Well, McCarthy has lost first ballot

[dreamshark]

Pretty resoundingly. He was down more than 5 votes by the time they got to G. They're up to the R's now, and he has lost 17. No, wait, 18. And here comes Roy with an off-the-wall vote for someone named Donalds. And now Hakeem Jeffries (the Democrat) is AHEAD of McCarthy. And presumably he will stay there until at least the second ballot. I'm loving this. Presumably McCarthy will win eventually when his right wing gets bored with humiliating him in front of a national audience, but considering how mean some of them are it will probably take a few more ballots before they give in.

And who knows? There's always the possibility that 5 disaffected Republicans will join up with the Democrats and vote in somebody like Liz Cheney. 

ETA 12:48pm.  Okay, round 1 is done. Jeffries has 212 votes to McCarthy's 203. Now's the time to strike! All they need is 5 moderate Republicans to join the Democrats and elect Liz Cheney. Or maybe someone even more surprising - how about Oprah? Or Dolly Parton. Everybody loves Dolly Parton, right? 

Comments

[minnehaha]

Did Liz Cheney get re-elected? I thought she lost her primary?

K.

[ckd]

There is, technically, no requirement that the Speaker of the House be a member of the House; votes have been cast for non-members in the past, though none of them have received more than a handful and therefore none have been elected.

[redbird]

They probably do have to be human, which is too bad, because a Labrador retriever could only improve this show.

[quadong]

Probably not, since "Each House shall be the Judge of the Elections, Returns and Qualifications of its own Members" (article 1, section 5), and while the constitution sets a minimum age for House members, all it says about the speaker is that they shall be chused.

[minnehaha]

I think what you are saying in answer to my question is, "no" and "you recall correctly, she did." Maybe my interpretation is mistaken.

K.

[ckd]

Your interpretation is correct.

[quadong]

What I don't understand is how, if the new speaker swears in the new members, the new members can be chusing the speaker. Don't they need to be sworn in first to do business? Or maybe not, since the constitution talks about swearing in the president, but nothing similar about representatives.

I also am curious what happens if they continue failing to elect a speaker forever. Or to be concrete, let's say for a year. Is it as simple as that they cannot pass any legislation until they do, which means a government shutdown?

[minnehaha]

Such an interesting couple of questions, those.

K.