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Next Speaker is Who? [1]

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Date: 2023-01-05  

Dan Newhouse (R-WA)

OK – I’ll just say it. We’re smart and they’re dumb. One of the ways that we show that we are smart is that while we don’t always get everything we want, we always try to get the best deal we can. We understand that sometimes in life, you take a half a loaf which is better than no bread at all. When “The Squad” had to suck it up and support the Infrastructure Bill as a stand-alone bill, they understood that because of Joe Manchin they had no shot at getting what they really wanted but our country was better off with the Infrastructure Bill than without it. Essentially they were disappointed, but smart.

The two factions in the House GOP Caucus are essentially Dumb and Dumber. The Dumb (McCarthy) faction are the worst negotiators giving everything and getting nothing and the Dumber (Freedom Caucus) faction doesn’t even know what it wants so therefore can’t begin to negotiate.

I’ll admit that watching the GOP flounder and look like idiots is very entertaining. I am enjoying the Twitter memes as much as anyone. However, I think now might be the time to be smart. The reality is that Hakeem Jeffries is not going to be the next Speaker of the House. There are no Republicans that could ever vote for him. If we do nothing, eventually (on the 300th vote) we will be probably be stuck with someone like Steve Scalise as Speaker and the Freedom Caucus idiots running every major committee.

However, suppose we think out of the box. Suppose Jeffries approached someone like Dan Newhouse (R-WA) and asked him if he would like to be Speaker of the House — second in line to the President of the United States. While we all oppose Newhouse on just about every issue, to his credit he voted for impeachment and he wasn’t one of the disgraceful 147 who voted against democracy. If Jeffries can hold the Dems together, he could potentially deliver 212 votes and Newhouse would only need to find 5 other like minded Republicans. Hopefully more. There are many Republicans in Biden districts who will want to look like they are willing to work with the opposition to get things done for their constituents. They could also say “we tried (11 times and counting) to elect a Republican with just Republican votes and failed. Where the rest of the party failed, we succeeded in electing a Republican as Speaker of the House”.

Obviously in exchange for this, we would require lots of input to rules, leadership, committees etc. Both Kevin McCarthy and the Freedom Caucus would get ….NOTHING.

While we still would have no hope of any landmark legislation like the last Congress, at least we could potentially reduce the likelihood of endless pointless investigations and defaulting on the national debt. That’s not nothing.

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/1/5/2145669/-Next-Speaker-is-Who

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