Fez

Lol, the "moderate" GOP rebellion may actually be happening. Not necessarily against McCarthy on the Speakership, but on the rules package immediately afterwards: I honestly don't know what happens if there is a Speaker but there isn't a rules package (whereas without a Speaker the House can only do what it's done the past 4 days). Maybe the House just functions under general parliamentary procedure until a rules package does pass?

Harris just flipped, not sure if he got his bribe already or decided he didn't want to part of the absolute fringe. But that's getting things awfully close for McCarthy.

I assume nothing. McCarthy won't always be able to ensure such high attendance of his conference and there will likely be plenty of times he doesn't have a numerical majority without the holdouts. If they get punished I could certainly ones like Gaetz voting with Democrats on procedural stuff (never actual bills of course) simply to fuck with him.

As far as I know, no. He's given away committee spots to the HFC, including the all-important Rules Committee. But all reporting so far is that the gavels themselves will still be assigned by seniority.

Well, Ken Buck missed the vote today but will be back, so McCarthy's really at 215 now. That's close enough to keep trying and maybe sneak through if enough Dems or any of those 7 miss a vote (it seem 1 Dem did miss this last one). Also, if none of McCarthy's supporters abandoned him yet, despite giving away the farm to the HFC, I doubt they'll blink as he gives away enormous bribes to 3 of the 7 (e.g., key committee gavels). Some of them, like Harris, seem likely to accept that. I don't know if 5 of them are truly "never Kevin no matter what".

If this doesn't cause some of McCarthy's support to flip against him, I'm not sure anything will..

What a long strange history the Bradley Fighting Vehicle has had. Once upon a time it was considered so ridiculous, and its development so troubled, that it ended up being the subject of a 1998 comedy starring Cary Elwes.

If he makes no progress today I suspect he's done, but if he does peel off a few votes I think he gets to keep going at least through the weekend. Even though there doesn't really appear to be a plan to appease the 8ish "Never Kevins" (e.g., Gaetz). And the rumor last night was that there might be anywhere up to 4 McCarthy supporters who miss the votes today, which makes the math slightly harder still for McCarthy. It lowers the majority threshold by 2, but lowers his vote total by 4.

I say 100%. He'll be safe because there won't be anything to do. He can powerlessly sit in the chair while endless fever dream bills pass the House and the committees do pointless investigations. It's only when a tough vote comes up that he'll collapse, which won't be until the debt ceiling standoff in the summer.

There needs to be a LOT more pain and suffering before we get to the (still very unlikely) Aaron Sorkin ending. Including other candidates, like Steve Scalise, failing multiple rounds of votes. I'm fairly confident this is at least going into next week. Because the thing is, there's no pressing need for the House to do anything. The government is funded until Sept 30, the debt ceiling won't be an issue until the summer, and the Senate's in recess anyway until Jan 23. There's no real incentive for anyone to fold on anything (except McCarthy, who's folded on everything and has gotten nothing for it).

They only did yesterday because 2 Democrats missed the vote (though in fairness, 2 Republicans did too). I suspect they don't have the votes right now, otherwise they would've already adjourned.

Funnily enough, the open rules that the crazies want would heavily empower House Democrats as well and make it much more likely that a clean debt ceiling passes. The wouldn't need to wait for McCarthy/GOP Speaker to bring anything to the floor or need procedural votes (like discharge petitions) that never work. They could just propose an amendment on any random, unobjectionable bill (like naming a post office) and it'd probably pass thanks to the dozen or so House Republicans that don't want to play games with the debt ceiling. It would also mean that House Democrats could force swing district House Republicans to take tough votes, like on protecting abortion access.

Debbie Stabenow has announced she won't run for re-election in 2024, so I guess new Michigan resident Mayor Pete has his opening already.

From what I've read, it likely happened automatically. There wasn't any permanent law or regulation that the metal detectors be there, it was just a rule from last session. And that rule, like every other one, expired at 11:30am on Jan. 3. So there was no authorization for the detectors to be there and they were simply removed by facilities.

It means the most to new members. Their staff aren't actually staff until they get sworn in. Which means they don't have official email accounts, office badges, parking permits, anything. Returning staff for returning members at least still have all that from last session. Although nobody is getting paid yet. And since no one is on committees yet, there's no committee staff yet. Which pushes back the timeline for functionally anything to occur, even pointless investigations of Hunter Biden.

It's not just Ohio, some crazy stuff just went down in the Pennsylvania legislature today too. As a reminder, Dems won a 102-101 majority in November, but 1 Dem died and 2 resigned so the GOP has a nominal 101-99 majority until the 3 special elections are held (which are all expected to be easy Dem holds). One is scheduled for Feb. 23 and the other 2 aren't scheduled yet. So with that background, no one knew what today would bring with the new legislature sworn in. Well, after hours of who-knows-what talks on the floor, a back-bencher Democrat was just elected Speaker with all 99 Democrats and 16 Republicans voting for him. And said back-bencher has announced they will become an independent and not caucus with either party. It's an Aaron Sorkin plot come to life! After the 3 special elections are held, maybe Dems try again to get their first choice for Speaker elected, but that would require the new Speaker to step aside. Which might not be very likely.

Or its the classic "Caesar refusing to be crowned three times" and is trying to appear above it all but will "reluctantly" accept power when he's needed. Although I suspect he really doesn't want to be Speaker, since it'll set a very definite countdown to his resignation. Far easier to be a bomb-thrower from the sidelines.

Speaking of compromise Speakers, no details on the deal yet, but interesting stuff out of Ohio. Looks like 22 (of the 67 total) Republicans in the state legislature joined with all 32 Democrats to elect a compromise Republican as Speaker.

AOC has now had extended conversations the house floor with both Gaetz and Gosar. Oh to be a fly on that wall.

Paul Gosar officially nominated Andy Biggs as a candidate for Speaker, and Matt Fuller (journalist) noted at least 11 Republicans applauding. That would suggest 13 Republicans at minimum voting against McCarthy.

But by continuing to vote, Democrats get to extend the humiliation and embarrassment among Republicans. That's a powerful motivator. Also, there is that slim chance Democrats do get to be involved. And lastly, the longer this goes, the more draining and demoralizing it becomes for Republicans; making it more likely a few do throw their hands up and walk away.

Not sure why you think Dem attendance is more likely to drop than GOP attendance.

That's the Fred Upton option. I wouldn't rule it out entirely, but it seems very unlikely. This was much more likely if Dems had gotten to 216 or 217 seats, since then they'd only need 2 Republicans; who could be Speaker and Deputy Speaker (a new position) and that'd take the sting out of certainly losing re-election in 2024. Although if the vote goes enough ballots who knows what might happen?

Sounds like there's maybe around 20 GOP 'No' votes actually. Which hilariously means there's a good chance Jeffries will get more votes for Speaker on the first ballot than McCarthy will. No idea what happens past that. But I suspect the answer is that Steve Scalise eventually ends up Speaker, as opposed to Jim Jordan (too insane for the GOP mods) or a compromise candidate like Fred Upton (too much of a death knell for any Republican who votes with Dems) or McCarthy winning on a later ballot (too much of his support is relatively soft and will crumble in search of an alternative if the lunatics holds fast). ETA: https://politicalwire.com/2023/01/03/conservatives-would-let-hakeem-jeffries-become-speaker/ I suspect they're bluffing, but it would hilarious if enough Republicans voted 'present' instead of 'no' so that Jeffries won. Although that would make the House even more dysfunctional since Jeffries wouldn't have a majority for anything, not even to pass a rules package.

Oh for sure. I will maintain Trump is the favorite in the Republican primary until I see some very convincing evidence otherwise. As far as preference, they're all different strands of awful. However, I think Trump is significantly worse on foreign policy than DeSantis or any other Republican option. And the damage done there can be more permanent, as well as just as damaging, than domestic fuckery; albeit often in harder to see ways.