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Saturday, October 14, 2023

Jim Jordan makes it as "nominee." He reportedly lacks enough votes, so far.

Guardian - a Friday 13th report:

[In caucus voting] Jordan, endorsed by former president Donald Trump and ex-speaker Kevin McCarthy, defeated a surprise candidate, Austin Scott of Georgia, who had barely campaigned.

[...] Jordan cannot expect help from Democrats who condemned him as an “extremist extraordinaire” and warned that his nomination would solve nothing. Hakeem Jeffries, the minority leader, said: “The House Republican civil war continues to rage on, miring the Congress in chaos, dysfunction and extremism. House Republicans have chosen to triple down on the chaos, triple down on the dysfunction and triple down on the extremism.

“House Republicans have selected as their nominee to be the speaker of the people’s house the chairman of the ‘chaos caucus’, a defender in a dangerous way of dysfunction and an extremist extraordinaire.”

Without a speaker, the House has been paralyzed for 10 days, [...]

The conference met again on Friday morning, seeking to determine whether Ohio congressman Jordan, 59, the judiciary committee chair, a hard-right bomb-thrower and a leading supporter of Trump, the presidential frontrunner, could cobble together enough votes to become speaker.

[...] Jordan is a founding member of the House Freedom Caucus. He was a key Trump ally before and after the January 6 insurrection who refused to cooperate with the House panel that investigated the attack. Liz Cheney, a former Wyoming congresswoman from an influential Republican family, had suggested the conference would make a dangerous mistake if it elected Jordan.

“Jim Jordan was involved in Trump’s conspiracy to steal the election and seize power; he urged that [then vice-president Mike] Pence refuse to count lawful electoral votes,” Cheney, who was vice-chair of the January 6 committee, said on social media. “If [Republicans] nominate Jordan to be speaker, they will be abandoning the constitution. They’ll lose the House majority and they’ll deserve to.”

Scott, [the caucus alternative ... ] with a strikingly low profile in Washington, offered himself as a relatively moderate alternative to Jordan. “We are in Washington to legislate, and I want to lead a House that functions in the best interest of the American people,” he wrote on social media.

In January 2021, in the aftermath of the deadly attack on Congress by Trump supporters, Scott was not among the 139 House Republicans (and eight senators) who voted to overturn Joe Biden’s election victory.

He also rejected the move to eject Kevin McCarthy last week, dismissing the eight Republicans who made their own speaker the first ever removed from the role by his own party as “grifters” working “in the name of their own glory and fundraising”.

[...] As Republicans hold the House by a razor-thin majority, any candidate for speaker can only afford four defections if they are to win the gavel.

Brian Mast, from Florida, acknowledged that Scalise’s downfall so soon after that of McCarthy had created bad blood in the party.

“One of the obstacles is simply the fact that Kevin got thrown out [and] Steve wasn’t able to come to the floor,” Mast said. “Just that being the case, there’s going to be people that are upset and … possibly want to take it out on Jim just because that happened.”

[...] Jeffries, of New York, continued to call on moderate Republicans to “break with the extremists” and form a bipartisan coalition.

“We are ready, willing and able to do so,” Jeffries told PBS. “I know there are traditional Republicans who are good women and men who want to see government function but they are unable to do it within the ranks of their own conference, which is dominated by the extremist wing, and that’s why we continue to extend the hand of bipartisanship to them.”

Republicans have shown no sign of entertaining that idea. [...]

There are 200+ of House GOP Reps remaining, each can have a turn, and by the end of the 2024 elections we might have an idea who will replace Speaker Pro Tem with Speaker, which party, which person. These are not our best nor brightest. Take Matt Gaetz, for example. More cantankerous than DeSantis. Dumber. Horny.

Betty McCollum would make a fine Speaker. From the Minnesota delegation. She'd have a likelier chance than Ilhen Omar. After Nov. 2024. Indeed, after Jan. 2025 where party balances could flip.

Moreover, Minnesota's delegation could end up with a Speaker earlier. Tom Emmer being Republican whip, but possibly verboten for the post as insufficiently Trumpist - having not embraced the Trump attempt to steal the election from Biden via bogus alternate electors. Not as great a defector as Pence, yet not hanging tight with the stupids.

Emmer admitted Biden won and voted accordingly, Jan. 6. 

Emmer, strongly of the crypto caucus, (not to be confused with cryptococcus, though each might be regarded in some places, by some people, as pathogens). Anyway, they call themselves "Congressional Blockchain Caucus" likely to avoid the above noted name confusions.