They’re doing it again
Byron York
THEY’RE DOING IT AGAIN. Back in January, when the House Republican Party fractured and was unable to elect a speaker, taking an agonizing 15 ballots to get the job done, many GOP lawmakers said words to the effect of, “Let’s don’t do that again.” Now, working to elect a new speaker in the aftermath of pushing Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) out of the post, it appears they are doing that again.
Look at the numbers. The speaker is elected by the entire House, meaning Democrats will vote for their leader, Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY). To elect a speaker, the majority party must win 217 votes. (That is because, with two vacancies, there are now 433 members of the House.) Or, the majority must win a majority of those who are actually in the House chamber and voting for a candidate, meaning any member who votes “present” will not count for either side.
But let’s just say the new speaker will have to win 217 votes. On Wednesday, the GOP met to vote for whom it will nominate for speaker. The two contestants were Reps. Steve Scalise (R-LA) and Jim Jordan (R-OH). There was some debate over how many votes would be required to win. The traditional way is to nominate the candidate who wins a majority of the House conference, which now numbers 221 Republicans. But given recent problems, some wanted to change the standard to a requirement that the GOP nominee win 217 votes within the party, which would mean he or she would be guaranteed of winning the speakership in the full House.
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The traditional way prevailed, and Scalise won the nomination with 113 votes to Jordan’s 99. But take a look at those two numbers. Add them together — that is, assume that all of Jordan’s voters will vote for Scalise in the full House — and you don’t have 217. As it turned out, around eight Republicans voted for other candidates or voted “present.” And of Scalise’s 113, three of them were from U.S. territories, meaning they can vote in the conference but not on the House floor.
The bottom line: Scalise, like McCarthy back in January, will not go into a full House election with the votes he needs to become speaker of the House.
Already, some Republicans are making noises that sound a lot like what was heard in January and what was heard again last week when a tiny minority of Republican lawmakers joined with Democrats to oust McCarthy. “At least seven Republicans say they plan to back someone other than Scalise,” reported the Hill, and “at least six others say they are undecided.”
Do the math. There are 221 Republicans. Seven said they’ll vote for somebody else. That’s 214. Six said they are undecided. That could be as low as 208. Either way, Scalise does not get to the 217 votes required to become speaker. It could be January all over again.
There was talk on Wednesday that Republicans would hold their internal vote and then move to the House floor for a quick, final, full House speaker vote. That was wishful thinking. The House GOP has not solved the problems that led it to embarrassment in January and a train wreck last week. And yes, they could be doing that again.
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