Jan.05

electoral-vote.com

Dem 51

   

GOP 49

The Beat Goes On

Another day, another vote. Actually three of them. R.J Matson of Roll Call summed it up like this:

Here are the tallies for the six rounds of voting thus far:

As you can see, the start of a new day resulted in a couple of changes, neither of which help wannabe speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA). The first is that, despite their claims that Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) is the perfect man for the job because he doesn't want to be the speaker, the MAGA crew all switched their votes to Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL). The second is that Rep. Victoria Spartz (R-IN) has switched her vote to "present," which she says is a vote in favor of "more deliberation." Once these new developments had manifest themselves in the first vote of the day, and the fourth overall, nothing changed in subsequent rounds of balloting.

Theoretically, McCarthy got a boost on Wednesday when Donald Trump decided not to switch horses, and openly urged all House Republicans to support McCarthy for speaker. But that changed a grand total of zero votes. Trump's exhortation to Republicans had no effect at all. That is not going to be lost on Republican politicians. Trump picked a bunch of candidates in high-profile Senate races, told the voters to vote for them, and most of them lost anyway. Then he ordered House Republicans to do his bidding and vote for Kevin McCarthy and it had no effect. Republicans who previously groveled before the former president are surely going to notice that Trump's pronouncements don't affect the voters very much and also don't affect Republican leaders very much. If members of his own party come to believe that Trump doesn't matter very much anymore, that weakens him even more, especially since he ruled the party because people feared him, not because they loved him.

While Trump has jumped in and is taking sides in the speaker's race, how is Joe Biden taking it? Well, Biden has said it's "not my problem." But it did note that it was a little embarrassing.

After the House adjourned for the day yesterday (something that the members only agreed to do by a razor-thin margin), McCarthy once again met with the leaders of the MAGA 20. After, he said that there had been no deal, but that "progress" was being made. Given that he's not exactly known as a straight shooter, and that he has to make it seem as if he still has momentum, it is not clear how truthful that really is. However, even if it is true, there are two rather sizable problems here.

The first problem is that if there was some boon McCarthy could give up easily, or even could give up with a great deal of pain, he'd already have done it. For example, at this point, he'd probably accept a "one person is all that is needed for a motion to vacate," except that he can't make rules changes by himself, and the majority of the Republican conference isn't going to go for that particular change. Another common "carrot" in these circumstances is offers to help with money and personal appearances for the member's next reelection campaign. However, the MAGA 20 largely come from deep-red districts where they don't really need much help. And to the extent they do, McCarthy already gave it to them this cycle. And see how much loyalty that bought him.

The second problem is that while the demands of the right-wingers are getting somewhat clarified, the 20 are not a monolith, and some of their post-Christmas wish lists are fundamentally incompatible with a McCarthy speakership, or with any speakership. For example, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) has a personal grudge with the wannabe speaker because he (Gaetz) feels McCarthy threw him under the bus during the sex trafficking scandal. Several other members also loathe McCarthy on a personal level, such that their main demand is "we want a speaker who isn't Kevin McCarthy."

Others want McCarthy to make commitments that no speaker can plausibly make. For example, Rep. Ralph Norman (R-SC) told reporters that "One of the things is, is he willing to shut the government down rather than raise the debt ceiling?" Needless to say, it would be politically catastrophic to refuse to raise the debt ceiling, particularly if it was publicly known that the Republicans planned to do so months in advance, and that no amount of negotiation was going to change that. On top of that, it's not so easy to negotiate with a member whose knowledge of civics is so poor that he doesn't understand the difference between shutting down the government (which is done by not funding it, and is a moot point until October) and refusing to raise the debt ceiling (which would not shut down the government, but instead would cause the U.S. to default on its debt).

The pressure on the Republicans to figure this out is enormous. If they want to convince the voters that they should be given the keys to the kingdom in 2024, this isn't helping much. And the longer it goes on, the worse it gets. At this point, the quickest way out that we see is that McCarthy gives up his lifelong dream and lets some other Republican try for the top job. We think Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA) is the most likely one to go next, but he is going to have the same problems with the Freedom Caucus as McCarthy and is going to have to make the same Faustian bargain.

There is, of course, another option for McCarthy. He could sit down with Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) and ask: "What will it take for me to get 30-40 Democratic votes for speaker?" The Democrats don't like McCarthy at all, but they would certainly be willing to play ball if some rather serious concessions could be worked out, like "no silly investigations" and "no playing chicken with the economy." These negotiations would be challenging, since McCarthy has proven himself untrustworthy, and it's not so easy to force a speaker to follow through on their promises if they later say "I changed my mind." But it could be done, and if you were McCarthy, wouldn't you rather be beholden to moderate Democrats, who are generally reasonable, as opposed to MAGA maniacs, who are generally not? Unfortunately, you're not McCarthy, whose lack of imagination is so profound that he hasn't done anything to even begin exploring this possibility.

As an aside, from time to time we get mail for Saturday or Sunday that in essence says: "I don't like either Democrats or Republicans. Why can't we have more parties?" Just imagine we did. Imagine that the Freedom Caucus became the Freedom Party and was on the ballot in every state and could consistently win 20 or so seats in the House. And also imagine the Progressive Party (possibly the successor to the Green Party) could also win a few dozen seats. Then each new session of Congress would begin with a weeks long (or months long) stalemate as the parties tried to elect a speaker and put together a political program. In Israel, Italy, Belgium, and the Netherlands, this happens all the time. But those systems don't really have checks and balances, so when a coalition is cobbled together in the parliament, it can actually implement the agreed upon program. The U.S. is stumbling toward a system that has all the disadvantages of a multiparty system without any of the advantages.

The House will be back at it today. If McCarthy can't nail things down in the three (four? five?) rounds of balloting that will take place today, then "a weekend for everyone to think about it" is probably fatal for his chances of becoming speaker. We shall see if desperate times call for desperate measures and, if so, exactly what those measures might be. (Z & V)