If House Republicans manage to hang onto their majority next month, that’s just the beginning of House Speaker Mike Johnson’s (R-LA) problems.
Johnson and other members of Republican leadership have been open about the fact that the complete and utter dysfunction that’s plagued their slim-majority the last two years must be remedied, if things go in their favor. More specifically: they want to rid themselves of former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s (R-CA) greatest mistake, once and for all — raising the threshold for a motion to vacate the speakership.
But even that minor ambition is already running into the same set of problems that has made their now-three-vote majority useless for the last several months; a handful of the hard right members are opposed to changing the rule back to what it was before McCarthy gambled away his entire political career to keep the small-but-mighty group of hardliners happy, giving unprecedented power over the speakership to the blow-everything-up caucus.
According to a new Politico report, there are currently enough far-right lawmakers opposed to raising the number of members required to force a vote to oust the speaker to squash any efforts to change the rules next year. And Republicans can’t be confident that they’ll secure a large enough majority on November 5 — if they secure a majority at all — for that to not be a problem.
Johnson’s rationale for wanting to change the dynamic is obvious. The current rule was designed to give a small-but-annoying group of conservative rebels outsized power over House Republicans’ legislative agenda and leadership as a whole. McCarthy accepted the rule change only to secure enough votes to be elected speaker after an unprecedentedly embarrassing 15 rounds of votes.
The result has been a House majority that is incapable of getting on the same page to pass any legislation without help from Democrats the last two years, as the far-right flank hijacks the legislative process to score extremist messaging points and push their far-right agenda further into the mainstream. Johnson has said that the one-member motion to vacate rule has “harmed this office and our House majority.”
It’s personal for Johnson, too. The very members who want to keep the one-vote rule intact are also the ones who have not publicly endorsed his bid to keep the gavel if they keep the House. Per Politico:
Right now, there are enough conservatives who oppose changes to block any adjustments to the status quo. In interviews with POLITICO, five Republicans said they believe that group is big enough that it would also be highly difficult to change the rule next year. One GOP lawmaker said there are at least eight members who will automatically oppose any adjustments.
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I guess Mikey doesn’t want a repeat of McCarthy’s 15-vote debacle OR his loss of power. Chickens have fucked around and are now coming home to find out.
Don’t worry about being useless Repubs.
As long as you kiss Trump’s ass you have a purpose.
“Some House Republicans Try To Set Themselves Up To Not Be Completely Useless As A Majority If They Keep House”
Being useless is the absolute best possible scenario for the GQP, and even that is just pie in the sky, because they spend every waking moment, and probably their dreams as well, trying to think up and implement ways to screw people over.
The Klown Kar Klub will continue to be an embarrassment if Republicans manage to hold onto the House. It’s in the best interests of the nation for Republicans to lose power until they either eject their bad elements or form a new party that is actually interested in governing and making things better for the majority. Hopefully enough Americans realize this and toss them out of power this election, I’m not sure how the nation will manage if they hold enough power to mess up the government, much less overthrow it in their quest to force us into a Christian theocracy.
This is more a response to all of Josh’s writing on ground game. Is it not possible that Josh is looking for the wrong thing, an attempt to maximize the mobilization of Trump voters to the polls? What if their ground game is really all about mobilizing extremist churches and militia groups to raise God’s army to “fight like hell” after Trump loses? Seems to me that Trump’s single concern is staying out of jail. If he wins, he stays out of jail, but he also stays out of jail by bringing the country to the brink of civil war and using the leverage to negotiate. Anyone in the world think that Trump won’t do, to stay out of jail, all the things that Pablo Escobar did to try to prevent his extradition to the US? Terrorist bombings, assassinations in the street. Everything Trump does in public–all the apocalyptic fascism in his rhetoric right now–is trying to create a permission structure for insurrection. What we don’t know is what he’s doing in private toward that same end. Maybe that’s what Musk is really working on.