interesting discussion. there are a few radical republicans looking to extract deals from the current house speaker.
yesterday mike lawler tried to explain things
“ Lawler told ABC’s This Week that the US House speaker, Mike Johnson, should be re-elected despite Republican infighting over whether he should keep the position after his handling of negotiations over a government funding bill.“
i mean the republicans have a slim majority. so a few votes could gum up the works.
With the slimmest of majority in the House, the last thing we need would be for a protracted speaker fight stretching over the course of several months. That would kill any chance for Trump to hit the ground running. Trump knows this and is making his preference known.
Trump was pragmatic during his previous term. Hardliners sometime didn’t like his pragmatism. The left just couldn’t get past his “unpresidential behavior”. Drove them nuts.
I too am a pragmatist. One of the reasons I like Trump.
If the speaker fight were to go for several months, the under the US Code there cannot be a full Congress as with no Speaker there is no swearing in of other House members. Remember all House terms expire after two years
With no House members they can’t convine a Joint Session of Congress (Senate and House because there is no House). No Joint Session, no counting the EC votes.
It one thing to have a ■■■■ show selecting a Speaker mid-year. It’s another to have a ■■■■ show at the opening of the new Congress.
We saw exactly that with the protracted Mcarthy fight in 2023. As to the certification, it is largely ceremonial. The vote is administrative, not legislative which would require a speaker. For that reason, I’m pretty sure the Clerk of the House would be able to run the vote, just as he does for the Speaker vote.
The Clerk of the House doesn’t run the Joint Session of Congress to count the EC Votes. That is the President of the Senate (I.e. the Vice President). If the US has no House sworn in there can’t be a joint session. You have to have both Chambers.
I have been thinking about this and I think Trump came out in support for Johnson because of what has already been discussed but also to stop the idiotic chatter that Musk could be speaker.
I am impressed with how Trump has in the past 24 hours decisively bitch slapped Musk and let it be known that he is the President elect and leader of the Republicans.
If it comes to that its going to be one of those ‘never been done before but no one objects’ because there is no precedent for the President to take office for a new term absent the House convening.
Looks like Massey and Spartz are still no votes even with Trumps endorsement of Johnson.
Oh, no doubt so do I. Agreed, Trump will be sword in on the 20th.
The catfight in the GOP delaying Speaker selection (and therefore the seating and swearing in of the rest of the House) will be over with fairly quickly. I don’t think the GOP is dumb enough to delay seating the House.
It’s not that the President would take office absent the House. That’s a little backward.
Without a House, there can be no Joint Sessions of Congress (because you can’t have a Joint Session with only one chamber), no Joint Session of Congress, No counting of the EC votes, no counting of the EC votes there is not President elected to take office.
So under order of succession with no President it goes to the Vice President, no Vice President it goes to the Speaker, no Speaker it goes to the President of the Senate (which would be Harris until Jan 20).
I’m not worried that we will actually see that, the GOP will have a Speaker before January 6th.
