Who are the 9 Republicans now trying to be House speaker, amid historic gridlock
Who are the 9 Republicans now trying to be House speaker, amid historic gridlock
Tom Emmer, Kevin Hern, Byron Donalds and six other Republicans are now running for House speaker after Steve Scalise and Jim Jordan unsuccessfully ran
The chamber has been without a leader for weeks because of GOP infighting.
At the rate it's going over there, the UN might have to send in peacekeepers fairly soon. And no, I didn't put this in the wrong topic.
Maybe call in hostage negotiators?
Sorry, we don't negotiate with terrorists.
at this rate they're gonna run out of old white dudes
You vastly underestimate the GOP’s ability to produce old white dudes
Is 9 too old for Matt Gaetz?
Pretty sure he'd take three 3-year-olds and call it square.
How many of them voted to overturn the 2020 election?
I believe 7 of the 9 did. There are 2 Republicans running who didn't try to overturn the 2020 election. Of course, the Freedom Caucus will oppose those candidates, keeping them from getting enough votes.
One of the reports I heard about on the news this morning is that the MAGA wing demands that any speaker nominee be an election denier, which is one of the many reasons that Jordan refused to answer the question about whether he still believes the election was stolen.
It's probably easiest to just label them all Corrupt Old White Guy 1 through 9.
Well they have to have somebody labeled Token Black Guy up there…
Yeah I saw that.
One of four black House Republicans.
One of four, in a body of 221 house GOP reps.
That's 1.8%. An amazing statistic even compared to house GOP women at 16%.
Getting a real I Am Spartacus vibe from myself right now.
I'm thinking of running for Speaker.
I don't know anything about you, but I'm certain you're at least as qualified as these clowns.
There are no good options here. 7 of the 9 voted to not certify the 2020 election results.
Tom Emmer, the MN rep who is emerging as a front-runner of the two that did vote to certify, is just as bad but more politically savvy, having repeatedly cast doubt in the election results and refused to acknowledge Biden even won after the election. He's a partisan willing to do and say anything for right-wing causes, but unlike the pure chaos members, can make calculated long-term decisions about political effects.
The other person who voted to certify is Austin Scott, who the Internet seems to know nothing about. Maybe he's the best option here? The "not enough information to confirm verifiably terrible" option?
This week, on So You Think You Can Speak
I think we should have them settle this with trial by combat.
I'd watch that on payperview
If only this were a world where a few Republicans might defect to Jeffries just to stick it to the far right end of the party that started all this. That would cause some real drama. Wouldn't be hard to stick the blame on the magats and spin it into a message of ending the madness and ineptitude we are watching unfold.
But alas, this is not that world. Republicans would have to actually care about something other than owning the libs and dismantling the government for it to be that world.
Although, still, bipartisan support of a candidate is the only reasonable way I see out of this that doesn't just fall apart again when Gaetz can't get his way. It's too bad the Republicans have painted themselves into a corner where ceding any ground to the even the most conservative Democrats is a complete non-starter.
That would really create some drama
The rule should be if they don't get a person voted in then the democrats get to pick a republican to serve. The person chosen must serve.
I think it should be the person with the highest number of votes, Democrat or Republican.
This could be better than the current situation but I could imagine a lot of side effects to that system. Maybe if there was a lower threshold that had to be met so we couldn't have situations where someone with 20 votes wins.
I can get behind this. A lot of effort invested into tweaking the rules of sortsball lately to keep things fresh when these are the changes we need.
I think I recognize two of them.
With this many running and no primary in the "republican secret conference ballot", someone that has the support of 26 representatives (out of 438) could win the gavel.
If it was plurality then Jeffries would be the speaker
I am talking about the nomination process, not the speaker vote.
I assume you think it's FPtP rules but in this case an absolute majority (more than half) is needed, unless I'm missing something new? So more people running likely means less chance of a speaker being picked (and thus even more voting attempts).
EDIT: Or do you mean that the secret ballot is plurality and that every republican will honor that result (even if they dislike who won) thus giving that pick the majority on the floor vote?
Is the secret ballot how McCarthy won after 15 rounds of voting? Or are they going to work out a different deal now?
Yes, the Republicans were passing around a " I will vote for whomever gets the most votes on the secret first ballot" pledge the other day. I was like: "So no primary, ranked choice, or multiple rounds of voting until a majority? Just the highest vote getter on the first round? What is the worst case on that?"