Matt "I like 'em young" Gaetz gets his wish and the U.S. House now has no leader

[thewayne]

Gaetz, who is under investigation by both the FBI and a House committee, carried out his threat to file a motion to remove Kevin McCarthy as Speaker of the House of Representatives today and the Democrats backed the Republicans who wanted him out, resulting in Kev getting punted on a 216-210 vote with eight Republicans joining the Dems to oust him.

This is going to be interesting. It took a very unusual fifteen rounds to get Kev elected Speaker, and he had to make a lot of compromises to the hard-core fringe of his party. One of those compromises is what cost him his gavel - the ability for ANYONE to call for his removal. No one knows who will be the next Speaker, it'll certainly not be Gaetz. The Speaker is #2 in line to replace the President should he be incapacitated or otherwise removed from office and something were to happen to the Veep. It is entirely possible that the Democratic Minority Leader, Hakeem Jeffries, could become Leader with only a few Republicans getting tired of the fringe of their party jerking the House around.

Thus far, this is THE WORST House for passing legislation. Despite all the posturing, they are not passing bills. Which happens to be their job.

And they have fewer than 45 days until they must get a budget or continuing funding bill passed or the government will shut down and the possibility of the nation's credit rating taking yet another ding happens.

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/kevin-mccarthy-voted-out-house-speaker-1234838540/

Comments

[silveradept]

I suppose we should be surprised that it took them nearly half of the session before someone finally exercised their removal options. Things would probably go better for everyone if Hakeem Jeffries were elected Speaker and then it only became a matter of finding a few Republicans to go along with something, rather than having to try and corral them all to defeat Democratic opposition.

[thewayne]

I think the mid-term elections will be quite telling.

[silveradept]

I have no idea what will happen with the next election, mostly because I have no idea how the trials of the Republican frontrunner will resolve, or if they will be resolved by the election time. (They'd better.) If he manages to skate or escape, then I suspect he'll ride a wave and drag others in on his coattails.

[thewayne]

Some of his trials will definitely resolve by then.  All of them?  That I don't know.