Posts Tagged ‘house gop’

I suggest a backward House Vote

Posted: October 25, 2023 by datechguy in congress
Tags: , ,

It’s now been nearly a month since the dogs caught the car and they still haven’t figured out what to do with it.

Since it only takes six house GOP members to keep a speaker off the chair both the ultra MAGAs and the NEVERTRUMP wings of the party have the ability to reject any candidate that doesn’t reach their purity levels.

And the Democrats of course who suckered the GOP by voting with the six as all kinds of house business isn’t getting done are having a grand old time over it.

The cycle is pretty straightforward.

  1. An internal vote takes place to see who is the preferred candidate
  2. Members who voted for a different candidate highlight positions unacceptable to their group
  3. Candidate either drops out or loses floor vote.
  4. Go to #1

Given the inability to vote in a house speaker among the members I’d suggest voting in Gingrich if we has willing to do it and if the house would have him with the understanding that if the House can get 218 GOP votes for someone else he would step aside but if the plan is to vote in a current member of the house then we need a different tack.

Here is what I propose:

  1. Each GOP house member is given a list of the entire GOP house caucus
  2. Each member crosses out any name that is unacceptable as speaker of the house
  3. The ballots are checked to see if any house member failed to be crossed out on six lists or less that person is put up for speaker. If somehow there are more than one then the person crossed off the fewest list is the primary candidate
  4. If there is not a house member who has been removed from six lists then a person outside the house should be nominated for speaker.

This plan has the virtue of at least establishing if the GOP can elect a speaker from among their members.

Let’s find out if there is at least one house member not despised enough who can be advanced if not the I suggest Gingrich, if not him then find a GOP candidate among the state legislatures or perhaps a retired judge.

I’d be willing to do it for 3 million but not a penny less. I don’t need the grief.

My Speaker Suggestion: Raid a Blue State Minority Leader

Posted: January 4, 2023 by datechguy in politics
Tags: , ,

I must admit I came into this whole speaker debate an agnostic.

Ideally as I’ve already written you want someone willing to either

  1. Make a deal with the left to advance your most important priorities in exchange for some of theirs as that all you can do with only the house
  2. Hold up everything and do nothing but pass the essential funding bills and do investigations.

But I figured the logical thing was to get McCarthy in there and if he blew it, he blew it.

It seems to me that if McCarthy can’t get his own caucus in line and didn’t have the brains to wait till he had the votes to hold the vote and didn’t have the skill to make a deal within his own party he’s unlikely to be able to do what needs to be done as speaker.

This suggests we are going to need a compromise candidate means we will need a compromise candidate

The problem is apparently nobody in the GOP caucus seems to want the job.

Frankly if nobody who can get the votes is willing to step up then none of them should get the job which means we need to look elsewhere.

The logical place to look would be in the various state legislatures.

Now I suspect people with actual power in a red state will not want to give it up to be speaker when they don’t get a seat in congress to go with it but there are plenty of GOP pols stuck in blue states like Massachusetts who have no prospect of advancement who are wasted where they are and more importantly are likely unacquainted with the existing members which means that they will be able to act without retaliation and might even help in their own state.

This is the logical and rational move that is most likely to provide the results that we want. Which means it’s almost completely unlikely that they will be willing to do this.