January 5, 2023 GOP deadlocked over House speaker vote

Table Of Content

• Republican lawmaker laments fight impeding ability to help in Israel and Gaza
• The House is voting on whether to adjourn until noon Friday
• 'Quite a journey,' Scalise tells reporters after dropping bid
• UC rejects calls for Israel-related divestment, boycott driving pro-Palestinian protests
• GOP’s Scalise ends his bid to become House speaker as Republican holdouts refuse to back the nominee
• Luna reverses on support of Scalise
• Opinion: Is planting trees on Arbor Day one way we can all fight climate change? Not so much
• Calmes: Hapless House Republicans weaponized impeachment. It backfired

One McCarthy critic, Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida, cast votes for Donald Trump — a symbolic but pointed sign of the broad divisions over the Republican Party’s future. Then he went further, moving the day from protest toward the absurd in formally nominating the former president to be House speaker on the 11th ballot. House Republicans voted yesterday to nominate Scalise over Jordan to be the next speaker, but the majority leader is still clambering to find enough GOP votes to secure the chamber's top role. “I voted for Jim Jordan in the conference election yesterday and I remain committed to doing everything I can to help elect him the next Speaker of the House. He is a conservative fighter and a leader who can unite our party,” Banks said in a statement moments after Scalise withdrew.

Republican lawmaker laments fight impeding ability to help in Israel and Gaza

In Congress, Mr. Johnson has voted for a national abortion ban and co-sponsored a 20-week abortion ban, earning him an A-plus rating from the anti-abortion group Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America. After the Supreme Court voted to overturn Roe v. Wade in June last year, he celebrated. On Nov. 8, 2020, Mr. Johnson was onstage at a northwest Louisiana church speaking about Christianity in America when Mr. Trump called. Mr. Johnson had been in touch with the president’s team on his myriad legal challenges seeking to overturn the results, “to restore the integrity of our election process,” according to a Facebook post by Mr. Johnson recounting the exchange.

The House is voting on whether to adjourn until noon Friday

The majority of the district remains on Calvert’s home turf of the Inland Empire, but the desert additions now give it one of the largest concentrations of LGBTQ+ voters in the nation. Democrats held a five-percentage-point registration advantage as of late February and Biden won the plurality-Asian district in 2020, but despite the registration advantage, Republicans turned out in higher numbers than Democrats in the 2022 midterms. No party preference voters account for more than a fifth of the electorate. Democrats have a narrow registration advantage, although no party preference registrants account for nearly a quarter of voters. Biden won the district by more than 10 percentage points over Trump in 2020, according to data from California Target Book. With Porter and her whiteboard out of the picture after a failed Senate bid, the former GOP Assembly leader’s competition appears less formidable this time around.

House Speaker Johnson defends Israel when Erin Burnett asks about children dying ‘at Israel’s hands’ - CNN

House Speaker Johnson defends Israel when Erin Burnett asks about children dying ‘at Israel’s hands’.

Posted: Thu, 25 Apr 2024 00:38:00 GMT [source]

'Quite a journey,' Scalise tells reporters after dropping bid

Meanwhile, Jordan, in a private meeting with Scalise, offered to give a nominating speech on his behalf, according to his spokesman. But that gesture did not seem to move a number of Republicans from across the political spectrum who said they would not vote for Scalise on the floor. A GOP candidate will need to win a simple majority of the House to be elected speaker — at least 217 of the 221 Republicans (no Democrats are expected to join Republicans, and two seats are empty). It’s unclear when that vote would take place, and it could again be a messy process like the 15 rounds of voting it took McCarthy to win the gavel. House Republicans ended Monday in a state of uncertainty, as some members expressed optimism there could be a new House speaker by tomorrow night, while others said they fear no candidate can get the 217 floor votes needed to win the gavel.

UC rejects calls for Israel-related divestment, boycott driving pro-Palestinian protests

He leads a special subcommittee on the “weaponization of government” against conservatives, and he is a co-leader of the impeachment inquiry into Mr. Biden that Mr. McCarthy announced last month as he worked to appease the right. Less than a decade later, Mr. Jordan — a fast-talking Republican often seen sans jacket, known for his hard-line stances and aggressive tactics — is now the leading candidate to claim the very speakership whose occupants he once tormented. When reporters asked him Monday night if he would oppose linking aid for Israel with aid to Ukraine, he sidestepped the issue.

Marjorie Taylor Greene, who became a McCarthy ally, for instance, has said she will vote against Scalise on the House floor. The House is in “recess subject to the call of the chair,” which means that McHenry, the interim speaker, can bring the chamber back into session when Republicans figure out what they intend to do regarding the vote. Many of those members have since shifted to support Mr. Jordan, saying that he expressed a more conciliatory stance behind closed doors. “I personally cannot, in good conscience, vote for someone who attended a white supremacist conference and compared himself to David Duke,” she told CNN.

His predecessor, Frederick Gillett of Massachusetts, also had the top job for less than five years. But when he left after the 1924 session, his party was still firmly in control and had just elected President Calvin Coolidge to a full term. The next two Republican speakers would be John Boehner, elevated to the job by the GOP recapture of the House in the "Tea Party" election of 2010.

Many legal analysts were aghast at the litigation, which was quickly rejected by the high court. Mr. Emmer had attempted to mollify Mr. Trump by calling him over the weekend and praising him, according to the former president. A majority of those opposed to Mr. Emmer were members of the ultraconservative House Freedom Caucus and loyal to Mr. Trump. The glimmer of consensus came only hours after Mr. Emmer’s abrupt exit made him the third Republican this month to be chosen to lead the party, only to have his bid collapse in a seemingly endless cycle of G.O.P. grievances, personality conflicts and ideological rifts. To show support for racial equality, Mr. Johnson in the past has told audiences that he and his wife adopted a Black teenager they met through an evangelical youth group — like the movie “The Blind Side” but without the N.F.L. prospects, he has quipped.

A number of the New York freshmen Republicans who were part of the opposition against Jordan told CNN they were not ready to endorse a candidate or announce who they are endorsing. The longest fight for the gavel started in late 1855 and dragged on for two months, with 133 ballots, during debates over slavery in the run-up to the Civil War. Several House Republicans have said they’re not ready to get behind him and he can only afford to lose four of them. “I personally cannot, in good conscience, vote for someone who attended a white supremacist conference and compared himself to David Duke,” she said in an interview on CNN.

Mr. Johnson instead faulted the way some states had changed voting procedures during the pandemic, saying it was unconstitutional. It’s intended to avoid repeating the embarrassing public fight in January that kicked off former Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s tenure, in which he suffered through 15 floor votes before he won the gavel. This morning, the conference plans to debate possible revisions to their internal party rules before the vote, including one that would require a near-unanimous vote among members of the party to nominate a candidate for speaker.

Only hours later, Mr. Emmer told Republicans in a closed-door meeting that he was dropping his bid, according to a person familiar with his decision who divulged the private discussion on the condition of anonymity. Any candidate for speaker can lose only a handful of votes and still win the speakership because Republicans hold such a small majority in the House. Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio, a founder of the hard-right House Freedom Caucus and someone Mr. Johnson has described as a mentor, was the next member to be elected speaker designate in a secret ballot. He had Mr. Trump and the far right in his corner, but ultimately failed to win over more centrist members of his party who steadfastly refused to support him. “I look forward to meeting with Speaker Johnson soon to discuss the path forward to avoid a government shutdown,” Mr. Schumer said in a statement. And the hard-right Republicans who voted to oust Mr. McCarthy, setting into motion the three-week stretch of chaos that left the House without a leader, said Mr. Johnson’s ascension to the top job made their decision to depose the California Republican worth it.

It seems clear that Scalise at this very moment would not have enough Republican support to win the gavel on the House floor if the vote were held right now. You’ve got a mainstream Republican saying he’s undecided, some hard-right lawmakers holding out still, and a couple of McCarthy acolytes saying they’d vote for him again. Rep. Kevin McCarthy has now failed to win a majority of votes across 11 ballots over three days in his push to become House speaker. Following the forum, Rep. Pete Sessions — one of the eight candidates — called the meeting “productive” and said it “really helped getting us prepared for tomorrow,” when the conference will vote for its third candidate to succeed Kevin McCarthy. As Rep. Jim Jordan meets with a number of allies in hopes of swaying key holdouts to his speakership bid, GOP sources say his opposition could grow if the votes continue over multiple rounds of ballots.

By contrast, the Economist/YouGov poll, also released this week, pegged Kennedy’s support at just 3% among registered voters. With the election now just over six months away, the vast majority of voters, probably about 9 in 10, have made up their minds. But those locked-in voters and states are evenly balanced between the two sides. If the motion is brought to the floor, the three Republican votes supporting it could be enough for passage if they are joined by all Democrats in the chamber. But some House Democrats have signaled that they plan to vote to save Johnson.

His conservative governmental philosophy, the columnist wrote, was not much different from the one Mr. Duke embraced as a politician, including oppositions to taxes and social safety net programs. A week and a day after the abrupt and historic ouster of former Speaker Kevin McCarthy at the hands of a small right-wing bloc, Republicans voted behind closed doors, 113 to 99, to name Mr. Scalise, their second-ranking leader, as his successor. Mr. Scalise turned back a challenge by Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee and a favorite of the hard right who had the endorsement of former President Donald J. Trump. After Scalise dropped out of the race and Jordan went on to become the nominee last week, Scalise immediately committed to voting for Jordan and encouraged his supporters to do the same. But, Scalise rebuffed a request from Jordan to give a nominating speech on the floor on Tuesday.

"I will no longer be voting for Scalise, and we NEED to stay in Washington until this is figured out," she wrote on X. "Right now there is no consensus candidate for the Speaker and I don’t think we will make it to the floor." The House didn't seem any closer to electing a speaker after today's meeting. Joyce said that the House has to get to the floor and figure out if Scalise will win as the next speaker and move on from there. Joyce says he has been pushing for McHenry to step in as speaker since McCarthy lost his position, saying McHenry could potentially hold an actual speaker position for "30, 45 to 60 days, something along those lines."