“When you look at the vote yesterday for Speaker, you realize why Nancy has not been serious on any offer,” McCarthy added. "That was a very close vote for speaker. She had to have all the members that voted against her, then a number of members who had to abstain, to lower the threshold so she could become Speaker.
A total lie by the minority leader of the house.
Nancy got 220 votes for speaker, which is a clear majority.
Guess McCarthy is not above lying about easily checkable facts.like our beloved president.
Sounds to me like this was nothing at all resembling a “close vote for Speaker” as alleged by Mr. McCarthy, and apparently agreed with by some here. Thank you for shedding light on this.
To be elected speaker a candidate must receive an absolute majority of the votes cast.
434 votes were case.
434/2= 216.5 So she would still need 217 votes to be elected. 216 votes for her she doesn’t get to be speaker and they have to do another vote.
Here is the tally of the vote:
Here was the final tally of votes for the speakership: Ms. Pelosi — 220; Representative Kevin McCarthy, Republican of California — 192; Representative Jim Jordan, Republican of Ohio — 5, Representative Cheri Bustos, Democrat of Illinois — 4; Senator Tammy Duckworth, Democrat of Illinois — 2; Stacey Abrams of Georgia — 1; former Vice President Joe Biden — 1; Representative Marcia Fudge, Democrat of Ohio — 1; Representative Joseph P. Kennedy III, Democrat of Massachusetts — 1; Representative John Lewis, Democrat of Georgia — 1; Representative Thomas Massie, Republican of Kentucky — 1; Representative Stephanie Murphy, Democrat of Florida — 1; Present — 3.
It’s not a simple majority. Speaker of the house MUST have a majority of all voting. That mean with 434 members voting she MUST have 218 votes to become speaker. she had 220. She squeaked by on the first vote with 4 votes to spare. Had she got 217 votes, then there would have been a new vote.
So you need to have BOTH a simple majority of votes cast and have the MOST votes cast. She received a whopping 28 votes more than the next closest candidate seeking the gavel. That is nowhere near being a “close vote for Speaker.” That is a veritable lapping of the field. Now, if it were 220-214 you may have had a better leg to stand on. But as it is, you do not.
Again, She had to have 218 votes to be elected. 217 and no one would have won. The next closest could have had 100 votes and she still would not have won IF she had only gotten 217 votes. So it was a very close election as she had 4 votes that let her win and a 3 vote margin for comfort. What do you call close? something less than a 3 vote margin?
Irrelevant. She passed the first necessary threshold, which was a majority of votes cast. Check.
Then, there was a tally of who received how many votes each. She had 28 more votes for Speaker than the next closest person running. That is an ass whooping. Not a close vote for Speaker.
Focusing singularly on one of the two necessary requirements, while ignoring the other does not make your point any stronger.
