The Republican Conference is in a War of Things: How to Vacate the Speaker’s Appropriate Role? How the Right flank feels about the motion to vacate
The House Republican Conference is in a battle to retain an arcane rule that would allow a member to oust a speaker if they so choose.
The bitter divide is only heating up and has emerged center stage in House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy’s quest for 218 votes to win the position. For McCarthy’s backers, the so-called motion to vacate is seen as little more than a promise of hostage taking, a tool that could be used by the right flank to hamstring McCarthy’s ability to lead the conference and effectively govern.
“There’s a reason [the motion to vacate] already got debated. They are asking for something that is out of step with what you can do with a gun. It makes us very unstable and makes it easy for Democrats to create chaos if they are given the chance. “There is a reason people are against it. You can scream the word accountability all you want … in the end it’s just a path to chaos, not stability, and we are going to have to be very united and very stable if we are going to govern properly. “
The Republican Party may not go to the floor on January 3 unsure if the votes will be for McCarthy to be speaker, because he doesn’t have the votes.
How Kevin McCarthy voted to remove the motion to vacate in the chamber of the House Appropriately Adopting a New Speaker
There are no executives in the country that do not have accountability. Everyone that goes to work has accountability. The country can’t wait two years for accountability,” Rep. Scott Perry, a conservative Republican from Pennsylvania, told reporters, about why he wants to see the motion to vacate reinstated.
“They vetted candidates for Miss America more than they do the speaker,” Norman said. “We’re vetting it. We are involved in the process. It’s a healthy process.”
Republican Whip Steve scalise told reporters Tuesday that there are continuing negotiations going on as leadership is keeping their options open.
McCarthy said that they had made a lot of progress with members who wanted the chair changed, and they were still working through the rules. I think we will find a place to meet up.
The fight over the motion to vacate with Jim Jordan, a onetime thorn in the side of the GOP leadership, is said to have had no impact on their decision to vote for it.
Kevin McCarthy is the right person to lead us, Jordan said on the House floor. I do. I would not be standing up to give this speech. I came in with Kevin. We came in the same time 16 years ago. We haven’t always agreed on everything. I enjoy his fight. I like his tenacity.
Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina, a moderate Republican who is backing McCarthy, said members should be “grateful for having the majority with his leadership.”
Mace said that unifying the conference is the most important strength of the event, and she was unsure about her position on the motion to leave. We have to work together.
Rep. Roger Williams, a Texas Republican, warned that Republicans “have challenges ahead” of them and urged his colleagues to unite. “This is a time we need to take leadership, get our leader elected and get on about our agenda,” he said.
Eight years after opposing McCarthy’s first bid for speaker after Boehner stepped down, Jordan nominated him on the House floor and lobbied reluctant hardliners who didn’t think McCarthy was a true fiscal conservative, to back him.
McCarthy was elected speaker on Jan. 7, after 15 ballots and four days. He’s given Jordan a huge platform as a key architect of the GOP probes of the Biden administration.
The speaker needs a majority of 218 votes. The first ballot in the speaker vote had 203 for McCarthy and 10 for other candidates, with three Republicans voting for other candidates.
The first time in a century a party will need to vote multiple times for the chamber leader was because of McCarthy, who had to lose four GOP votes for him to reach 218.
Running the Democratic Causal Causality: Minority-Leading Leader Kevin McCarthy in the 118th Congress after he quit his job
In an interview with CBS in 2021, Jordan was described as a “political terrorist” by Boehner, because he spent more time tearing things apart than building anything.
The two countries of Donald Trump and Jordan are close allies. After Joe Biden won the presidential election and Trump refused to concede while making claims of election fraud, Jordan voted not to certify the Electoral College results.
Now that a House speaker has been selected following a dayslong stalemate and members have finally been sworn in, the chamber can look toward picking back up business and organizing GOP-led committees.
The top priority of the 118th Congress is to pass a new set of House rules.
House Republicans will be limited in their ability to pass bills through Congress with Democrats in control of the Senate and the White House – where the president can exercise veto power over legislation. House Republicans will have the ability to push messaging bills that highlight their agenda.
In an exclusive, wide-ranging interview with CNN ahead of the 2020 election, then-House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy outlined his plans for power. Some of his members have begun to call for impeachment, because he left the door open to that, as he plans to tackle inflation, rising crime and border security.
There will also be some must-pass policy issues – like funding the government – that will test the ability of Republicans and Democrats to work together.
Hunter Biden, the Oversight Committee, and the Senate Judiciary Committee: The House of Representatives to Comer’s Investigation
The heart of Comer’s investigation will be digging into more than 100 suspicious activity reports that Republicans claim banks have filed related to the president’s son Hunter Biden’s financial activities. Speaking of the Biden family, we would love to talk to them.
Hunter Biden was the son of Vice President Biden. The status of Biden’s relationship with his family’s foreign partners and whether he is a President who is compromised or swayed by foreign dollars will be examined by the Oversight Committee during the 118th Congress according to the GOP Rep. James Comer, who is in line to chair the House Oversight
The investigations are politically motivated, said the White House. Reports like this are not conclusive or indicative of wrongdoing.
The Department of Justice and FBI. In a letter to the Attorney General in November, Rep. Jim Jordan asked for documents relating to the FBI search for classified documents at former President Donald Trump and the Justice Department’s alleged “targeting” of critics of the Trump administration.
There is a southern border. The Republican members of the House Judiciary Committee sent a letter to the Department of Homeland Security Secretary stating that they would like them to testify.
The withdrawal from Afghanistan. Biden’s decision to remove US troops from Afghanistan in 2021 led to a frantic attempt by many Afghans to flee the county, with devastating scenes of people clinging to the wings of planes as they tried to escape before the Taliban government officially assumed power. The Republicans are interested in probes into the events.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/07/politics/house-speaker-what-comes-next/index.html
A Conversation with J.J. Mulvaney during his first year in the House: “I wanna be like a Republican, right here in the Capitol”
Covid-19 origins. That’s probably the most important public health question that needs to be answered, according to the top Republican on the Energy and Commerce panel. In the last year, two studies claimed that the epicenter for the virus was a seafood market in China.
When Jordan joined the House Budget Committee in 2007, he wanted to shrink the federal government. He told the crowd that he was new to Washington, but that the game is called “Spend at every opportunity”.
He was elected chair of the Republican Study Committee in 2010 because of his zeal to rein in federal spending. In that post he made it clear he saw himself as a check on his party.
“I like to tell folks we’re the conservative conscience for Republicans here in the nation’s Capitol. And our job is to make Republicans act like Republicans,” Jordan said in an interview on C-SPAN in 2010.
He wasn’t afraid to confront his own leaders. The GOP lawmaker helped found the House Freedom Caucus in 2015. That group targeted then-Speaker John Boehner — from his own home state — and their battles contributed to him stepping down later that year.
At regular press conferences during the Senate trial Jordan argued Trump was being unfairly treated. “Democrats have never got over the fact that this new guy has never been in this town, never been in politics, this new guy came in here and is shaking this place up and that drives them crazy.”
I think Jim was ready when the light was going to shine on him. And Jim did a great job, I thought, on the impeachment. Mulvaney spoke to him often during that time, and he was always on the ball.
“I would look at Jim more as an investigator and somebody who’s interested in transparency and accountability, than I would describe him as a legislator. Jim isn’t a fan of the Financial Services Committee. I don’t think he’d be happy on appropriations. But the man is made to run the Judiciary Committee.”
Mulvaney believes that impeachment is no longer a political tool and should be preserved for instances when there’s corroboration of high crimes. “I hope that the Republicans will go back to that standard if they end up impeaching Biden. It’s better to be for a really good reason.
California Democrat Ted Lieu sits on the Judiciary Committee and told NPR recently about the panel’s new chairman, “I believe he has very extreme views. I believe that he believes in those views and that is something I respect. I don’t believe in the things Kevin McCarthy says.
“It’s going to be a challenge, because lawmakers know that being on the right committee can make them famous, and they like that.”