Reply to Comment on ‘Frank Conversations About the Role of Minority Whist McCarthy in the House and Senate”

Republican sources said that a floor strategy for McCarthy has been discussed, which would include whether or not to recess the House and let the votes keep rolling, no matter how long it takes.

“I’ve heard from multiple of my constituents who question the wisdom of proceeding forward with that leadership,” Biggs said, adding that there needs to be a “frank conversation” about who they elect for the top job.

Boebert of Colorado said that it was a red line for her and that not everyone in the Freedom Caucus was in agreement on whether to make that a hard line.

According to many lawmakers who attended, the Republican Governance Group huddled with McCarthy to get a sense of where his head is at. During the meeting, they told McCarthy they would have his back and were committed to voting for him on multiple ballots if it comes to that. And they also passed out “O.K.” buttons – which stands for “Only Kevin” – in a joking nod to McCarthy’s opposition.

Still, McCarthy and Scalise appear to be in command of their leadership races, while the No. 3 House GOP position remains up for grabs, which would be the role of House majority whip, if Republicans win control of the chamber.

According to CNN, the Republicans will have a majority of the House of Representatives, but they have yet to project the number of seats they will have.

Majority Leaders are expected to shake up the House Democratic leadership with a non-McClintillary nominee. The story of Norman and McCarthy

Norman said the group hopes to formalize a lengthier list of all the rules changes they are seeking. They are also pushing to delay next week’s internal leadership elections, though there is no indication McCarthy plans to do so.

When asked whether McCarthy should get credit for delivering the majority, Norman responded: “The taxpayers that voted the representatives in deserve the credit.”

McCarthy could try to get Republicans to vote present or not to vote at all in order to make it easier for him to become speaker. McCarthy promised his GOP colleagues he wouldn’t court Democratic votes.

“With a slim majority, we shouldn’t be starting the C team,” Gaetz said. “We need to put our star players in a position to shine brightest so that we can attract more people to our policies and ideas.”

Whoever is elected for the top leadership spot in the House Democratic caucus would serve as their party’s Speaker nominee. The nominee that Republicans choose to be Speaker would fall short of the majority required in the vote by the full House, which would make him House Minority Leader.

A major shakeup in House Democratic leadership is possible if Pelosi does not run for the top leadership post. The move would kick off a fight for her successor that could expose inequalities within the party as other prominent members look to move up the leadership ladder.

What a California Democrat is campaigning for in the doomsday scenario: The challenge of losing a majority to the whip

According to the schedule shared by CNN, Republicans will hold a candidate forum on Monday and leadership elections on Tuesday, November 15.

The pro-McCarthy Republicans are signaling support for a different approach in the case of a doomsday scenario where neither McCarthy or Biggs can get 218 votes on January 3. Some said they would be willing to work with Democrats to find a moderate Republican who can get the 218 votes to clinch the gavel – a long-shot idea that underscores the uncertainty looming over the speaker’s race.

The Democratic leadership elections will take place on November 30. Voting will take place behind closed doors via secret ballot using an app.

To be elected to any position in Democratic leadership, a candidate needs to win a majority among those present and voting. After the first round of voting, if there is more than two candidates running, the candidate who received the least number of votes after the first round will be eliminated. Until a majority is achieved by one candidate, that process continues.

One thing the California Republican does have going for his dreams of the top job is the fact that there so far is not a strong alternative to his candidacy. GOP Rep. Andy Biggs of Arizona, the former head of the Freedom Caucus, has launched a long-shot bid.

Emmer is running against Reps. Jim Banks of Indiana, the Republican Study Committee chair, and Drew Ferguson of Georgia, the chief deputy Whip, for the post.

Emmer told reporters Tuesday that he still plans to run, and he didn’t know if a smaller majority would affect his bid. But his pitch to members is similar to McCarthy’s, saying: “we delivered.”

Meanwhile, Rep. Jim Banks of Indiana, a Trump ally and the head of the conservative Republican Study Committee, also officially declared his candidacy for the whip’s position. And Rep. Drew Ferguson of Georgia, the current deputy whip, is also vying for the post, arguing that his experience on the whip’s team will be even more valuable in a slimmer majority, where the chief vote counting job will be crucial for governing.

Of course. The California Democrat said that people are campaigning, and that is a beautiful thing. I am not asking anyone for anything. I’m being asked by my members to do that. But, again, let’s just get through the election.”

The Running of the DCCC Chair: Kevin McCarthy’s Defend for the Post-Republican Future of the House Democratic Caucus Committee

Jim Clyburn is currently the House majority whip. Massachusetts Rep. Katherine Clark serves in the role of assistant Speaker and New York Rep. Hakeem Jeffries serves as House Democratic caucus chair.

Democratic Rep. Joe Neguse of Colorado, who currently serves as the co-chair of the Democratic Policy and Communications Committee, has announced his run for caucus chair to replace Jeffries who is term limited.

The race to lead the party’s campaign arm, DCCC chair, is starting to take shape up after the current chair Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney of New York lost his reelection.

Ami Bera and Sara Jacobs of California are being considered for the spot that Tony Cardenas announced his candidacy for on Friday.

Kevin McCarthy hopes to get through the test on Tuesday in his campaign to become House speaker, even though he didn’t do very well in the election.

Idaho GOP Rep. Mike Simpson said he’ll support McCarthy for leader, noting the GOP gained House seats the last two elections. Simpson said the man had done a good job.

“It’s not only delaying that,” McCarthy said of recruiting GOP candidates. It is prepared to defend the majority and grow the majority.

During a closed-door leadership candidate forum on Monday, Virginia Rep. Bob Good, a McCarthy critic, complained that a Super PAC aligned with McCarthy opposed some pro-Trump candidates, and criticized McCarthy for not calling to congratulate him when he won his primary, according to a source in the room. McCarthy replied that he directed $2 million to Good for his race. Good had to be gaveled down in order to cut him off from speaking so they could move to the next question, the source said.

At the private intraparty meeting, McCarthy received a standing ovation from his colleagues. McCarthy promised that he would strip away power from Democrats, saying, if elected, he would kick Minnesota Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar off the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and California Reps. Eric Swalwell and Adam Schiff off the House Intelligence Committee, according to a source in the room. He showed his role in bringing back the Republicans to power.

The moderate Democratic congressman has been asked by McCarthy’s allies to defect to the Republicans in order to make up some ground. Cuellar flatly rejected the idea. The GOP leader was not involved if these conversations happened and this was not part of their strategy for the majority as well as his speakership bid.

A source in the room said that one of the people in the private forum pressed the chair of the committee on his stance on codifying same-sex marriage. His response was that divisive social issues shouldn’t be on the House floor.

As a right-wing faction threatens to tank his speakership ambitions, House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy delivered a promise: “I’ll never leave,” making clear he has no plans to drop out of the race even if the fight goes to many ballots on the floor.

“Our initial plan is vote for Kevin and let him fight this out repeatedly. If they think they’re going to use this to drive him away, we’re not going to bend to their will.

“If at some point, if Kevin did take his name out, then you would have good people (running). One lawmaker said that he would most likely be the guy.

If McCarthy is unable to get enough votes in the upcoming GOP primary, we will see whether or not Scalise would jump into the race.

“No, I’m not going to get into speculation,” Scalise told CNN. We want to get it resolved by January 3. There is a lot of dialogue going on, Kevin, with members who have expressed concerns.

Rep. Jim Jordan, the conservative set to become the chair of the House Judiciary Committee, went even further, ruling out jumping into the race even though Gaetz and other hardliners have urged him to seek the speakership.

In a meeting with McCarthy in his office Wednesday, Norman said that he would vote for Andy for speaker. He said all this is positive. Regardless of how things go, we’re having good change. And you’ll see more of it.”

The new group of seven Republicans laid out a list of conditions on Thursday in order to get their vote, but they didn’t threaten to vote against McCarthy if their demands aren’t met.

McCarthy has already begun brokering some rules changes to empower rank-and-file members, created a new select committee on China, vowed to boot some Democratic lawmakers from their committees, and sketched out in greater detail his investigative plans – including a potential impeachment inquiry into Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.

But one member told CNN they also conveyed concern to McCarthy about restoring the motion to vacate the speaker’s chair. The tool was used to influence former speaker John Boehner before he left, but most Republicans were concerned that it would hamper their ability to govern.

McCarthy has been adamantly opposed to restoring the “motion to vacate the chair,” and a majority of the House GOP voted against the idea during a during a closed-door meeting last month. McCarthy was asked by CNN if he would visit the issue, but laughed and refused to answer.

The idea that people are sick and tired of the noise and fighting was one of the reasons why a red wave didn’t show up. Where I go in my district, I get that people can’t get things done.

As McCarthy scrambles to lock down speaker’s votes, he also delayed the GOP’s internal elections for committee chairmanships. There was some speculation that one of the members competing for a gavel, Rep. Vern Buchanan of Florida, may retire early if he doesn’t win, which would make McCarthy’s math problem even tougher. Buchanan said no and strongly refuting the notion.

Some Democrats said they would entertain the idea, among them one who said some of his GOP colleagues have approached him about it.

Joyce said that members reached out to him about running but he did not. Kevin will be the new speaker at the end of the day.

New York Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, the next House Democratic leader, said, “there are no behind-the-scenes conversations” that he has had with Republicans to put up an alternative candidate. if McCarthy couldn’t get the votes, his caucus could help elect the next speaker.

Jeffries told CNN that Democrats are organizing the conference. “Republicans are in the process of organizing the Republican Conference. We should see what happens on January 3.

Some of the potential consensus picks that have been floated included retiring Reps. Fred Upton of Michigan and John Katko of New York, who both voted to impeach Donald Trump for inciting the Capitol insurrection; Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, co-chair of the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus; and Oklahoma Rep. Tom Cole, a veteran lawmaker and incoming head of the House Rules Committee.

That would require an agreement from all of the Democrats and the help of five Republicans. Upton said he has no plans to be in Washington that day, telling CNN: “I’ll be skiing.”

But Republican Rep. Bruce Westerman said this has happened before – nearly a decade ago in his state where minority Democrats in the Arkansas legislature joined forces with a handful of Republicans to elect a GOP speaker of their choice. Westerman privately made this case to his colleagues at a closed-door meeting this week.

The Real Issues of the Capitol Insurrection: The State of the House, the Problem with the Future of Congress, and the Efforts of McCarthy

“I’m concerned about January 3 getting here and us not being able to form a Congress and organize committees and getting delayed in pushing the policy objectives that we want to push,” Westerman said.

The discussion over changing House rules is good for the party. But he added: “I’m not really excited about any type of destructive movement.”

The tiny GOP House majority that takes over in January, after a disappointing midterm performance, would mean a fragile governing mandate for any party at any point in American history. And the ideological struggle being waged by pro-Donald Trump extremists inside the party would have made even a more comfortable majority volatile.

The speakership struggle is more than an internal GOP feud, and his future mission of amassing a governing majority is more than an inside-Washington brouhaha. If the House is unable to pass a spending bill or if radical members of the Republican conference try to hold McCarthy hostage, the economic and social consequences will affect tens of millions of Americans. The dollar’s reputation as a reserve currency and the military’s readiness could be damaged by government shutdowns, budget showdowns and an increase in borrowing limits.

The California Republican is fighting a rearguard battle against members who want to make it easier to eject a sitting speaker and he’s appeasing ex-President Donald Trump’s extremism and that of acolytes like Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene to save a narrow political power base propping up his dream of running the House.

The steps McCarthy is taking to try to secure the speakership – and the future complications that may entail – were evident on Tuesday when he gave Greene, the Georgia Republican, a pass for her latest effort to mock the trauma of the Capitol insurrection. The congresswoman had said over the weekend that had she been in charge on January 6, 2021, the riot would have succeeded and the mob would have been armed. She claimed that her sarcastic comments were against the US values after the White House claimed them to be a slap in the face.

Repelling the Republican Fate with Non-Critical Agendas: The Case of Michael Greene and the Corruptness of the House

This is one reason why the current year-end tussle over funding the government for a full year is important since it could dump a fiscal crises on the lap of a weak and easily manipulated new.

Asked by CNN’s Manu Raju on Tuesday about Greene’s latest inflammatory comments, McCarthy shrugged them off: “Oh, I think she said she was being facetious,” the possible future speaker answered. His attitude was not surprising, it was consistent with his attempts to rewrite history of the worst attack on US democracy in modern times in which he said Trump bore responsibility.

The same dynamic was present when McCarthy did not criticize the ex-president for meeting with the white supremacist at a dinner also featuring the rapper who has made antisemitic remarks. In a histrionic performance at the White House after meeting Biden and other congressional leaders last month, the House Republican leader falsely claimed that Trump had condemned Fuentes four times, when he hadn’t done so once.

Republican Sen. Mitt Romney said that McCarthy saying any bill sponsored by a Republican senator who supports the omnibus bill will be “dead on arrival in the House” is “silliness” on McCarthy’s part.

The split not only augurs likely future tensions between Republicans in the House and McConnell, it raises the possibility that it will become politically more difficult for some Republican senators to vote for a spending deal now – especially as conservative media has taken up McCarthy’s line.

As frustration inside the House GOP has grown over a small band of anti-Kevin McCarthy lawmakers, an idea to strike back at the rebellious group has been floated among some Republicans: kicking these members off their committees, according to multiple members involved in the conversations.

It’s unclear, however, whether moderates will actually be willing to follow through with the same hardball tactics often deployed by the far right – especially if it could wind up backfiring for McCarthy. Opposing the rules package, for example, could upend any careful negotiations between McCarthy and his detractors, so GOP sources don’t believe McCarthy’s supporters would ultimately take it down.

Moderate lawmakers know they can exert equal influence over everything from legislation to investigations when they are the party’s majority makers. And moderates want to flex their muscles starting with the speaker’s race, which they hope will set the tone for their new majority – even as they struggle to settle on their best options to counter conservative hardliners without causing the same chaos they’ve accused McCarthy’s critics of creating.

“People need to recognize we don’t need to double down on failed policies and failed candidates,” said Rep. Nancy Mace, a South Carolina Republican. “There’s a reason the midterms were the way that they were: people who are left of center, right of center were the most successful.”

“From a governing perspective, it’s important that Republicans don’t start January 3 by going face down and not having some clarity as to what we’re going to be able to accomplish” GOP Rep. Steve Womack of Arkansas told CNN. “We need to be able to hit the ground running and demonstrate to the American people that the trust and confidence they’ve given to us by giving us a majority, albeit slim, was a good decision.”

Gaetz acknowledged the reality of a narrowly divided House as he came out in opposition to McCarthy as speaker.

He told CNN that they are a community of common fate. “We have to acknowledge that the ship isn’t going anywhere if five people won’t row in that direction. That is true on impeachment, on the speakership vote, on the budget, and on policy choices.

“Some of the questions that remain unanswered is what other deals are going to be cut, you know, what guarantees, what concessions are going to be made?” “Are you sure?” Womack asked. We don’t want to give a lot of that leverage away.

Fun and Difficulties in the midst of the High-Stakes Correspondence: Sen. Diaz-Bain, Rep. Blake Moore, and the Freedom Caucus

In a Wednesday conference-wide meeting, the latest of the series ahead of the new Congress, McCarthy held a forum to let his members continue debating potential rules changes and other concessions, even though there is still no resolution on the controversial motion to vacate the chair.

At this point, many members are still talking about unity and their plans for the new congress to begin January 3, calling the private part of the process. To that end, the Republican Governance Group recently sent a letter urging their colleagues to unite behind McCarthy.

Republicans are talking about different points of view and it shouldn’t be a surprise, according to GOP Rep. Mario Diaz- Baldwin of Florida.

Even amid the high-stakes negotiations, members from competing factions have had time to have some fun with one another. Capitol Hill came together at a Christmas party hosted by Burchett, with some anti- McCarthy lawmakers in attendance. Amid the Mountain Dew fountain and “charcuterie plate” consisting of Cheez Whiz and Ritz crackers, Burchett at one point rode the skateboard of Gaetz’s wife.

Rep. Blake Moore, a Utah Republican who identifies himself as part of the governing wing, said at the end of the day, the various factions actually agree on most things and dismissed the idea it would be tense next year.

Moore told CNN that there is not an enormous amount of drama. I met with members of the Freedom Caucus to discuss what we agree on. And it’s an enormous amount.”

McCarthy told Hugh that they were continuing to talk, but they hadn’t moved. “And the difficulty here is that you know, we are the only Republican entity stopping the Biden administration. We will be the only ones that have the ability to move forward. But it would delay everything, getting committees up and running, being able to do the things that you know we need to get done from the very beginning.”

On Friday, McCarthy took to the airwaves to argue the detractors threaten to put the entire House Republican agenda in peril, warning that basic decisions on legislating and investigating will be “all in jeopardy” – such as getting a new select committee on China up and running. McCarthy can only afford to lose four GOP votes on January 3 if all members vote for the same member.

Five GOP members including Gaetz are signaling they’ll vote on January 3 as a bloc in McCarthy’s dire warning.

“This is a lot of unfinished business this year that they would have to take care of next year and I know from having been over there, that wouldn’t be easy, especially when you’ have a narrow majority.”

“We’re enduring the silly season of a campaign. The election is over for most of us. The silliness is still visible because he is running for speaker.

And some of McCarthy’s fiercest critics, including Reps. Matt Gaetz of Florida and Ralph Norman of South Carolina, told CNN they see the five-person threshold as still too high, underscoring the significant challenge McCarthy faces as he works to lock down the speakership.

A five-person threshold, however, may be too low for the moderate wing of the party, some of whom have privately suggested they would be willing to agree on a 50-person threshold.

The Devil is in the Details: Why People Will Not Move On Votes Unless They Are Written or Said Out Of Disturbing Social Media

A big subject of discussion will be on a conference call on Friday afternoon that McCarthy will hold with the various ideological caucuses just four days before the speaker’s vote.

The devil is in the details as far as threshold and other rule concessions. “Until the details are spelled out, in writing and sealed with social media posts, people will not move on votes.”