MERRILY WE FLOUNDER ON, FLOUNDER ON, FLOUNDER ON... COMPLETELY REVISED AND UPDATED

Jim Jordan has suspended (but not stopped) his campaign to become Speaker of the House of Representatives. He has announced that he will back a plan to give Rep. Patrick T. McHenry, the temporary speaker, additional powers, according to multiple people who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the situation. Jordan has actually agreed a plan by Republicans to empower McHenry.

House Republicans have announced they now plan to empower Speaker Pro Tem Patrick McHenry for the remainder of 2023, until January 3, 2024. McHenry will have greater powers to move legislation, including spending bills to avoid a government shutdown and aid for war-torn allies Israel and Ukraine.

Jordan will revive his failing campaign for Speaker in January. Good luck with that, Jungle Gym. You must have been thrown on your head back in the ‘rasslin’ days a few more times than I thought.

Newt Gingrich and John Boehner endorsed McHenry’s candidacy Tuesday night on Twitter, as if that matters.

Wow. Two Big. Fucking. Deals. in one day.

As Punchbowl News (the best news source for goings-on among the congresscritters) put it: “Put simply, the votes aren’t moving toward Jordan, they’re moving away from him. He has no path to the speaker’s chair — and most Republicans understand that. In fact, there are many in Jordan’s circle who have taken to asking reporters what the Ohio Republican is thinking by staying in the race.”

It turns out that threats and intimidation don’t always work against the “squishes.”

It is still unclear how many Republicans will get behind the idea of giving McHenry enhanced powers. Many far-right members have been adamantly opposed to the idea, saying it is unconstitutional and unprecedented. Some Republicans have opposed the idea because it will probably get the support of a significant number of Democrats.

Jordan could pull them along as he vows to continue to work to be the permanent speaker, but some Republicans are already furious. “Jim Jordan is so blinded by power he’s willing to see out House Republicans to try and put in place a Democrat-backed coalition government. Unreal,” a House Republican aide said, speaking anonymously to relay the sentiment of their boss.

Rep. Jim Banks called the plan to give stand-in speaker McHenry more power a "cop out" and bemoaned that Jordan was going along with it. "It's the biggest eff-you to Republican voters I've ever seen if we go along with this resolution," the Indiana Republican fumed as he stormed angrily out of a Republican Conference meeting.

“We shouldn’t be setting the precedent that this is the way we should elect a speaker,” said Pennsylvania Rep. Scott Perry, who heads the House Freedom Caucus.

“I'm against ‘Speaker Light,’” said Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz, another member of the Freedom Caucus. “I’m against Bud Light. I believe it is a constitutional desecration to not elect a Speaker of the House. We need to stay here until we elect a Speaker.”

“He wants to move with the resolution to to empower Patrick McHenry as some sort of a short term speaker,” Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene said of Jordan. “I think that’s the wrong thing to do. He wants to do that, while he continues talking to people and finding a path. I completely disagree.”

“A Democrat coalition government is a nonstarter for Republicans,” House Majority Whip Tom Emmer said.

The resolution to empower McHenry was written by Ohio representative David Joyce, previously a Jordan ally.

House Democrats have signaled they’ll vote for it. GOP leadership say believe a majority of House Republicans will too.

Democrats would likely protect McHenry on a motion-to-vacate if hardline Republicans try to take him out, Democratic sources have said.

Surprise surprise, all the far right weenies yapping about “it’s unconstitutional” have their heads up their asses where they normally keep them. Electing McHenry as speaker pro tem isn’t establishing a “coalition government,” as some Republicans suggest. Committee ratios won’t change. The makeup of the Rules Committee won’t change. It won’t change what bills get considered. It just means the election of a speaker with a short expiration date.

As far as House operations are concerned, there’s essentially no difference between a speaker and a speaker pro tem. There is a question whether a speaker pro tem would be in the presidential line of succession. There are also questions about whether he could take part in other speaker functions that have evolved over the years — Gang of Eight intelligence briefings, for instance.

According to Punchbowl: “Jordan will be the Republican “speaker designate” - whatever that means - while McHenry would be the speaker pro tem. McHenry will be a useful foil for Jordan under this scenario. McHenry can do what needs to be done legislatively while Jordan dumps all over it. This was the dynamic in 2015 when former Speaker John Boehner “cleaned the barn” before resigning from Congress following years of conservative attacks. Paul Ryan, on the brink of the speakership, sharply criticized it.”

I seriously doubt these fuckups can un-fuck themselves by January. Jordan will still be an asshole and they will all still be idiots.

Stay tuned - this is going to be the longest comedy of errors you have ever watched.

UPDATE:

Proving that the “weather” in the House is more unreliable than one finds in Colorado, all of the above is “no longer relevant.”

As of now, it appears that a majority of the House Republican conference will not support the idea. Jordan has now announced that he does intend to keep pushing for the speakership and intends “to go to the floor and get the votes and win this race.”

Joe Perticone offers the following analysis at The Bulwark in his (subscriber only) newsletter:

To understand how we got to this point, here’s one fact to keep in mind: Among the twenty-two Republicans to vote against Jim Jordan in his second ballot, seven are appropriators, the financial whizzes of the Capitol whose work is critical to keeping the government’s lights on every fiscal year. Jordan’s tenure has been full of clashes with these lawmakers and their work, making the past several days much easier to understand than the traditional “moderates vs. hardliners” theme that’s been common in the press clippings.

Despite some Republicans saying that there “has been a lot of change and, I guess, maturity” from Jordan in recent years, the seasoned appropriators weren’t buying it. They know that Jordan has played key roles in past government shutdowns and obstructed their work over the years. Jordan knows this too. I’m told that beyond the seven who voted for an alternative, other members of the Appropriations Committee fielded frantic calls from Jordan’s team to make sure they were still on board between the first and second ballots.

These appropriators understand Jordan’s modus operandi, which explains the firm opposition.  Jordan’s parsimonious attitude toward the federal budget isn’t the deciding factor—many Republicans on the Appropriations Committee are in favor of cutting spending. It’s Jordan’s use of obstruction, bullying, and lying that turned them against him.

Now that Jordan says he will make another push for the job. We’ll see if the spine that Bacon and the other anti-Jordan Republicans showed in the first two ballots stays stiff as Jordan’s supporters renew their push.

The major sticking points that Democrats have voiced so far about the plan to install Patrick McHenry as a sort of long-term interim speaker are that they would be unwilling to empower someone who objected to certifying the 2020 election (McHenry did vote to certify) and who will not promise to honor the commitments in the May debt limit deal. If the proposal stays alive somehow, and if Democrats are ultimately to strike a deal to back it, don’t be surprised if they extract several procedural and institutional concessions.

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