for the Republican nomination was returned Speaker of the House Frederick Gillett of Massachusetts. The results of the 1922 midterm election, in which Republicans had seen their majority reduced, was blamed by the progressives for the party’s existing orthodoxy.

Gingrich, the founder of the politics of smashmouth partisan warfare, urged the Republicans to choose McCarthy, saying it was him or chaos. It’s an ironic statement coming from a legislator renowned for reveling in such chaos and a sign of how extreme parts of the GOP have become.

What do they want? The right-wing rebellion against Mr. McCarthy is rooted not just in personal animosity, but also an ideological drive. The holdouts would like for Congress to make it easier to limit the size of the federal government.

It’s a very small minority of a slim majority that’s kept the House from moving forward and is on the cusp of derailing Rep. Kevin McCarthy’s bid to become speaker.

They don’t speak for the majority of Republicans. Less than 10% of the House GOP are anti-McCarthy Republicans who have already derailed his attempt to become speaker.

They’re sort of gaining support. Rep. Victoria Spartz of Indiana became the 21st Republican member-elect to not support McCarthy on Wednesday, although she voted “present” rather than voting for anyone.

The conservative Republican said on CNN that he thinks you need to break down the 20. Buck was seen as a possible defector prior to this week, and he made clear that patience with these votes is waning.

He suggested McCarthy’s deputy, Rep. Steve Scalise of Louisiana, as a possible consensus speaker who could speak to three varieties of the 20 anti-McCarthy Republicans.

Others want specific changes. Buck said there are people who want to change the rules and people who care about policy. I believe Steve will be able to move forward if he meets the needs of the three things.

Do We Need to Stop the Train of Swampland? The Case for a Rep. Byron Donalds and the Congress that Rep. Perry Nominated

These lawmakers want painful cuts now to end deficit spending. If the US was to default on its debt, it could send the US economy into a tailspin, according to most economists. A government shutdown would be less severe, but they have been unpopular when lawmakers forced them in recent years.

“We are showing the American people that this process works,” said the Pennsylvania Republican Rep. Scott Perry in rising to nominate Rep. Byron Donalds of Florida as an alternative to McCarthy. It has been 100 years since there was a floor fight, and that is what makes it a feature of the moment. “We have said we are not going to take any more of Washington being broken.”

According to Bishop, this is democracy in action. “If you’re not satisfied with Washington as it is, then you can’t be satisfied with doing the same thing as we start this Congress, I’m convinced.”

The problem is that you don’t see a specific agenda for Kevin McCarthy that you know he’s going to go to the mat for. “And it’s been that way for all 14 years he’s been in leadership, with all due respect to him.”

Boebert said on the House floor that they should stop the campaign tactics of getting people to vote against them. “I think it actually needs to be reversed. If the president tells Kevin McCarthy that he does not have the votes, it is time to withdraw.

You should hear the argument that Republicans and Democrats are not that different, if you watch enough Tucker Carlson on Fox. Carlson often uses the term “uni-party” to blast the funding bills that are signed into law. Some of that is the result of the opposition to McCarthy who has been part of the GOP leadership for years.

“Right now I’m holding the line because I think we need this place to operate differently, and that’s not a partisan statement. It’s just something that I believe,” Rep. Chip Roy of Texas told CNN’s Jake Tapper on Tuesday.

Roy said he is among the fiscal conservatives that want to stop the train of swamp, which he said is made up of Republicans and Democrats. The government funding bills that were passed last month have special interests working together to push through them.

Donalds joined the others who would like a single member to be able to force a vote on the removal of a sitting speaker.

“We have uncontrolled spending, and we can do nothing about it,” Spartz complained, noting the appropriations process does not allow for open amendments. “I think that needs to stop,” she said.

The Case of Kevin McCarthy in the House: A Farcical First for the New GOP-Leading Rep. Chip Roy and his Rep. Michael Jordan

McCarthy offered concessions to the hardliners that included a pledge to give lawmakers 72 hours to read a bill before they cast a vote.

He also agreed to allow just five Republicans to force a vote to remove the speaker instead of the current requirement that a majority of Republicans join the call.

Donalds did not want to take the job when he was asked by CNN if he wanted it.

The reason for the use of omnibus bills is because congress has been so disorganized that it has only one way to pass a bill and that is to cram everything into one.

The fourthballot vote signaled that Republicans were not going to break the stalemate in the chamber even after a direct appeal from President Donald J. Trump.

The endorsement didn’t move any of the people in Mr. McCarthy’s direction. With a fifth vote underway, the Republican leader and his allies still were working behind closed doors trying to secure the votes.

McCarthy is unpopular with some of his opponents. Jordan urged them to stay out of his way. Instead, Rep. Chip Roy of Texas stood instead to nominate Donalds – the very Republican who had defected the day prior.

The California Republican unveiled major concessions on Wednesday evening after he was stung by right-wing radicals who blocked his bid for power in six humiliating votes – a farcical debut for the new GOP-led House.

The risible state of the House’s new Republican management was reflected in the cheers that erupted from Republican benches when the vote closed.

“The country or Kevin McCarthy. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, a CNN political analyst, said which should have more weight.

The battle for a new balance of power in the Republican-Democratian bipartisan bipartisanship battle: A warning on the right-wing extremists

The other side has a band of right-wing radicals who are holding the party, the House and the country hostage with no clear objective other than to destroy governance itself. Chaos is the point for them.

But as humiliation piled on humiliation for the California lawmaker, there was the merest hint of a lifeline as a divide inside the anti-McCarthy block began to open.

The lawmaker who wants far-reaching changes to the House reported genuine progress in talks with McCarthy. Texas Rep. Chip Roy said he could get over 10 votes if the talks go well.

If he does another pointless voting on Thursday, members will have to decide whether he should step aside for a more trusted colleague, like Steve Scalise of Louisiana. Many Republicans are complaining that their hopes for quickly wielding power and throttling the Biden administration have been dashed.

There are hints on how the battle for the speaker’s gavel may develop after a second day in the House. It also provided insight into the new balance of power in Washington and how Congress will work (or won’t) in the months ahead.

“If it’s the latter, it’s not as constructive because it shouldn’t be about the personality, it should be about the process, but I don’t know. I don’t know how many are in one camp or the other.

The McCarthy Rebuke: Politics of Desperation in the White House is Not the Way It Used to Be: Trump’s Twitter Twist and the End of the Democratic Party

The second vote on Wednesday on the floor of the House was a huge deal for the crowd. The opposing sides gathered on the floor to hold talks in real time between the votes of the speaker.

Some Republicans accuse their colleagues of grandstanding and of using the spotlight to raise campaign cash and to drum up appearances on conservative media. It is the latest expression of an anti-establishment wing of the GOP that is trying to eliminate government itself.

Donald Trump’s vows to drain the Washington swamp was sent into overdrive by politics of destruction. And it was expressed most eloquently by Steve Bannon at the start of the Trump administration as “the deconstruction of the administrative state.” The problem for McCarthy – who has cozied up to Trump and often appeased the zealots – is how to negotiate with someone whose main aspiration is chaos.

It was the kind of social media activity that would have made the Republican members jump in line. But no longer. It didn’t appear to change a single vote.

Her rebuke was the latest sign that after two years in political exile, a disastrous intervention in the midterms and a low energy 2024 campaign launch, Trump’s juice isn’t what it once was in GOP ranks in the House. While the ex-president’s rapport with the Republican base surely remains intact, this kind of insubordination is unlikely to have gone down well in Mar-a-Lago.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/05/politics/mccarthy-desperation-speaker-analysis/index.html

Biden and the House Speaker’s Dilemma on Infrastructure and the Future of the House: An Analysis of Biden, Roy, and McCarthy

The spectacle in the House on Wednesday had more in common with the chaos and recrimination that unfolds in parliaments in Europe or Israel, where it can sometimes take weeks or months to arrive at a leader or governing majority, than in the US House, where the vote for speaker is normally a formality.

“It’s embarrassing for the country,” President Joe Biden said on Wednesday, as he capitalized on the chaos in an event in Kentucky highlighting bipartisan political leadership over his massive infrastructure package, appearing with Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell.

He allowed more members of the Freedom Caucus to serve on the Rules Committee, which decides whether bills come to the floor, and also voted on several bills that are priorities for the holdout Republicans, including one that would set term limits on members.

But even after proposing major concessions to his hardline opponents late Wednesday, it remains unclear if the California Republican will be able to lock in the 218 votes he needs to win the gavel, and patience is wearing thin among lawmakers as the fight drags on.

McCarthy said Wednesday evening that there was no deal yet to end the stalemate, but that there has been progress. “I think it’s probably best that people work through some more,” McCarthy said after the House had adjourned.

Republican sources say that Chip Roy told GOP leaders that if negotiations go well, he will be able to get 10 hold outs to vote against McCarthy in the speakership race.

There is a lot of people involved in this and some are trying to decide where they want to go with it.

One moderate Republican told CNN Thursday morning that they aren’t happy about the concessions, though they are willing to have “discussions” about them.

It is feared that lower the threshold to oust the speaker will make it more difficult to legislate on items such as the debt limit.

“I don’t like the rules but am willing to hear discussions. I think they’re a mistake for the conference. These handful of folks want a weak speaker with a four-vote majority. The member said that the public would not like what they saw of the GOP.

The Insurrection on January 6, 2012: The War on the Capitol, the War on Washington, D.C., and the End of the War for the American Dream

Editor’s Note: Michael Fanone, a former Washington, DC police officer who was injured during the January 6 riot at the US Capitol, is the author of a memoir, “Hold the Line: The Insurrection and One Cop’s Battle for America’s Soul.” He is a CNN law enforcement analyst. His opinions are his own. CNN has more opinion.

It has been two years since I nearly died defending the Capitol from armed insurrectionists who tried to overthrow the government, and they will be getting no sympathy from me. The insurrectionists who almost took my life two years ago ignored my pleas that I have kids.

And that’s just to name a few examples. The frightening trend towards violent rhetoric seems sure to continue without the intervention of Republican top brass.

And the conspiracists have a sizable swath of the public on their side: Politically-motivated attacks are on the rise across the nation and millions of Americans now believe that the use of force would be justified to restore Trump to the presidency. It’s important to reverse this dangerous trend.

The new GOP House leadership has a responsibility to condemn political violence that comes from members of their own party. Trump remains the defacto leader of the Republican Party, and that begins with finally condemning him. The incoming Speaker and the House leadership must demand that members of their party never again amplify language or take actions that put the lives of their constituents, their peers or law enforcement at risk.

In recent months there have been a lot of these reprehensible behavior, starting with McCarthy. As GOP leader, McCarthy once vehemently condemned then-President Trump for his role in ginning up the rioters who stormed the Capitol – and then swallowed those words of condemnation several days later. He travelled to Mar-a-Lago in order to appease both the president and election deniers in his own caucus.

Since then, influential GOP House members have called the January 6 assault a “normal tourist visit.” Some called for former Speaker Nancy Pelosi to be executed for treason and shared antisemitic messages.

Our leaders’ statements and actions have consequences. The insurrection on January 6 would have been armed if she had planned it, like Trump used to rile up his supporters before they attacked the Capitol. (She later claimed that she was being sarcastic, and that the comment had been made in jest.)

Many of her allies in the House have promoted a baseless conspiracy theory. In the wake of such outrageous statements, irate protesters are calling for the banning of books from neighborhood schools, and over running the local libraries.

The examples of recent acts of violence that appear to have been instigated by right-wing rhetoric are almost too numerous to name. Three New York council members’ homes were vandalised last month over the issue of a drag queen story hour in the city, and the attack on the home of former Speaker Pelosi was a result of the rhetoric of the Trump administration.

Gaetz encouraged voters to arm themselves at the polls, while armed intimidation happened when voters cast their ballots. Research has even shown that MAGA Republicans are more likely than others – including GOP moderates – to endorse violence as usually or always justified to advance their political objectives. There was a spike in threats to the FBI after agents searched Mar-a-Lago.

Over-the-top rhetoric by GOP lawmakers is troubling enough. Unfortunately their extremist views also have been all-too-evident in their voting records. There are 147 members of Congress who voted against the results of the free and fair election in 2020 as well as 35 House Republicans who voted against the creation of the January 6th Commission.

And – what was for me a personal affront – there were 21 Republican members who, in an unconscionable action, voted against DC and Capitol Police officers like me receiving the presidential medal of freedom for our role defending the Capitol during the insurrection.

It might surprise some people who didn’t know me before January 6, but I’ve never considered myself to be a political person. Yes, I voted for Trump in 2016, after being turned off by the anti-police rhetoric on the left.

I tried to fight some of the Trump- inspired candidates in the last election because I believed they posed a danger to democracy. I believe in people, but I have never believed in politicians. I support new groups demanding sanity and accountability from our politicians.

I will be at an event this week where I will be joined by veterans, members of Congress, and the group Courage for America, which I helped to found. Courage for America is joining with a new group called Common Defense to fight right-wing violence that almost ended my life. Two years ago, at the Capitol reflecting pool, opponents of President Donald Trump placed a lynching reference on top of a flag and called for Vice President Mike Pence to be hung.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/05/opinions/january-6-anniversary-republican-house-fanone/index.html

Every child has a moral right, but no need for a teacher: Byron Donalds should not be a criminal or a defendant speaker

As a kid growing up, I was always a bit of a troublemaker; law enforcement turned out to be the perfect landing spot for a rambunctious kid without a clear sense of direction. Being a cop and being an investigator taught me to keep revising and refining my findings as I gather more information.

At that moment, even though I was surrounded by violent, shouting protesters, all I could see were my kids’ faces: My four daughters are the ones I’m speaking out for.

I want them to be able to live in a country where elected officials are accountable to the people they serve. Political violence doesn’t have to be a partisan issue. It’s a moral one.

Representatives from Virginia, Colorado, and Florida applauded as ScottPerry nominated Byron Donalds for speaker on Wednesday.

Some have strongly suggested that they can, and the California Republican has agreed to many of their demands, including moves that would weaken the speakership considerably and make it exceedingly difficult to pass the most basic legislation, including bills needed to keep the government open and to avoid a default on the nation’s debt.

Ms. Boebert has also repeatedly gone on television to defend the stance against Mr. McCarthy, even as pressure has mounted from Mr. Trump and conservative allies outside of Congress. And she scoffed on Thursday at the notion Mr. McCarthy’s many concessions would be sufficient to deliver him the votes to become speaker.

Representative Bob Good of Virginia, a self-described “biblical conservative” and former administrator at Liberty University, also made it clear on Thursday that he would never be swayed to Mr. McCarthy’s side.

The Rules Committee: The Case Against Replacing the Speaker of the House with a Single Lawmaker and Other Demographic Clues

They included allowing a single lawmaker to force a snap vote at any time to oust the speaker, a rule that would effectively codify a standing threat that Mr. McCarthy would be at the mercy of hard-right lawmakers at all times, and could be removed instantly if he crossed them.

Representative Norman has shown willingness to negotiate. When asked if he would be open to voting for Mr. McCarthy after the new round of concessions, he replied: “The devil is in the details.”

Conservative media outlets did not grill the lawmakers who declined to back Mr. McCarthy about what would be needed to convince them to back him.

Representative Matt Rosendale of Montana was among the returning lawmakers who continued to vote for someone other than Mr. McCarthy, along with Representatives Mary Miller of Illinois and Andy Harris of Maryland.

Some of the lawmakers have pushed for votes on specific bills, like legislation requiring term limits for lawmakers. The Rules Committee is where legislation gets votes and the rules for debate on the House floor are set.

Some of Mr. McCarthy’s supporters point out that it’s up to a group of Republican lawmakers, not the speaker, to make decisions about who leads specific committees.

The Gingrich Era of the GOP: A Tale of Two Presidents, One Exile, One Sparse, and Three Disruptions

Editor’s Note: Julian Zelizer, a CNN political analyst, is a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University. He is the author of 23 books, including his forthcoming co-edited work, “Myth America: Historians Take on the Biggest lies and legends about Our Past” (Basic Books). He can be followed on TWITCH by the name jlianzelizer. The views that he expresses are his own. CNN has more opinions on it.

The fact that former president Donald Trump seemed to have little sway in the GOP infighting was surprising to many observers. Trump said on Truth Social that the GOP should not turn a great challenge into a giant fight and thatKevin McCarthy could do a good job. In a post, Trump said to vote for Kevin, close the deal and take the victory.

In certain areas, Trump is facing a dilemma that has been faced by many other presidents. These leaders shift the political playing field and inspire a younger generation of politicians to do what they did. As a part of the Gingrich generation of Republicans that pushed for a much more aggressive version of bipartisanship in Washington, former Speaker John Boehner clashed with the Tea Party legislators he opened the doors of power to.

Over time, the acolytes demand more and become more extreme than the leader who originally welcomed them into the fold. Jim Jordan was blasted as a “legislative terrorist” by the now Speaker of the House. They were the rebels, as he had become the establishment.

A significant part of Trump’s influence was his nihilistic attitude of political combat. He helped to spur a younger, more extreme cohort to step up and demand power. Conservatives will do almost anything in their effort to win, like Trump believes that chaos and instability have great political value. And now some of these Trump loyalists might be close to concluding that they no longer need him – or at the very least, they no longer need to follow his every move.

It is difficult to get ahead of the Republican party’s march to its far-right extremes according to Kevin McCarthy.

But on Friday’s two-year anniversary of the worst attack on American democracy in the modern era, he’s finding out that even that supposedly career-enhancing bet is insufficient to unlock the votes of Trump’s heirs in the chaos wing of the GOP.

In another surreal scene on the Hill this week, one of those Republicans, Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene – who has downplayed the insurrection and said rioters would have “won” if she was in charge – is complaining about the extremism of some of her colleagues who oppose McCarthy.

But even in the wake of the attack on the US Capitol, the right-wing media machine and a still-angry base of voters mean there are strong political incentives for disruptor politicians in the ex-president’s image.

But that narrow margin – which will also put the majority in a precarious position on must-pass legislation like funding the government and raising the debt ceiling later on – is the direct result of voters being alienated by the ex-president’s incessant, false claims of 2020 voter fraud and the party failing to deliver the “red wave” many Republicans had predicted.

Gaetz waited until the last ballot to vote “present” when McCarthy needed one more “yes” vote, in the midst of pandemonium on the House floor. McCarthy was embarrassed after he thought he had the votes. McCarthy’s allies encircled Gaetz to try to find a way forward. McCarthy soon made a bee-line for discussion and started engaging Gaetz, too.

This isn’t chaos. This is a republic in progress. Boebert said this is a really beautiful thing. The messiness on the floor is caused by rules and procedure, the most basic elements of governing that Trump tried to disrupt with his attempts to overturn the Electoral College votes.

What Kevin Gaetz and the Republicans Really Want: End of the Gingrich-Induced Impasse and Reconstruction in the House, or Can We Obtain a Deal?

The reality of what the rebels do is what her arguments focus on. Many other Republicans have complained that it is not clear exactly what concessions the group around Gaetz, who have vowed to never support McCarthy, actually want.

“This ends one of two ways: Either Kevin McCarthy withdraws from the race, or we construct a straitjacket that he is unable to evade,” Gaetz, who cast his vote in the seventh round for Trump, told reporters on Thursday.

In other words, the most extreme hardliners will only accept a candidate that shares their no-compromise, Nihilistic form of politics that effectively makes governing impossible.

These demands were the culmination of anti-government forces unleashed decades ago by former House Speaker Newt Gingrich. The anti- Washington Tea Party movement was born out of them. Trump then drove out much of the governing wing of the GOP as he effectively worked to bring down the institutions of government and accountability from inside as president.

Brian Fitzpatrick, a McCarthy ally, told CNN that a deal could clear the way soon for a solution to the impasse.

After the House adjourned on Thursday, McCarthy said that while there had been progress in negotiations, there was no timeline on when he could get to 218 votes. He said that if it takes a little longer, that is fine.

Several members said they were very close to a deal that would make them rebuild their alliances and trust, which was hampered by a Tuesday morning conference meeting.

The Challenges of the Republican-Benard-Governing Committee: Addressing the “Closure and Structure” of the House and Senate

The main things we’re talking about is a conservative agenda around spending and our Republican majority. That’s really the crux of the conversation. And that’s really the contours of it.”

“Rules, structure and process dictate outcomes in this place, in a substantial way,” McHenry said. “So you want to make sure all those things are in place.”

He added: “What I’ve seen over the last 36 hours is immense amount of effort to take the emotion out of this and get into the substance of the challenges.”

Specific committee assignments for hold outs, and other issues like spending, aren’t being discussed by McHenry.

One of the holdouts told CNN that the deal he saw in Minnesota was changes that he wanted.

Norman said the most important changes in the deal are rule changes such as a 72-hour rule to review bills and open amendments. The deal did not address the committee assignments.

McCarthy said that there have been no negotiations that involved giving subcommittee chairmanships to dissidents.

Patience is wearing thin among lawmakers and moderates have also grown increasingly frustrated over the concessions, which many believe may make it harder for the new GOP majority to effectively govern, though they will likely still swallow them.

McCarthy was defiant earlier in the day on Thursday in the face of the stiff headwinds, saying that he will continue to face opposition until he reaches a deal with his detractors.

After a long and bitter contest that has resulted in 11 defeats, Mr. McCarthy sent his team of emissaries to negotiate with the ultraconservatives.

You’ve likely heard lots about how unprecedented the repeated failed votes for Speaker have been, or at least that it hasn’t happened in about a century. Is this a new level of Congress incompetence?

John Farrell is an author and historian. He has covered Congress as a journalist and also written biographies of former House Speaker Tip O’Neill and Senator Ted Kennedy.

Capitol Hill has deteriorated since the Berlin Wall came down and the end of the Cold War. We were no longer fighting against each other when we were freed from that common enemy. We remember the golden era from World War II to the 1960s, but it’s gone now. We’re back to where we were in the 1920’s or the 1880’s.

It’s not coincidental that the huge Speaker battles occurred in the four or five years before the Civil War, when America was struggling with big economic and regional issue like slavery. This could be a sign of things to come, as it has been rare since the 20th century.

When things weren’t golden: The rise and fall of the good, the bad, and the ugly. A case study in the 1970s

It may be a new low, but things were never golden, really. Nixon joined the red hunters in the McCarthy era and came to power as a congressman. You had Newt Gingrich in the 1990s convincing the Republicans that they needed to be nastier. Even one of our more staid, regular members now, Jim Jordan, started as a member of the Freedom Caucus as the bomb thrower.

These guys grow up in the institution and eventually become institutionalists. But there’s always room for somebody to make their name by being the louder, more explosive member of the group.

I don’t think you should ever underestimate individual careerism. The social media and cable news atmosphere seems to be providing nearly a reward in itself, but this time around is different. You write on social media, go on TV shows, and suddenly become popular by yourself. You are, by yourself, without having to rely on the Republican Party to get donations. The big party donors had to feel that you were in line because they called you and said, “Get in line”.

Well if you’re a bar owner in Rifle, Colorado, and you have a life of loneliness and obscurity, and all of a sudden now you’re a national media person duking it out with Sean Hannity on Fox News and getting on your Twitter feed and seeing that you’ve got tens of thousands of people following what you say, it’s a pretty heady experience. You do not care if there is a payback down the line.

I don’t think they tell us a lot. In the short term, you can expect chaos, that’s what they say. But we just came away from a presidency in which the president was impeached twice. Politics has always been meant to be a spectacle. And politics in this country, thanks to the wisdom of the founders was always meant to be a mud wrestling game without anybody walking away with a clear preeminence of power. We fought a revolution against King George. In the early days, the founding fathers were very suspicious of the parliament having too much power. It’s all supposed to be balanced. And balance means that there’s going to be lots of stalemates, and there’s going to be times of chaos.

The First Day of the Gaetz-Client Infighting: During the Week of January 12, 2021, the House Speaker was Sufficiently Defended

After McCarthy walked away from Gaetz, looking dejected, Armed Services Chairman Mike Rogers moved toward the conversation and lunged at Gaetz, having to be physically restrained by Republican Rep. Richard Hudson of North Carolina. Rogers, a Republican from Alabama who earlier in the week warned the GOP dissidents they would lose their committee assignments, told Gaetz he would be “finished” for continuing to wreck the speaker’s vote.

On the 13th vote, the GOP leader peeled off one more detractor, Rep. Andy Harris of Maryland. It was decided by the House to adjourn until 10PM to give McCarthy’s supporters time to come back to Washington and to allow McCarthy’s allies to turn up the heat on the remaining holdouts.

McCarthy denied that Gaetz had received a subcommittee gavel in exchange for his vote. McCarthy said that no one gets promised anything.

Afterwards the Florida Republican accused McCarthy of acting in bad faith when he asked him for a list of demands and then berating him over it.

The meeting where Lauren Boebert of Colorado spoke out against McCarthy and where he engaged in heated exchanges with other Republicans was the beginning of the four-day battle.

At noon, the House gaveled in the 118th Congress, and lawmakers swarmed the House floor, children in tow, for what was supposed to begin a day of pageantry. In a sign of the new Republican rules, the magnetometers installed by outgoing Speaker Nancy Pelosi in the wake of the January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol were removed from the doors to the House floor.

Trump continued to keep the House drama at arms’ length until Friday, when he made calls to Gaetz and Rep. Andy Biggs of Arizona while they were on the House floor. After McCarthy won the speakership, Trump congratulated him on his social media site.

At the same time the House was taking vote after vote for speaker, Biden was speaking in Kentucky at an event with Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell promoting the 2021 infrastructure bill McConnell helped pass. The contrast between the House Republican infighting and Biden’s speech were laid bare by the split screen.

The meeting was not clear if it would lead to a breakthrough. Gaetz pledged that the McCarthy dissenters could continue to hold votes “until the cherry blossoms fall off the trees.” Boebert said the “boats are burned” when it comes to any future negotiations with McCarthy.

The Congressional Leadership Fund, a McCarthyaligned super PAC, agreed to not be involved in open primaries in safe seats, a sign that McCarthy had relented on demands from conservatives.

The GOP dissidents also sounded a positive note. As he walked into the meeting with other GOP hardliners, Bishop told CNN they were making some progress.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/07/politics/kevin-mccarthy-path-to-speakership/index.html

Speaker’s Meet-the-McCarthy Meeting: House Rules and Correspondence with the Causal Committee on Capitol Hill Activists

Lawmakers followed two tracks, voting on the House floor for speaker and remaining in negotiations behind closed doors.

The holdouts who were not in the “never Kevin” camp continued their discussions with McCarthy and his allies, who were closer to a deal.

There was an offer by the early evening. Three of the key negotiators – Emmer, Roy and Donalds – huddled with McCarthy in his ceremonial office, following a session in Emmer’s office for one group to review the written agreement to break the stalemate. Another group huddled in the member’s dining room on the first floor of the Capitol to discuss a separate part of the written deal.

Several Republicans were expected to leave Washington due to their family problems, which was one factor complicating the talks. A planned medical procedure forced Buck to leave Thursday afternoon. The congressman flew back to Texas to be with his wife and newborn who had to spend some time in the intensive care unit.

The House Democrats marked the second anniversary of the attack on the steps of the Capitol on Friday. The only Republican present was Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/07/politics/kevin-mccarthy-path-to-speakership/index.html

On the first day of the Republican primary campaign: A return to the good old days: Where the Republicans were before he was elected president and what had we learned in the Senate?

McCarthy thought that he would win over some holdovers, though there were still reasons to becaut the finish line was not in sight.

While the House was in session, Gaetz and Boebert sat for an interview with Fox News and said they were hopeful about the rules changes the holdouts had won.

McCarthy was elected House speaker early Saturday morning after more than 84 hours after the start of the 118th Congress.

Before the chaos over the final vote, McCarthy earlier Friday had sounded an optimistic note that the lengthy fight over the gavel would actually help Republicans. This is the great part. Because it took this long, now we’ve learned how to govern,” McCarthy said. “So now we’ll be able to get the job done.”

Did you not realize that the Republican Party existed before Donald Trump became president? ‌Are you nostalgic for the days of John Boehner battling Tea Party rebels over the debt ceiling or the fiscal cliff, or Ted Cruz’s “plan” to defund Obamacare? Do you pine for the years when the crucial test of conservative purity was a commitment to an implausible deficit reduction plan, the good old days when empty suits and aspiring lobbyists battled libertarian ideologues and aspiring cable-news personalities for the chance to advance an agenda of mild austerity and business-friendly tax cuts?

Does surrender really make you better? Retribution, retribution against the Koch brothers in the House of Representatives (Reply to Gaetz)

It raises an interesting question: is surrendering your way to victory really winning? Will this appeasement ever end, since it only makes the group more powerful?

We are in the year 2023. There is a smaller governing majority now as the malcontents dig in. Actually, there really is no GOP governing majority at all, and the world will learn that soon enough.

A paradigm shift is long in coming. The Republican members who objected to McCarthy’s concessions should force a course correction and change the dynamics.

In this case, retribution is a dish best served piping hot. The rules package is the first step towards rational House Republicans using their leverage. They should give the chaos caucus a taste of their own medicine and say no until their reasonable demands are met.

The hardliners also secured a promise that a McCarthy-aligned super PAC would not intervene in open, safe seat GOP primaries. It would be better if fringe elements were allowed to be even more involved in Congress because it would produce more people who are disinterested in governing. These are inexplicable acts of self-destruction.

The crocodiles should not be fed. Republicans must stand, fight and resist. Two can play this game. If the diabolical demands and tactics of the chaos caucus didn’t upset them enough, consider this quote from Gaetz: “I ran out of things I could even imagine to ask for.”

The House’s ability to function is at stake. America’s authoritarian adversaries state that democracy is outdated and unable to meet the needs of its people. It is time for us to stamp out extremists who deny the results of free and fair elections and want to ruin the democratic process in America.