Rep. Steve Scalise is dropping out of the speaker’s race after House Republicans failed to coalesce behind him in the aftermath of Kevin McCarthy’s historic ouster.
House Republicans met behind closed-doors for more than two hours Thursday afternoon, where the Majority leader urged his detractors to explain their opposition to him in front of the conference. After the meeting ended, Scalise huddled with those opposed to him in his office. And Republicans scheduled a second members-only conference meeting for Thursday evening.
But the opposition to Scalise as the next speaker only grew Thursday, with roughly 20 Republicans publicly opposing him. Scalise needs a majority of the House to be elected speaker, meaning he can only afford to lose four votes.
And he was the frontrunner. The only other person running was Jordan, with way less support.
With how fractioned the House Republicans are right now, Democrat support for Hakeem Jeffries technically makes him the frontrunner right now even without the majority.
Not that that matters, since a majority is needed. It will make next month and the expiry of the 45 day budget bill extension interesting if there’s no Speaker to even bring it to a vote.
How many Republicans would be to vote for Jeffries? Seems like about 15-20 Democrats would need to support Scalise for him to get the vote.
Exactly. Less than a hands worth are needed to flip things the other way. Let’s hope there’s still enough Tuesday-type Republicans to get that to happen.
The republican party is currently an optics nightmare. I don’t have words for how awful the optics will become if the government shuts down and they don’t even have a speaker. Republicans LOVE blaming democrats for shutdowns even though it’s always republicans that refuse to negotiate, but this time it will be truly 100% on them, and unavoidably so.
I don’t doubt for a second that they won’t still try to blame Biden somehow. As we’ve seen with Fox News, it doesn’t need to be true, they just need to repeat it enough times and people will believe it’s true.
Republican leadership seems to know now that it doesn’t work, and they get the majority of the blame.
The party is in an existential and optical nightmare. Polls show the Republican base fairly split on McCarthy’s removal. I think it was something like 37% approving. McCarthy was an incredibly tenuous compromise candidate, and everyone knew he wouldn’t be able to govern without that gavel going away.
McCarthy was just a bandaid on a festering wound, and now Republicans are paralyzed to address it.
Honestly, at this stage, I really wish the Democrats would just pick a (relatively) moderate republican who reaches across the aisle sometimes. I know there isn’t a single member of the house who votes with the Democrats over I believe 40% (28% last I checked was highest? Been a few years) but tap somebody in that range so they can just point to them and tell Republicans “this is what compromise looks like. We are actually trying to help you and we know who we would like to see. We are not just obstructing the process.“ The Republicans still would not coalesce behind the person, we all know it. But that would 100% put the ball in their court.
And hey, if they surprise us all, that’s fantastic news. We did not end up with Scalise or Jordan and perhaps we can start to see a little movement across the aisle for the first time in god knows how long. It would also eliminate the threat of people like Gaetz.
I enjoy watching the Republican party eat itself, but that would be a pretty huge victory regardless. And this show will not go on forever.
The Republican party needs to end. Prolonging it’s miserable existence with an olive branch burdens millions of Americans with crackpots, zealots, conmen, and losers.
Not without concessions, and the GOP has made those instant death to their party. The only people who can do it will need to come out as independents, and be in swing district’s.
4 “seats are in danger” Republicans should reach across the aisle to dems, get deep concessions (maintiaing impeachment bullshit, maintaining most if not all commitee seats/etc) and vote for jeffries.
f ET thikkvff
I get your point, but a house speaker has never, ever been voted out before, yet here we are. A house speaker hasent taken more than one vote to be selected for literally 100 yrs, but here we are.
These are unprecedented times. Dems wouldn’t compromise because their party isn’t fractured, no matter how much media wants to gin up comflict. The GOP is, and when you have their level of dysfunction, you have to turn to where you can actually get votes. Right now, thats the dems.
I honestly dont expect Jeffies to be selected here. At most, some actually moderate GOP rep might get dem votes after some big consessions. Still, we are in uncharted waters. Shit very well might get weird.
They voted him out knowing a republican would replace him. Gaetz and them are absurd but they are not going to literally hand the reins to the democrats. It’s not happening. I would put money on it. Jeffries will not be considered by the GOP.