Table Of Content
- Jeffries says there has been "zero" discussion about helping Emmer
- states challenge federal rules entitling workers to accommodations for abortion
- Editorial: Speaker Johnson must ignore GOP hardliners and pass Ukraine aid now
- Conservative opposition to Emmer emerges
- House begins first round of voting for speaker
McCarthy (R-Bakersfield) became the first majority party leader in a century to fail to secure the speakership on the first ballot. He attracted zero additional votes on a second ballot and lost support on the third ballot, as Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.) switched his vote from McCarthy to Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio). Rep. Kevin McCarthy failed three times to secure a majority of votes to succeed Nancy Pelosi as speaker of the House on Tuesday before the chamber adjourned with the outcome of the leadership contest still in doubt. Jordan’s supporters are confident that the public floor vote will force the remaining holdouts to flip their way. Kevin McCarthy narrowly won the speakership in January on the 15th round of balloting, after five excruciating days.
Jeffries says there has been "zero" discussion about helping Emmer
“The empty chair is such poetry,” one onlooker said before the vote, pointing at the screen. A bartender switched the channel from basketball to C-SPAN about 10 minutes before the vote was set to start, but it was only when the session was called to order that the rowdy crowd turned its attention fully to the screens, hooting and clapping. WASHINGTON — Kevin McCarthy’s chaotic campaign for the speakership has become, for some in Washington, a spectacle to be consumed with the urgency of a major sporting event. The dramatic moment was captured on C-SPAN’s video cameras, which, lacking the typical restraints placed upon them in a House with a speaker, were free to show whatever moments from the floor its operators deemed newsworthy. Congratulations to @GOPLeader on his election as the Speaker of 🇺🇸 House of Representatives. U.S. support in all fields has been vital for 🇺🇦’s success on the battlefield.
states challenge federal rules entitling workers to accommodations for abortion
The House-passed bills are similar to a $95 billion package that passed the Senate in February but then stalled in the House. Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., a progressive who is a member of the Armed Services Committee, said Sunday he would protect Johnson’s job if members of his far-right flank go through with their threat to oust him. If McCarthy can’t secure enough votes, it’s not clear who could, though some Republican members have floated the possibility of working with Democrats to elect a moderate speaker. McCarthy handily won an internal House Republican Conference vote for speaker in November against Biggs, 188 to 31. In a brief phone interview with NBC News, the former president declined to say whether he still supports McCarthy for speaker. Trump has so far proved unable to persuade rebellious GOP members of the House to back McCarthy for speaker, a powerful post that would put the man he once called “My Kevin” second in line to the presidency behind Vice President Kamala Harris.
Editorial: Speaker Johnson must ignore GOP hardliners and pass Ukraine aid now
As scenes of frustration and confusion unfolded on the House floor, the mood at Bullfeathers felt similar, albeit on a much smaller scale. The bartenders turned the overhead lights back on, and small groups huddled while still minding the screens. As the vote-casting began, a few people packed their bags, closed out their tabs and left.
Johnson sworn in as House speaker: "The people's House is back in business"
He has also opposed continued funding for the war in Ukraine, which has emerged as a bitter fault line in the G.O.P. and in the spending battles that any new speaker will have to navigate in the coming days. Pressed by reporters on Tuesday night about his efforts to overturn the election, Mr. Johnson smiled and shook his head, saying, “next question,” as Republicans beside him booed. A social conservative, Mr. Johnson is a lawyer and the former chairman of the Republican Study Committee. Representative Mike Johnson, a little-known social conservative from Louisiana, emerged on Tuesday night as the latest contender for the post after Representative Tom Emmer of Minnesota, the No. 3 House Republican, dropped his bid only hours after securing the nomination. Mr. Emmer’s downfall followed a swift backlash from the right, including former President Donald J. Trump, that left his candidacy in shambles and the G.O.P. as divided as ever. In Congress, Mr. Johnson has voted for a national abortion ban and co-sponsored a 20-week abortion ban, earning him an A-plus rating from the anti-abortion group Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America.
How Every Representative Voted
Chip Roy of Texas said earlier tonight that the defectors won an assurance that McCarthy would launch a select committee investigating the “weaponization of government” that would receive “the kind of budget and the kind of staffing” that the Jan. 6 select committee received. “I think the House is in a lot better place with some of the work that’s been done to democratize power out of the speakership, and that’s our goal,” he said. “The motion to vacate is accountability,” he added, referring to the measure allowing a snap vote to remove the speaker. Mr. McCarthy agreed to allow a single lawmaker to force a snap vote at any time to oust the speaker, a rule that he had previously refused to accept, regarding it as tantamount to signing the death warrant for his speakership in advance. Mr. McCarthy, who rarely moved from his seat over the days of votes, approached Mr. Gaetz and Ms. Boebert in their seats and appeared to be pleading with them to change their votes, his signature smile wiped from his face.
Conservative opposition to Emmer emerges
Mr. Johnson came to Congress in 2017 with support from the ultraconservative House Freedom Caucus, though he has never joined the group. “You know the allegations about these voting machines, some of them being rigged with this software by Dominion, there’s a lot of merit to that,” Mr. Johnson said. In December 2020, Mr. Johnson collected signatures for a legal brief in support of a Texas lawsuit, rooted in baseless claims of widespread election irregularities, that tried to throw out the results in four battleground states won by Joseph R. Biden Jr. “We will stop the socialist agenda, we will control the purse strings, and you will see some pretty vigorous investigations and oversight because that is a really important responsibility of the Congress in our constitutional system,” he said. “We went through a lot to get here, but we are ready to govern and that will begin right away,” Johnson says in his first news conference as speaker.
Reaching an endgame has been an excruciating lift for Johnson that has tested both his resolve and his support among Republicans, with a small but growing number now openly urging his removal from the speaker’s office. Yet congressional leaders cast the votes as a turning point in history — an urgent sacrifice as U.S. allies are beleaguered by wars and threats from continental Europe to the Middle East to the Indo-Pacific. House Freedom Caucus chair Bob Good, R-Va., told reporters on Friday that although he doesn't defend Johnson's performance as speaker, he thinks it's not in the interest of the Republican Party to go through another speakership fight six months before an election. Rep. Bob Good, R-Va., spoke to reporters on Capitol Hill following a foreign aid bill vote on April 19. Each portion of the package — which was broken down into separate bills — received bipartisan support. A majority of Republican members — 112 — voted against aid to Ukraine, with one member voting "present." Thirty-seven Democrats voted against aid to Israel.
New Speaker Mike Johnson projects unity after 3 weeks of chaos, expects 'aggressive' House schedule - ABC News
New Speaker Mike Johnson projects unity after 3 weeks of chaos, expects 'aggressive' House schedule.
Posted: Wed, 25 Oct 2023 07:00:00 GMT [source]
House begins first round of voting for speaker
Congress was able to veer from the dangerous, dead-end course that the Republican-run House had it on for the past 16 months only once Johnson very belatedly took the keys from his MAGA allies and started driving events himself. Recognizing that he had no choice but to deal with the Democratic-controlled Senate and President Biden, Johnson helped pass overdue government funding last month and, in recent days, green-lighted votes reauthorizing the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and — finally! — approving aid to Ukraine to help it defend itself and the rest of Europe from a rapacious Russia. Echoing one of the many grievances shared by hard-right Republicans who opposed all of the aid measures, Mr. Good said his support for “Israel’s right to defend itself remains unshakeable” but that he disagreed with a measure that would add to the nation’s debt. The House of Representatives has voted to pass a $95 billion foreign aid package that includes funding to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan.
Jeffries urged swift action on a package to provide aid to Israel, Ukraine and other U.S. allies, which the White House has requested. The Democratic leader also vowed that his party will continue to support Ukraine to defeat Russia's aggression. "From the very beginning of this Congress, House Democrats have made clear that we will find bipartisan common ground with our Republican colleagues wherever and whenever possible for the good of the American people, and House Democrats have repeatedly done just that," Jeffries said. "I think all the American people at one time had great pride in this institution, but right now that's in jeopardy," he said.
It marked a victory for the far right that has become a dominant force in the Republican Party, which rose up this month to effectively dictate the removal of an establishment speaker and the installation of an arch-conservative replacement. The members who ousted McCarthy also told reporters that they have no regrets now about ousting McCarthy. How someone in power responds to 1st Amendment rights being exercised in criticism of the government says a lot about what they value. Republicans’ eagerness to deploy armed troops to quash peaceful protests suggests that they don’t really believe in free speech after all. To the contrary, Johnson played a key role in helping Trump try to overturn the election.
Usually when control of the White House, Senate and House is divided between the parties, Democrats and Republicans firmly exercise their respective levers of power, until one side relents or both compromise. When a House majority is united, it can run over the minority, and maximize its leverage against the Senate or White House. While he pulls down $100,000 to $150,000 a speech, according to one political ally, McCarthy could make a good deal more with much less effort by capitalizing on his connections in Washington and Sacramento. The erstwhile speaker, who remains in touch with the ex-president, has been mentioned as a prospective recruit for a second Trump administration. McCarthy’s ouster from a job he long coveted was induced by far-right Republicans with the support of vengeance-minded Democrats. He remains close to the many lawmakers he recruited and helped get in office and keeps in touch with a nationwide donor network built during years as one of the GOP’s top congressional strategists.
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