I’ve been assisting my colleagues Kate Riga and Emine Yücel remotely as they run around Capitol Hill the last two days trying to get a semblance of an answer to the whys and the hows behind House Republicans’ government-halting charade. You’d think in editing all their work and writing up some of their interview clips, I’d have a better sense of House Republicans’ and Jim Jordan’s strategy here than the layman. But I don’t.
To borrow General Taylor’s great line from Good Morning, Vietnam, “Congressman, you don’t know whether you’re shot, fucked, powder-burned or snake-bit.”
Other House Republicans like Rep. Michael Waltz (R-FL) believe it would be “unconstitutional” to expand McHenry’s powers.
“That was literally a name written in secret in case of a 9/11-style effort to decapitate the Capitol,” Waltz told Kate and other reporters this afternoon. “I applaud Speaker McHenry — Speaker Pro Tem McHenry — for having a limited view of that role.”
I know that claiming something is ‘unconstitutional’ is like the GOP’s gag reflex, but this is even dumb for them. The Constitution says each House sets their own rules and the Speaker Pro Tem position was literally created via those rules. It’s stupid to think that the House couldn’t change those rules to give the Speaker Pro Tem more powers. All it would take is a majority vote.
The real questions are
Could they get 217 Republicans to agree to do so?
If not, what do they need to give to Democrats to get enough votes to do so?
The Dems should drive a hard bargain of no less than an immediate floor vote on the Israeli/Ukraine/etc aid bill that Biden is proposing and a CR that keeps the government open through the holidays.
At this point, the Dems should demand a CR that funds the gov’t until Oct. 1, 2024. No sense in playing with shutdown threats every few weeks for the next six months.
Most bullies are all talk and no action. Eventually, most folks start to realize that there is no threat to most of these threats. There is no organized mechanism by which these threats can be carried out and the astro-turfer mega-donors who backed a lot of this bullshit in the beginning are seeing the monster they’ve created for what it is. There are real threats out there, but they’re kind of random and headless.
The burn it all down folks are self-immolating. S’mores, anyone?
Unfortunately, the CR for this budget year has to end at its statutory date (Sep 30th).
But Democrats could potentially push for a CR for the next budget year (Oct 2024-Sep 2025) since we are technically in the new budget year now. The problem I see is that I don’t think the Manchin’s and Sinema’s of the Senate would agree with that approach.
Jordan has no plan, just as his pal Orange Man never had a plan. And the only use they have for office is making their underlings eat excrement (and to dodge punishment).
Republicans don’t have a clue or give a damn about functional government. They can’t even honor their secret caucus vote and get behind the winner (or in the case of Jordan, the survivor). The scary scenario isn’t Jordan as Speaker- given the current rules, he would last maybe a week or two, but dragging this out and having to face another potential shutdown with no speaker. The Freedum Caucus would hold up selecting a speaker and/or funding the government to get everything they want.
Gym shorts only pulls his working man schtick when he’s chairing a committee. THE RULES say that House members must be properly attired on the floor, which for men means a suit jacket.
“We’re not entirely sure what the thinking is here, but some reports indicate that moderates are purposely staggering their “no” votes to show that Jordan opposition is growing by the round.”
Maybe Jordan and the nuts he runs with want exactly this. Nothing is getting done, appropriations are not getting approved, and the government is at a standstill. Chaos reigns, the economy tanks, and the answer is…Trump.
