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McCarthy and Freedom maniacs will play chicken over speaker's gavel, and it's going to be hilarious [1]

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Date: 2022-12-01

Hypothetically, there is room for a compromise candidate. Back when this was Boehner’s problem, Nir called that hypothetical person the Magical Elephant Unicorn. “This is where Republicans try to find someone else who can somehow obtain 218 GOP votes for speaker.” Nir rightly pegged that as “bloody well impossible” in 2015. It wasn’t entirely impossible, it turns out. They browbeat Ryan into doing it. There’s probably not a compromise candidate that the Freedom maniacs, numbering somewhere between three and four dozen, would accept this time around. And if the only guy they want is Biggs, can he get more than 40 or so votes? Not likely.

There’s the Kick the Tire-Fire Down the Road possibility—they find someone to fill in as an “interim” speaker until someone who can actually get elected emerges. But the actual implementation of that is no clearer now than it was back in 2015. There isn’t a process for it. Is the temporary person elected or appointed? If they can elected, then why don’t they just be regular speaker? If they’re appointed, who would do the appointing? Could they have some kind of rotation among senior Republicans to share the job? Could the majority of Republicans actually figure out the complex rules it would take to put that system into place. Not a chance!

The End of the World as We Knew It option is maybe the default. Nobody does it. The history books record that happening back in the 19th century, but that only happened when no party had the majority. There is a GOP majority now, an extremely puny one, but a majority nonetheless. So that’s probably not a viable option.

Okay, that leaves what Nir called the Walk of Doom. A handful of fed-up not maniacal Republicans decide to caucus with the Democrats to pick a speaker. As in 2015, Democrats are not going to be willing to bail Republicans out here, so they would effectively be selecting that candidate. The Democrats are even more disciplined now than they were in 2015—look at the nearly seamless transition to the new leadership team after Nancy Pelosi decided to step down. They’re not going to splinter and help the Republicans. Rep. Don Bacon of Nebraska floated that scenario a few weeks ago, that he would be willing to work with Democrats to appoint a Republican. Fat chance. As fat of a chance as Republicans agreeing to accept a moderate Democrat as speaker.

In the realm of hypotheticals again, there are as of now, 18 Republicans in crossover districts, where President Joe Biden won in 2020. In theory, there could be five of them who would vote with Democrats for an alternative candidate. In theory.

This sounds like a job for the Problem Solvers Caucus! That’s the bipartisan crew of moderates who do … something. Anyway, those who didn’t get primaried out of their jobs, lose their general election, or decide to retire. Given the success of, well, solving problems from that bunch so far, I wouldn’t advise anyone hold their breath waiting for that one.

The only thing we do know is that Biggs and his holdouts—it will only take a half dozen of them—are just as determined that McCarthy not become speaker as he is to win this votes. So barring a Christmas miracle ... chaos. Might as well get used to it. That’s all we’re getting out of the House for the next two years, whichever Republican grabs the gavel.

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/12/1/2139470/-McCarthy-and-Freedom-maniacs-will-play-chicken-over-Speaker-s-gavel-and-it-s-going-to-be-hilarious

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