From Forsyth County Tea Party ---- Fairly decent explanation of what is happening. SPEAKER ELECTION: When the House is sworn in Tuesday, the first order of business will be the election of a new Speaker. Let’s start by reviewing the procedural rules for this election. According to the precedents of the House, election requires an absolute majority of “the total number of votes cast for a person by name.” The key phrase here is “votes cast for a person by name.” Remember that. Abstaining or voting “present” or hiding in the back of chamber and refusing to answer when your name is called all have the same effect – they are not valid votes “for a person by name,” and, therefore, they are set aside. They only serve to lower the number of votes necessary to reach a majority. Thus, ironically, voting “present” or abstaining actually helps the current Speaker, by reducing the number of votes he needs to capture a majority. Because Rep. Michael Grimm is resigning his seat on Monday, due to his recent guilty plea, and he will not be sworn in to the 114th Congress on Tuesday, the number of Members will be 434. Of them, 246 will be Republicans, and 188 Democrats. An absolute majority of 434 is still 218, so that’s still the number to reach in order to win election as Speaker. Assuming all the Democrats in the House vote for someone other than the current Speaker (most likely, Nancy Pelosi), that would mean 29 Republicans would have to vote for someone by name other than the current Speaker to deny John Boehner the Speakership in the 114th Congress. Ted Yoho of FL and Louis Gohmert of TX have offered themselves as candidates for Speaker. I do not believe either believes he will be elected Speaker, no matter how many ballots are taken; I believe each is offering himself merely as a vessel into which anti-Boehner GOP votes can be poured. The strategy is simple: Deny John Boehner the 218 votes he needs on the first ballot. Were that to occur, the thinking goes, the House GOP Leadership would recess the chamber, then call an immediate meeting of the House GOP Conference. The rebels would then have a chance to negotiate – either for a new compromise Speaker, or something(s) else they want. As long as they continue to hold firm and refuse to vote for Boehner for Speaker, he would be stymied – UNLESS he cut a deal with Minority Leader Pelosi (or some other group of Democrats) to have a number of THEM abstain or vote “present,” and thereby reduce the number of votes needed to reach a majority. For instance, let’s say Boehner only gets to 217 votes on the first ballot, one short of an absolute majority. If 10 Democrats were to vote “present” on the second ballot, that would reduce the number of votes cast “for a person by name” to 424, and thereby reduce the victory threshold from 218 to 213. Now, what would the Democrats get in exchange for ten abstentions? Who knows? What price the Speakership? Your guess is as good as mine. But it’s certainly a possibility. It’s a risky game the rebels are playing. Machiavelli wrote in “The Prince,” “Never do an enemy a small injury;” Ralph Waldo Emerson updated that a few centuries later to the phrase more frequently used today: “If you strike at a king, you must kill him.” Failed rebellion could be met with the stripping of committee assignments, or termination of reelection campaign funding from the NRCC, or, in the worst cases, even support for a primary challenger next year. But in the wake of the recent Pat Caddell poll that was released in two parts on Friday and Saturday, the rebels think it’s an endeavor worth undertaking, and we will stand by them. This is a very, very big hill to climb, and the odds are very good that they won’t make it. Remember, on the Rule vote on the CROmnibus, we only got 16 Republicans to stand up to the Leadership and vote against it. And that was just a vote on a spending measure, not a vote against the Speaker.
Posted on: Tue, 06 Jan 2015 11:39:29 +0000
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