Republicans reject Rep. Jim Jordan for House speaker on the first ballot
Republicans reject Rep. Jim Jordan for House speaker on the first ballot
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % |
|---|---|---|---|
| Democratic | Hakeem Jeffries (NY 8) | 212 | 49.1% |
| Republican | Jim Jordan (OH 4) | 200 | 46.3% |
| Republican | Steve Scalise (LA 1) | 7 | 1.6% |
| Republican | Kevin McCarthy (CA 20) | 6 | 1.4% |
| Republican | Lee Zeldin | 3 | 0.7% |
| Republican | Tom Cole (OK 4) | 1 | 0.2% |
| Republican | Tom Emmer (MN 6) | 1 | 0.2% |
| Republican | Mike Garcia (CA 27) | 1 | 0.2% |
| Republican | Thomas Massie (KY 4) | 1 | 0.2% |
Note: official party nominees in bold.
Another 14 tries to go then I guess.
Is there a way to see how my rep voted? Genuinely curious.
I had to use a non-paywalled archive.
I have moved general discussion and updates to here, as this post references an article which covers only the breaking news that Republicans have failed to successfully elect a speaker with the first ballot.
What is the number next to the state? OH 4 e.g.
The district they represent. I.e. McCarthy represents California's 20th congressional district.
Democrats do not look better by letting the Republicans flail. If this is going to be a repeat of the last speakership election, Democrats should intervene.
There is no constitutional requirement that the speaker of the house be a member of Congress. Democrats should nominate a strong apolitical candidate (perhaps a Medal of Honor recipient), and dare the Republicans to give them anything less than their whole-hearted support.
Hell, they should publish a list of the next 10 such candidates they will be nominating, inviting the public and media to compare Jim Jordan to a whole list of laudable alternatives.
Waiting for the Republicans to negotiate toward a position that will appease Matt Gaetz and his chucklefucks serves neither the nation's interests nor Democratic interests.
Republicans do not look better by letting the Republicans flail. If this is going to be a repeat of the last speakership election, Republicans should vote for Jeffries.
There is no constitutional requirement that the speaker of the house be a member of the majority party in Congress. Republicans should vote for Jeffries since Jeffries has the most votes.
Hell, they could publish a list of alternatives to Jeffries in the Democratic party, inviting the public and media to compare candidates as they reach across the aisle.
Watching Republicans waste time until they negotiate toward a position that will appease Matt Gaetz and his chucklefucks shows just how much Republicans don't give a fuck about neither the nation's interests nor Democratic interests.
If this is going to be a repeat of the last speakership election, Republicans should vote for Jeffries.
To a moderate Republican, the only thing worse than Gaetz is a Democratic political player. The only way a Republican can vote for the Democratic nominee is if that nominee is not a political operative.
A non-partisan speakership cuts the floor out from under Gaetz and his cronies, allowing the GOP to ignore its lunatic fringe and come back to the center.
Bullshit. Why try to cover for their inability to govern? It's gonna suck, but if these people keep getting elected it will continue to suck for a long time. I'm all for a schism splitting off the radical right.
It's their house, and it's going to be a shitshow, but people voted for this. Maybe it'll make the party implode, or at least a few reconsider it next time out of embarrassment.
Bad take. We aren't covering for their inability to govern. We are exploiting their inability to govern by forcing them to accept a candidate they don't really want.
And if they aren't willing to accept that candidate, we keep comparing their horseshit speaker to the upstanding hero we could have had.
6 Republicans who don't want to reject a war hero either divide the party, or force it to back that reasonable candidate.
Instead, we're going to get someone an inch closer to Matt Gaetz. Fuck. That. Shit.
Fuck off with blaming the Dems because the Republicans can't get their shit together to nominate a compromise candidate instead of going further right with each nominee.
"further right with each nominee" IS the compromise. The only thing worse to a Republican than compromising with Gaetz is compromise with the Democrats.
We don't want compromise. We want to force the issue. We don't do that by sitting back and watching them flail around until they give Gaetz something he can call a victory. We do that by eliminating Gaetz from the equation. Relegate him to the back bench.
Decades of that sort of coddling is exactly how we ended up in this situation to begin with.
Republicans failing because they’re bad at literally everything except fear mongering
“Boy this makes the Democrats look bad!”
Love seeing Democrats held responsible for Republican foolishness, as if the GOP are children fighting over what kind of cereal to get while the parents do nothing. At some point Republicans are going to have to be held accountable for their own fucking behavior, because although they’re a party full of immature, selfish, posturing, anti-democracy protofascists, they’re also grown adults. Let their failure be a demonstration to reasonable people everywhere of exactly how unfit they are to govern.
The point for Republicans is to flail around until the budget extension runs out. We're getting another 3 weeks of this.
At the end of that 3 weeks, we have a GOP speaker a little closer to Matt Gaetz, with the full support of the Republican party. And then he pulls this shit again, and the Republican party shifts a little further to the right. And again, and again, until that slimy weasel is in the white house.
Or, we divide the GOP right now, either giving them a respectable figurehead with just 6 GOP votes, or we spend the term asking their base why they preferred their loser speaker over honest-to-god heroes.
Best case, the new speaker is approved almost unanimously, and Gaetz looks like the fuckwit we all know him to be. worst case, the GOP looks even more incompetent than they actually are.
strong apolitical candidate
They would have an even worse chance of winning than Jeffries.
The Speakership is not an award or purely ceremonial position. The Speaker is a political operative. Their job is to unite a majority and keep it united during subsequent legislative votes. Winning the gavel is just the first test. If they can't consistently get a majority to vote for stuff, their gavel is useless.
That's why Democrats won't vote for a GOP Speaker unless they strike some sort of bipartisan deal about future legislation. In other words, Democrats will support whoever can offer something to Democrats in exchange.
An apolitical outsider offers nothing to anybody. They have no chance at becoming Speaker for that reason. And if they accidentally stumbled into the job, they would be unable to pass legislation - so why bother giving them the job?
The Speakership is not an award or purely ceremonial position. The Speaker is a political operative. Their job is to unite a majority and keep it united
You're describing the "majority leader" and the "majority whip". Not the speaker.
The speaker's role can and should be akin to that of a judge, with the majority and minority leaders as litigants.
It's cute that you think this would matter at all. The Republicans won't vote for anyone who isn't a hardcore republican. Their base wouldn't give a single fuck about them not voting for someone great the Democrats all voted for.