When the House GOP Leadership Throws Congress into Chaos: Rep. Kelly Armstrong, R-N.D., S.J. Graves, J. P. Scalise, R. Phys. Rev. D.
“This is not filled with new information.” The authority is not known, he said. “So folks are trying to figure out how to build the airplane while you’re flying it.”
Graves said members should not repeat the 15 rounds of elections it took to elect McCarthy speaker in January, and rather, get that work done behind closed doors. In the meantime, he said some Republicans are looking for a workaround to allow House floor work until a permanent speaker is chosen.
As lawmakers considered other races for leadership posts below the speaker, and who might run, Rep. Kelly Armstrong, R-N.D., stressed the focus should be on the speaker’s race, saying, “this is constitutional line of succession, the rest of it is palace intrigue.”
But Graves cautioned against promoting current members of the leadership team –without specifically noting Scalise’s name. “I think it’s a mistake right now for the conference to just give everybody one, one rung of promotion. That’s too soon. We have to address some of the fundamental issues that I talked about before. The leadership team’s accountability needs to be reexamined, as I think it was flawed in January.
Source: Fate of House GOP leadership throws Congress into chaos
An empathetic speaker for the House Freedom Caucus and the role of speaker Jordan has played in the last few years of his term in Congress
Jordan is one of the founding members of the hardline House Freedom Caucus and served as the group’s first chair. He has been a driving force on the right flank of the party since he was elected in 2006.
“I have a proven track record of bringing together the diverse array of viewpoints within our Conference to build consensus where others thought it impossible,” Scalise said in his statement.
The U.S. House of Representatives remains virtually frozen as Republican tumult fuels scrambled plans over who could take over leadership of the lower chamber.
“There’s scenarios where this could be going on for weeks,” Rep. Garret Graves, R-La., told reporters steps off the House floor amid the competing meetings.
There’s tension in the caucus between those who want a quick election for speaker to get rid of the mess that’s been caused and those who want the conference to coalesce around a single candidate who can bring all of the warring groups together.
Graves believes that the first step is to allow people to take a break. “The second step is letting us come back together and I think before we have a single discussion about speaker, we’ve got to discuss the functionality of the position.”
House Republicans left Tuesday evening’s conference meeting with plans to pick a candidate for McCarthy’s seat the following week. They could vote next Wednesday on a new speaker.
A few floors below where Graves gave his remarks, a closed-door meeting was taking place between a delegation of Texas congressional members and potential speaker candidates. It marks one of many meetings expected in the growing Republican race to lead the narrowly controlled chamber.
The chairman of the conservative Republican Study Committee, and House majority leader, were meeting with Texas members on Wednesday.
A group of GOP lawmakers from New York left the speaker’s office and declined to say who they were backing for speaker. “I think the quicker you vote, the better,” said LaLota when asked about a vote next week.
Scalise has been a member of House GOP leadership since 2014 and was first elected to Congress in a special election in 2008. He is well-liked by many House Republicans but they are crying out for new leadership after McCarthy’s ousting.
The Story of Kevin McCarthy: The Speaker Pro Tempore Title and the Role of Republicans in the House of Representatives (with an Interview with Patrick McHenry)
“It was just too much power vested in so few people that could determine the course of history,” he added. Kevin McCarthy was in danger from the very beginning.
Rep. Alford says one thing that would help is changing back the rule that allows a single lawmaker to call for a motion to vacate the chair. He told Morning Edition that he’s in favor of a majority of the people voting for it. He said the current iteration cost McCarthy his speakership.
“It appears that there are a few people that look to take you down if you make a deal, and it’s likely to happen in the future,” reads the statement from Donovan. There needs to be understanding between the minority and majority that we won’t punish people for doing the right thing.
He says that the question is how to get around outliers in a House where Republicans hold a slim majority. Is putting legislation on the floor now synonymous with putting the speakership at risk?
Donovan agrees, and thinks the way the process has played out has perhaps galvanized the party. He thinks the majority of House Republicans are unified despite the eight hard-liners who ousted McCarthy.
“It wasn’t any sort of bold initiative that he was trying to push for, what triggered this was just a simple 45-day bill to keep the government open,” he adds. It’s not good for Republican governance going forward. I think that Republicans will have to contend with the problems that exist even though they are internal.
“We have to have compromise because we have divided government, but you cannot allow the Republican majority in the House of Representatives to accept dictates from the Democrat party, they cannot dictate our policy,” Rosendale said.
The congressman who joined the eight Republicans who voted to oust McCarthy is looking for a trait in a candidate. Rosendale was one of several GOP members who voted to oust McCarthy because he helped to pass a bipartisan bill to avoid a government shutdown.
The Financial Services Committee is chaired by North Carolina Rep. Patrick McHenry, who has been given the “speaker pro tempore” title. His first act was to declare the House in recess (with an especially dramatic gavel bang).
How Will the House Choose a Speaker? Rep. Mark Alford: The House can’t work without a speaker. How will it choose McCarthy’s successor?
“There could be some dark horses, but I think people are going to watch what the big names do before they really make any aggressive moves right now,” said GOP strategist Liam Donovan.
Candidates need 218 votes or a majority of legislators present to be elected speaker. It’s not clear how long that process would take — McCarthy needed 15 rounds of voting over four days to earn the title.
Rep. Mark Alford of Missouri, a Republican who supported McCarthy, told Morning Edition on Wednesday that his party has a plan to “move forward with a conservative agenda” and “show our body and our nation that we are not dysfunctional.”
“This is not the way it should be done, but this is a new day and it’s time to move forward,” Alford said. “Our ship does not have a rudder and we must find that rudder soon.”
McCarthy wanted the job so badly that he made several major concessions — including changing the rules to make it easier to challenge his leadership position — to far-right members of his party in order to secure the votes he needed.
And the problems he faced aren’t likely to subside for his successor, GOP strategists told Morning Edition. They say it may be even harder because of the deep-seeded problem that the House has to deal with.
Brendan Buck, who worked for the two previous House speakers, said that McCarthy had a honeymoon when he first got the job. The next person will be right in the meat grinder.
Several House GOP leaders have said they want to run, including Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan, the No. 2 Republican, and Majority Leader Steve Scalise.
Source: The House can’t work without a speaker. How will it choose McCarthy’s successor?
The House of Representative Kevin McCarthy’s No-Go Theorem is Still Without a Local Speaker (It’s a Hard-Line Democrats’ View)
Legislative work can’t be done without an elected speaker. Members must elect a new one before they can get back to their to-do lists, which include funding the government to avoid a shutdown in the next 43 days.
After a historic vote on Tuesday in which eight hard-line Republicans and unified Democrats voted to remove House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, the house is without a leader.