The Speaker
We don’t have a Speaker of the House of Representatives. There is no “second in line” in the Presidential succession, in fact, there is no one to “control” the House of Representatives. Actually there is no “legal” House at the moment. Until they select a Speaker, they cannot be sworn in as current members. No bills, no debates, no laws, and perhaps more significantly, no paychecks for members or staff until there is a Speaker.
The Republicans have a slim majority in the House, 222, ten members more than the Democrats. To choose a Speaker, a majority of the Whole House, 218, need to agree on a candidate. That means that if only five Republicans won’t support their Party’s candidate for Speaker and vote for someone else, and all the Democrats stick together, no one can get a majority.
In this case, there are 20 Republicans who will not agree to what the other 202 Republicans decided. The “norm” is that once a Party caucus chooses a candidate, then all of the members of that Party are bound to vote for that candidate in the “full House”. But the 20 don’t feel bound by “norms”, and they are unwilling to vote for their own caucus winner.
“Call the Roll”
For the past three days, the House has done nothing but vote for Speaker. If they won’t choose a Speaker, there is nothing else they can do. As I started this essay, we are in the middle of the eleventh cycle of voting. To add insult to injury, the House in this case doesn’t use a fancy electronic scoreboard that tallies the 434 votes in fifteen minutes (one House seat is empty). Instead, they call out each individual name, all 434 of them, and the Congressmen-elect respond (or fails to respond) by yelling out their choice.
“The Reading Clerk Will Call the Roll”. And so we embark on another hour and a half of call and answer, waiting for the minimum five Republican votes that will deny Kevin McCarthy his dream of Speaker-hood. So far, it’s only taken to the “C’s” of the alphabetical roll to get to five “rebels” or “insurrectionists” or “deniers” or whatever.
The Democrats are sitting back, casting their 212 votes for their leader, Hakeem Jeffries, and watching the Republicans in chaos. It’s probably the best time they’ll have for the next two years. I hope they enjoy it.
Before the voting begins in each round, the Clerk accepts nominations for “Speaker of the House”. We’ve heard a lot of “speech-a-fying”, as different Republicans rise to their feet to nominate McCarthy. And then there’s more, as the nominators of the “straw-man” opponent, (you don’t have to be a Congressman to be the Speaker) also gets a speech.
The Democrats, of course, nominate their candidate, Hakeem Jeffries, over and over again.
Democracy
In the Republican speeches, and in comments Congressmen made to the press, I hear a lot about “democracy” at work. Some of them claim that the “20” are thwarting democracy, preventing the 90% of the Republican Caucus from enforcing their rule. Others say that this is “democracy in action”, the brave “20” refusing to be silenced by caucus “rules” that call for unanimous support. And, of course, Democrats are pointing out the obvious. Hakeem Jeffries has a plurality of the vote, eleven times now in a row. He “won”; shouldn’t he be the Speaker?
I find it odd that either side of the Republican battle tries to claim the mantle of “democracy”. A vast majority (70%) of the Republican caucus are election deniers, who refused to accept the counted and certified results of the 2020 election. It’s hard to hear them claim “democracy”, when in the biggest democratic (small d) action in our nation’s history, the 2020 election of Joe Biden as President, they claim that it was fake, or illegal, or invalid. Many of them sat in this same House chamber and voted to decertify the election, even after the Insurrection.
And it’s even odder that all of the Republicans – anti-Kevin or pro-McCarthy – invariably oppose laws that would make voting easier, or convenient, or fair for the general public. Both sides claim “democracy” as their goal, even though only the Democrats, can really make a legitimate claim.
Anniversary
Today is January 6th, the second anniversary of the Insurrection. But if we think the Insurrection is over, that the attempt to disrupt our government and our Constitution, ended when the “Shaman” dude left the Capitol; we are wrong. I’m no Republican, and like the Democrats in the House, I am fine with watching the GOP twist in their own chaos. But the 20 represent the Insurrectionist movement in America.
They believe in the Steve Bannon philosophy we learned at the beginning of the Trump Administration so long ago. He stated that the government needs to be burned down (The Bully and Bannon). Bannon had a “high falutin” name for it – “De-Construction”. The Insurrectionists two years ago, wandering the hallowed Capitol halls were just looking to find Mike, or Nancy, or Chuck, to physically de-construct them as symbols of the establishment.
So the 20 don’t have an answer, or a real candidate for Speaker. They just want, as Lafayette said in the Musical Hamilton, “How do you say it: ‘ANN-R-KEY”. It is fitting that this might all come to a head today, January 6th. It’s just another step in Bannon’s de-construction.
Whoever ends up with the job will have one without authority, an emasculated Republican Speaker of the 118th House of Representatives . Is it time to “Raise a Glass”?
Even as a Democrat, I don’t think so.
