#TraitorTrump trying to pull all strings. We’ll be safer when he’s in prison.
Trump is telling loyalists to kill new speaker candidate's prospects in the cradle: report https://www.rawstory.com/trump-2666036301/
Hey, pollsters out there! Do a poll of Republican-controlled districts in NY to see how Republican voters would feel about making a deal with Democrats.
A majority might be okay with it under the right circumstances.
#uspolitics #politics #uspol #USPolPolls #Speakerofthehouse #housespeaker #speaker #GOP #polls
But that's not really how the #House rules work: any representative doesn't have to make a deal to either vote or withhold their vote.
If Democrats really wanted the House to reopen they could simply stop voting to stand in the way. That doesn't require any dealmaking.
When you start talking about deals, though, that gets REALLY complicated since this is more than just the Speaker. There are committee assignments and House Rules on the table at that point, which is a giant Gordian Knot to address.
@DemocracyMattersALot
@volkris @DemocracyMattersALot
Oh, that's weird. I thought it was a matter of getting 217 votes for one person. If Dems don't vote, Republicans still have to get to 217, don't they?
It seems like Dems and Reps could make a deal to vote for the Whip (Tom Emmer) for Speaker, with an agreement to fund the government at already agreed upon levels, plus provide funding for Israel and Ukraine. Leave everything else as it is.
#uspolitics #uspol #housespeaker #Speakerofthehouse #speaker
@dswidow @volkris @DemocracyMattersALot
No, 217 isn't a set threshold in the House rules. It's a simple majority.
It's 217 if everyone is there to vote.
There was talk of democrats being able to vote present, to lower the threshold.
@chiclet @volkris @DemocracyMattersALot
Ah, thanks for the explanation.
Well, I can see Dems doing that if the Speaker nominated is not a vile nutjob like Jim Jordan. And regardless, there's no point in Dems helping fill the Speaker position if they don't get a promise of a funded government, and funding for Ukraine and Israel.
The rule is that it's a majority of people who have voted for any particular candidate.
So any representative is welcome to either vote present or not vote at all. It's up to them.
But part of the deal is whether you like any particular candidate or not, are you willing to keep the democratic process seized? Are you willing to keep the House shut down, the congress unable to pass or even debate legislation because you don't like the particular person serving as Speaker?
That's a pretty extreme position to take, but it is the position that the Democrats have taken at this point.
As far as I'm concerned all of these politicians are assholes, but we keep re-electing them. So whatever.
Let's just be clear that the assholes we are electing are shutting down Congress.
@volkris @dswidow @DemocracyMattersALot
That's certainly the argument Reps are trying to make. That it's the Dems voting AGAINST their nominee for speaker, and holding up the House. I don't buy it.
It's the same BS argument that they make when they shutdown the government with poison pill amendments that they know won't pass, but will say Dems are blocking it.
The reality is that there is NO SUCH THING AS voting AGAINST a speaker candidate. They vote for a speaker.
And Dems have been voting for Jefferies.
Why are Republicans not voting for Jefferies? He's got more votes than any other.
@chiclet @volkris @DemocracyMattersALot
Right. So we just need enough Repubs to vote "present" to lower the threshold, then Dems can vote Jeffries in as Speaker with 212 votes!
You're absolutely right in saying this goes both ways, that either party membership could vote for the other party.
But.
I would say there is a little bit of a difference in that the Democrats voted unanimously for this moment, as they allied with the Republican extremists to shut down the House.
That's significant to me, and it sort of breaks the symmetry between the two parties.
It's one thing to say that both parties should work with the other to get things going, but it's another to point out that only one party voted overwhelmingly to shut down while the other voted overwhelmingly to keep going.
@volkris @dswidow @DemocracyMattersALot
"the Democrats voted unanimously for this moment".
It was Geatz, a republican, who made the motion to vacate the speakership.
Back in January, Democrats also never voted for McCarthy. They voted unanimously for Jefferies.
They didn't "ally" with extremist republicans. Their votes were already known. Geatz knew that no Dem would vote for a Rep.
Unfortunately it's the same manipulative logic politicians use on the gullible masses,... to conflate and confuse the act of voting for your own party, with the concepts of alliance with the opposing party.
And yet none of that changes what I pointed out, that Democrats voted unanimously with the Republican extremists to shut down the House
You might think that's good! In which case, excellent!
But we need to recognize this fact when we go decide whether to re-elect our representatives are not.
If you are happy with your representative voting with the Republican extremists to shut down the House, great!
Or maybe your representative was one of the overwhelming majority of Republicans who said no, the House needs to continue legislating.
Either way, judge your own representative for the way they voted and keep that in mind when you decide whether to send them back into power.
Whether your representative backed the Republican extremists or not should be a pretty big factor when you decide whether to re-elect that representative.
@volkris @dswidow @DemocracyMattersALot
Every year, the Republicans who want to shut down the government try to shift the blame with poison pills. They misinterpret the voting record exactly as you are doing right now. "See?, They didn't vote for our proposed funding bill (Even though we poisoned). They technically voted no, so technically shut down the government".
Sorry but this kind of political nonsense isn't going to fly with anyone with half a brain.
The difference is that in this occasion the Democrats voted yes to the shutdown.
And it wasn't a poison pill sort of thing, it wasn't a complicated question on many different subjects with nuances or anything like that.
It was a simple question, do you want to declare the House to be without a speaker which shuts it down, and Republicans overwhelmingly voted no while Democrats unanimously voted yes, alongside the extremists.
There are absolutely cases where the voting record can be spun for rhetorical purposes, but this is not one of those cases.
Democratic representatives need to be held responsible for voting to shut down the House, whether that's giving them positive or negative regard.
Again, if your representative voted to shut down the legislature and you think that was a good thing, great! You think it's a bad thing, they should probably not be re-elected.
