Probably…
This tweet thread explains the current state of play with the House Speaker election. The wingnuts are restless…
A few notes from this past week on McCarthy and the Speakership election—one structural and two political.
First, Representative McEachin (D-VA) sadly passed away last Monday. That means the total number of Representatives on January 3 is likely to be 434.
With 434 Members-elect (likely to be 222 R and 212 D), the math moves slightly in McC’s favor. 218 votes will still be needed if every Member-elect votes, but now 1 “present” vote (or non-vote) reduces the magic number to 217. (217 McC, 212 Jeffries, 4 other, 1 present wins).
Another slight change is the absolute winning floor for McCarthy. Now that the D’s will have 212 instead of 213, McCarthy’s bare winning number is 213 (instead of 214). So 10 present (or not voting) R’s now gets there (213 McC, 212 Jeffries, 10 present/not-vote).
The core math calculation for McCarthy (assuming all 212 Dems vote for Jeffries) is now: 213 hard yes Republicans + any combination of 5 additional ballots out of the last 10, where a hard yes is a full ballot and a “present” or non-vote is 1/2 of a ballot.
Next issue: McCarthy’s campaign for the Speakership is dragging him to the right on lame duck issues, particularly on the omnibus. McC participated in a WH negotiating session, but is evidently already a hard no on any omnibus deal.
This reflects the fact that a lot of the swing votes on the Speakership are the same Republicans who are the hardest no votes on the annual omnibus appropriations bills. They just never want to vote for these things, and almost never do.
It has put the GOP House leaders (Boehner, then Ryan) into tough boxes in the last decade. Holding the House majority, but often relying on 100+ Dems to pass Senate approps compromises, while sometimes not even getting a majority of their own caucus. It’s a tough spot.
McCarthy is almost certainly in the “vote no, hope yes” caucus here. Pretty sure the last thing he wants is to have the first big issue of his Speakership in the 118th Congress be him negotiating a deal with the Dems for an omnibus that a majority of his caucus votes against.
But this is a precursor to his basic problem over the next 2 years. The GOP House leadership will be put in a box with the conservative wing of the caucus, needing to actually negotiate deals on must-pass legislation, but becoming the party villain for doing so.
Again, this is not a new dynamic. It’s a consequence of a lot of things (GOP primaries, conservative media, lots of chucklehead Members in the caucus), but it’s the same dynamic that worked against Boehner and Ryan. Here’s more on the primary angle: https://mattglassman.substack.com/p/primaries-all-the-way-down
And here’s an old tweet storm on the partisan media problem.
The other glaring McCarthy issue is that Trump is going off the rails this week, and McCarthy just can’t bring himself to criticize him in any real way.
Whether it’s Kanye, Fuentes, or declaring that the Constitution should be “terminated,” right now there’s really nothing that Trump can do that will bring a strong direct rebuke from McCarthy. I expect that dynamic to continue at least through 1/3/23.
Here’s a thread from last month that explains the basic math of the Speakership election
Originally tweeted by Matt Glassman (@MattGlassman312) on December 5, 2022.
He’ll make it. But this just illustrates how much he will be under the thumb of the extremists in his caucus. Not that he’s trying to hide it:
He will give them every last thing they want. Marge Green didn’t endorse him for nothing.