Republicans Voting on House Speaker

[LFC]

I'll give this its own thread because there's a lot, especially on TPM who is doing live coverage.

First up, an interesting point on actual vote counting.

One Caveat For The Magic Number 218

One important caveat: The number of votes needed to become the next speaker — which as of now is 218 according to number of members who said they are present on the floor — could change depending on how many lawmakers vote present, instead of voting for a name as they submit votes for speaker.

This is because “present” votes don’t count towards the total votes for speakership. The “present” votes would instead lower the threshold needed to reach a majority, changing the magic number 218 to a lower one.

[LFC]

Round One: Around 1:00 PM the vote was taken and McCarthy missed the mark of 218.

McCarthy Will Not Win Speaker In First Ballot

Seven Republicans have already voted against supporting McCarthy. He will not win his speakership bid in the first round.

GOP Support For Jim Jordan, Biggs Grows

Rep. Mike Cloud (R-TX) joins Boebert and votes for Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH).

Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-GA) and Rep Dan Bishop (R-NC) joins the five detractors and votes for Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ) as well.

[LFC]

More on Round One.

First Tally Ends With Jeffries Leading The Count. McCarthy Does Not Have The Votes

With the GOP votes divided between Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ) and Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) lead the speaker vote tally in the first round. No one voted “present.” CNN is reporting that with the first round over, McCarthy wants to move right to another round of voting. The Republican will have to convince at least 15 members of his caucus to change their votes in order to win.

Despite Jeffries leading the vote, the speaker is still undecided as no one received 218 votes.

This comes as McCarthy claims Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) told him that he would not care if the speakership vote resulted in a Democrat being elected to the position, according to Fox News.

Pretty funny that the Democrat received more votes than McCarthy.

No Speaker Yet. Here’s The Tally After The First Round

The clerk announced the official numbers for the first round of the speaker vote:

Jeffries: 212

McCarthy: 203

Biggs: 10

Jordan: 6

Banks: 1

Zeldin: 1

Donalds: 1

As no one received the majority of the whole number of votes casts in the first round, a speaker has not been elected. The clerk said they’ll move to a second round of votes.

[LFC]

Round Two. McCarthy must be shittin' his britches.

Still No Speaker. Here’s The Tally After The Second Round

The clerk announced the official numbers for the second round of the speaker vote:

Jeffries: 212

McCarthy: 203

Jordan: 19

The number of votes for McCarthy and Jeffries did not change, with Jeffries getting the most votes out of all the nominees. No one voted “present” this round either.

Once again as no one received the majority of the whole number of votes casts in the second round, a speaker has not been elected. They’ll move to a third round of votes.

[LFC]

Here's another interesting point about the vote.

Reminder: New Members Won’t Be Sworn In Til Speaker Elected

Round one and two ended with no speaker, after both ballots led to no one receiving the majority of the whole number of votes casts.

A reminder: the House can’t conduct business until a speaker is elected. That means none of the new or re-elected members can be sworn in till there is a speaker.

[LFC]

OMFG! Gym Jordan is actually getting MORE votes as of Round Three! Whoever

Jordan Is Getting More Support With Each Roll Call Vote

The third roll call vote is still ongoing, but Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) now has 20 votes cast for him. That’s one more than round two and 14 more than round one.

Ballot three will seemingly end with no conclusion on who the speaker will be once again.

[LFC]

Three votes fail to elect a Speaker.

Once Again, No Speaker. Here’s The Tally After The Third Round

The clerk announced the official numbers for the third round of the speaker vote:

Jeffries: 212

McCarthy: 202

Jordan: 20

The number of votes for Jeffries did not change, with Jeffries getting the most votes out of all the nominees. McCarthy lost one vote to Jordan. No one voted “present” this round either.

Once again as no one received the majority of the whole number of votes cast in the third round, a speaker has not been elected.

I don't think even Faux News can spin this into "Dems in Disarray!", much less the MSM.

[DJTJ For Speaker]

Why not? It’ll be richly deserved!

DJTJ v Hunter. In the House well. On C-SPAN pay-per-view.

[andydp]

Just a thought: are the holdouts in the vote trying to squeeze something else out of McCarthy ?

Are they hoping to throw Trump in the mix ?

So if a bunch of “presents” are used would that make Jeffries the Speaker ?

[goldenvalley]

Jan 3, 2023 23:10:51 GMT LFC said:

Three votes fail to elect a Speaker.

Once Again, No Speaker. Here’s The Tally After The Third Round

The clerk announced the official numbers for the third round of the speaker vote:

Jeffries: 212

McCarthy: 202

Jordan: 20

The number of votes for Jeffries did not change, with Jeffries getting the most votes out of all the nominees. McCarthy lost one vote to Jordan. No one voted “present” this round either.

Once again as no one received the majority of the whole number of votes cast in the third round, a speaker has not been elected.

I don't think even Faux News can spin this into "Dems in Disarray!", much less the MSM.

I don't think Gym Jordan wants the job. He just wants to pose as the grand inquisitor chair of Judiciary Comm. Being Speaker is too much work.

[indy]

Jan 4, 2023 0:07:23 GMT andydp said:

Just a thought: are the holdouts in the vote trying to squeeze something else out of McCarthy ?

Are they hoping to throw Trump in the mix ?

So if a bunch of “presents” are used would that make Jeffries the Speaker ?

You need a majority of the votes cast for a person. Present votes do not count. So, hypothetically, if 20 members vote present while the other 415 voted for a person, then anyone who got a total of 208 votes would be elected. (Although actually I think there are only 434 current members because someone died last month.)

As to what these 20 wayward Republicans are hoping to do is...beyond my limited imagination.

[andydp]

More randomness:

What if the Democrats ALL voted for McCarthy and got him the Speakership ?  Would love to see the resulting chaos in the GOP ranks.  As mentioned before, no GOP would follow his "lead".  He would be as effective as __________________ (pick your own simile).

[pnwguy]

From a friend:

"McCarthy is getting f*cked so bad, only thing missing is Jerry Falwell Jr sitting in the corner watching"

[LFC]

Kevin just can't stop himself from lying. It's his jam!

Opponents of Rep. Kevin McCarthy’s bid for the House speakership are digging in after a tense discussion on the House floor between Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y.

The pair’s conspicuous exchange in the back of the chamber on the first day of the 118th Congress was caught on C-SPAN — and noted by many members in the building. Thanks to Gaetz and his far-right allies, McCarthy, a California Republican, failed to win the speakership on the first round of voting.

Gaetz told Ocasio-Cortez that McCarthy has been telling Republicans that he’ll be able to cut a deal with Democrats to vote present, enabling him to win a majority of those present and voting, according to Ocasio-Cortez. She told Gaetz that wasn’t happening, and also double-checked with Democratic party leadership, confirming there’d be no side deal.

[LFC]

TPM's live coverage for Day 2 can be found here.

Pelosi once again shows leadership, plus gets in a dig (bold mine). Republicans can't really do anything constructive anymore.

Pelosi Says House Members Should Be Sworn In Without Speaker

As she and other Dems revel in the spectacle Republicans are making of themselves, Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said House members should be sworn in — even if a speaker is not chosen yet — so their families can witness the moment instead of not having to wait around all day, according to CNN.

“The best thing to do for the families is for them to have somebody; the dean, swear in the speaker, somebody swear in the members so at least their children will be there when they get sworn in,” Pelosi said.

A reminder: Freshman and re-elected members can’t be sworn in until a speaker is elected.

When asked how members can be sworn in without a speaker, Pelosi said, “the speaker is sworn in without a speaker, so the other members can be.”

Pelosi’s remarks come after dozens of children spent their Tuesday sitting around on the House floor for five hours waiting for a speaker to be elected so that their parents could get sworn in. 

“Thank God they weren’t the majority on Jan. 6,” Pelosi added. “We had to be organized to stave off what was happening.”

[LFC]

Oh, Kevin. It's getting very close to the time to accept that you're a loser.

Report: Norman Says McCarthy Opposition Is Growing

“Let me just say that we’re adding people,” said Rep. Ralph Norman (R-SC) referring to a growing group of lawmakers who are opposing McCarthy’s speakership bid, according to Politico’s Norman Beavers.

I love this. Kevin is getting hoisted on his own retard(s). He did so much to help protect the worst of the worst and now he's paying for it. It's a lesson that every group of slightly less crazy / corrupt Republicans seems to have to learn at some point. These whackjobs will turn on you in the blink of an eye.

Never Kevins Seeking A Scalp

The main problem for McCarthy is that the Freedom Caucus-y, Never Kevin contingent doesn’t seem to oppose anything about him specifically (Gaetz a vague allusion to McCarthy having “sold shares of himself for more than a decade” during his floor speech yesterday). He’s caved to virtually all of their demands, and has built his entire career on being a palatable option.

This situation has whiffs of how these kinds of House Republicans always operate — think of the various debt ceiling standoffs, where they’d refuse to raise the limit unless Democrats caved to something totally amorphous like “less government spending” or something they’d never do, like “repeal the Affordable Care Act.”

They’ve made their name on obstruction for obstruction’s sake, grinding things to a halt to flex their muscles and buck leadership, divorced from any serious policy negotiation.

McCarthy has empowered this sector of the party, or at the very least, staunchly refused to rein it in. Now, he’s paying the price.

[goldenvalley]

The ex president issued one of his personal social media messages urging everyone to vote for Kevin.  Now we'll see if those who slavishly followed him will be swayed by that.  

[LFC]

[LFC]

[goldenvalley]

Jan 4, 2023 17:12:53 GMT goldenvalley said:

The ex president issued one of his personal social media messages urging everyone to vote for Kevin.  Now we'll see if those who slavishly followed him will be swayed by that.  

Apparently Trump called some folks to tell them to knock it off and get behind McCarthy.  Boebert was not impressed:

[andydp]

The hits just keep on coming !!

PS:  This one aged well !!

[LFC]

[LFC]

Jan 4, 2023 19:26:30 GMT andydp said:

PS:  This one aged well !!

Speaking of statements that haven't aged well...

[goldenvalley]

[goldenvalley]

It's been fun to poke fun at the situation in the House and Kevin McCarthy's attempts to maneuver himself into the Speakership. However, McCarthy has a good reason to keep calling vote after vote.  He and the rest of the Republicans cannot give in to this group of 20 nihilistic jerks who don't give a damn about doing their jobs as members of the House.  It's clear that all they want is for McCarthy to lose...no other ambition or plan beyond that.

It's time for McCarthy et al to go to the Democrats and try to cut some deals with them in exchange for voting for Jeffries.