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After a secret ballot vote within the House GOP caucus, Steve Scalise has won the nomination for Speaker with a slim margin over Jim Jordan.
And I do mean a slim margin. There’s only a 14 vote difference.
STEVE SCALISE is the House Republican's nominee for speaker of the House.
113-99
— Jake Sherman (@JakeSherman) October 11, 2023
But now for the question that everyone is probably asking: what does Matt Gaetz, who started this entire circus just one week ago, think of the caucus’s vote? He had expressed his support for either Scalise or Jordan previously, so had that changed?
Apparently not. Gaetz did not say who he voted for in the caucus ballot, but he clearly is throwing his support behind Scalise now. And what did Scalise say for himself?
Scalise: "I want to thank my House Republican colleagues for designating me as the Speaker. We have a lot of work to do. There's a lot of business to take care of." pic.twitter.com/wXcGxDMG0c
— TheBlaze (@theblaze) October 11, 2023
Now, the problem becomes that Scalise needs 217 votes. He does not have the unanimous support of the caucus yet, and even 10 other representatives voted for someone other than Scalise or Jordan. Both Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert are declaring that they will vote for Jim Jordan when the vote is called. Chip Roy says he won’t be voting for Scalise, because he claims the vote is happening too quickly – but then the floor vote, which was thought to have been happening at 3 pm ET, was postponed until further notice. Max Miller and Thomas Massie are also not sold on Scalise. Jordan himself is sticking with what the conference wants.
NEWS — JIM JORDAN just offered to nominate Scalise on the House floor.
JORDAN getting behind Scalise.
— Jake Sherman (@JakeSherman) October 11, 2023
So it does look like Jordan, for his part, is serious about getting party unity, and since he will retain the chair of the House Judiciary Committee, he really loses nothing here. It seems that putting off the vote is going to enable both Scalise and Jordan to start working on the holdouts, in order to get the House GOP to be as unified as possible.
JORDAN will plan to vote for Scalise for speaker on the floor and is encouraging colleagues to support him as well, per a source with direct knowledge
— Mica Soellner (@MicaSoellnerDC) October 11, 2023
This entire exercise in crazy needs to come to an end. But that leads to the question, was this entire exercise worth it, if in the end, the lateral move of swapping out Kevin McCarthy for Steve Scalise was all that was achieved? What was the point, if all that ends up happening is promoting the House Majority Leader, the natural successor to the Speaker, to the Speakership?
As you can see, Matt Gaetz is perfectly fine with it. What did he get out of this? A whole lot of media exposure and fundraising. So, was this about “muh principles” for Gaetz, or was this a personal pique against Kevin McCarthy that he managed to parlay into a huge profile boost for himself? You make the call. Obviously, he sees McCarthy and Scalise as different, right??? Do the American people see it that way? Or was this entire thing just a power flex and an ego boost for Matt Gaetz? Because that is certainly what it looks like right now.
At least Matt Gaetz got on TV.
— Bonchie (@bonchieredstate) October 11, 2023
If Scalise does become Speaker, he will inherit exactly the same problems that McCarthy had – a narrow majority in the House (which does not allow for wiggle room or a lot of negotiating), a Democrat-controlled White House and Senate (which means that there’s not a lot of negotiating room there either), and a ticking clock on the continuing resolution that will have to be solved by November 17th (which, due to the White House and Senate being controlled by Democrats, means that another omnibus spending bill is more than likely). What will Scalise do as Speaker that will be any different than what McCarthy would have done? But be honest – under those constraints, what could JORDAN do as Speaker that would be different than what McCarthy would have done?
Does anyone feel like the entire country just got punk’d by Matt Gaetz, and the only one walking away happy about any of this is Matt Gaetz?
Featured image: composite image of Capitol building (via JamesDeMers on Pixabay, cropped, Pixabay license), Representative Steve Scalise (official Congressional portrait, cropped, public domain), and Representative Jim Jordan (official Congressional portrait, cropped, public domain)
therealguyfaux says: I figure that Gaetz’s efforts in ousting K-Mac were supposed to put the fear of God into whoever succeeds him. Gaetz is probably to fiscal sanity what Joseph McCarthy (no relation) was to Communist subversion– raised an important issue, but seemed to possibly be a self-aggrandizing imperfect vessel of that message, leading some to question his sincerity in the matter. But something MUST be done in how the budget is voted on, even if it IS Gaetz propounding that message.
Hate_me says: Was it worth it?
McCarthy isn’t Speaker, so… absolutely.
No matter how this turns out, I’ll opt for possible failure over guaranteed failure, every single goddamned time.
As long as Biden is standing by Israel, I’m ok with the House being in chaos – it’s like a filibuster, but better. When we don’t have the fortitude to stop reckless spending, I’m ok with not allowing any decision-making, period. Call a recess until 2025.
As soon as Brandon does what he does and proves that everything he claims is the opposite of reality, then I’ll give a damn that we have a Speaker (as long as it’s not McCarthy).
Faults aside, Gaetz wasn’t wrong.
[…] ammunition for Israel, US commando mission not ruled out, and Navy Recruiting Fails Victory Girls: Speaker Race: Scalise Wins Nomination, So Was It Worth It? Volokh Conspiracy: “Trying to ‘Absofuckinglutely’ Take Down a Montana […]
Bucky says: “Nero fiddling while Rome burns” is an apt analogy for the Stupid Party in this situation. Perhaps we should go back to the days of “smoke filled rooms” when everything was settled behind the scenes and the floor vote was a formality.
REDACTED says: anytime that DC shuts down, it’s worth it
and Jordan is only backing Scalise cuz he knows Steve wont make it past a floor vote
a chip he will redeem in the near future
of course, Jordan saying he wasn’t interested in funding Ukraine queered it with the warmonger caucus
a political blunder
Kevin says: There is no honor among thieves.
The Party of the 280 pound Malignant Tumor (it ceased being the republican party in 2016) has no moral standard or ethics. So they walk into a meeting to conduct a secret ballot to select a new Speaker under the rule that the members will coalesce around whoever wins the straw voter. Yeah, right.
The minority (Gym Jordan) lost so instead of doing the right thing and following through with everyone coming together to support the nominee (Scalise), you now have a sizable faction saying they won’t support Scalise tossing the House into chaos; a self inflicted wound … again.
There is no honor among thieves. But, to the credit of the House members, they’re just following the example of their leader … the convicted rapist and criminally indicted cult leader. Maybe George Santos can pull out a win. God knows he’s the poster child for today’s modern republican.
You’re in a cult. Get help.
Cameron says: Nobody cares about you on this site. You are a pathetic Dollar Store version of a troll that yaps the same talking points over and over like a parrot. Your absence is only noted in how much more peaceful things are around here.
Call your family and reconnect with them before it’s too late.
John Shepherd says: I will take pervy George Santos over the representitive of the Arab Nazi Party and their leftist supporters Rasida Tlaib
Cameron says: People like Kevin are still angry at how the Holocaust turned out.
John Shepherd says: Scalise has bailed. Just maybe going outside the current membership is the way to go. I am not much of a Newt Gingrich fan but thinking outside the box maybe as former Speaker he is the man to unify the Caucus.
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