The U.S. House of Representatives will enter its 22nd day without a speaker, but with a new nominee for the job.
NPR reports "Republicans voted late Tuesday night to select Rep. Mike Johnson, R-La., to be their latest nominee for speaker even as it remains unclear that any candidate can win enough votes to be elected on the House floor."
@NewsDesk the path to speaker (like success in legislation) is the path of compromise with dems. Why isn’t that obvious to these clowns?
Cowards afraid of a contested primary?
@Aethelstan because based on their voting patterns it seems unlikely that Dems would be willing to compromise.
So far none of them have broken from their party line, so there's no indication that they're up for it.
They're enjoying maintaining this gridlock as they seem to be winning the messaging war.
@Aethelstan zero, since the Speaker has no authority to shut down government.
I know so many media outfits and politicians are spinning these wild tales, but they're counting on us not knowing rules and laws, sometimes really complicated ones, that make their tales into impossible conspiracy theories.
@Aethelstan but it's not up to him.
You might as well be asking whether Johnson is up for us having spaghetti for dinner tonight.
Under the US government system and the rules of the House, the Speaker doesn't get to decide that.
It doesn't matter whether he is up for that or not any more than it matters whether he is up for whatever I want to eat tonight or not. It's not his call.
And I think we really need to stop portraying these individuals as so powerful because it lets a bunch of other politicians off the hook for their own actions.
@volkris @NewsDesk I must disagree — it is not about some personal power of the person or constitutional role. It is about what modern political parties have evolved into. He has a majority whip and a merge staff to apply pressure. He has the presumed backing of DJT and the Maga faction who have openly advocated for 30% cuts or shutdown. Question is, will he direct the party on the Maga path or a path of compromise. I can’t get a read at this juncture.
@Aethelstan ha, I don't know if you disagree 🙂
If it's not about the person and the person's power, well we might be in agreement.
It's just, I wouldn't distract by talking about person if it's not about the person! 🙂
In the end, the reason why this is so important to me is because every person voting for their own representative needs to consider the actions of their own representative and not just focus on a Speaker or majority leader, as all too often, that ends up being a scapegoat before the representatives to hide behind and escape accountability.
Like right now I think we should be yelling holy hell at every democratic representative that voted along with the nut jobs to get this guy elected speaker in the first place. We should be voting a ton of them out of office, but we're not going to, in part because we're too busy focused on the Speaker based on stories of powers that the speaker doesn't actually have.
It's very frustrating to me, the way the people who are actively responsible, get to get a pass and get reelected to do it again based on this kind of rhetoric.
@volkris @NewsDesk could be. Odds on the government getting shut down by the new speaker?