(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . The House is now a multi-party body: pressure vulnerable GOP to support Dem Speaker (axn poll) [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.'] Date: 2023-10-04 Plurality: noun — the largest group or cluster when there is no majority. Equivalent to the statistical measure “mode”. There are at least 3 parties in the House of Representatives this term (Democrats, ‘regular’ GOP, MAGA fringe GOP); no party has the majority so a coalition is required to govern; MAGA have shown that they won’t tolerate governing if they are part of the coalition; that means Democrats are the plurality party. I just called my actually-radical-but-moderate-presenting GOP Congressman to deliver this message. You should too, and write it to your local papers and so on. Is it a long-shot to get Jeffries or some other Dem in charge in the House this term? Sure. But I think it’s a message worth sending to Reps and to the media & the public square, anyway. (Will it be a long-shot in 45 days, the next time they dump their speaker for compromising so that the government can operate? Less of one if we push the overton window now!) I develop the argument more fully below the fold. Even if you think ‘support a Democrat’ is too much, please at least tell your vulnerable GOP Rep that s/he must not vote for an election-denier as Speaker — anyone (else, obviously McCarthy already happened) who voted against Biden’s electoral votes in 2021 is a clear bright line that they should know will be used against them next fall. Nominally, there are only two parties in the House of Representatives right now — Republicans have 221 seats, Democrats have 212, making 433 seats with 2 vacancies. (Those are split — David Cicilline resigned from a D seat in Rhode Island, Chris Stewart resigned from a R seat in Utah.) So nominally, the GOP are the majority party and the Speaker will come from their party (or be their preferred candidate) because they can enforce that by voting for that Speaker candidate. However, for functional purposes, the MAGA fringe are not actually Republicans, they are instead a separate minority 3rd party. This is pretty clear if you inspect the actions, negotiations, etc with a mind open toward Westminster-model politics. For example, McCarthy needed 15 ballots to initially win the gavel because it took him 14 failed ballots to understand that he was in practice negotiating with a different party and then accept their conditions for coalition. Unfortunately, the MAGA Fringe Party’s conditions for coalition are incompatible with operating a divided government. They don’t mind this contradiction, because they prioritize their ideology more highly than they prioritize operating the government. But most people, even many generally reliable conservative voters, prioritize operating the government more highly than they prioritize MAGA Fringe’s ideology. So some significant proportion of the GOP caucus in the House won’t tolerate that coalition agreement when push comes to shove. (Apparently the exact number was 126 of them as of last Saturday when they voted on the Continuing Resolution to prevent government shutdown; that’s about 60%, depending on exactly how many of the No votes we classify as MAGA Fringe Party as opposed to GOP, which is generally grok’d as more but could actually be as few as 8 based on the vote to toss McCarthy — this is cleaner in Westminster politics where MPs actually register/caucus as their true minority party.) I believe the chaos this week is evidence that the coalition between GOP and MAGA Fringe in the current Congress is not sustainable, even with a leadership change. Ultimately, the basic job of Congress is to enact the budget. No matter who is in charge, MAGA won’t vote for budget bills that are reasonable enough to be enacted by a Democratic Senate and White House. GOP leadership doesn’t have the votes to pass a budget out of the House without MAGA Fringe votes, unless they win some Democrats. But Democrats are united; there will not be straggling cross-overs to eke out passage over MAGA Fringe objections. GOP leadership will have to negotiate with Jeffries, which will result in a majority of the Democratic caucus voting for the budget, and that will again be the MAGA Fringe red line that triggers a motion to vacate. So we are either going to get GroundHog Day here, or something more significant will have to change. If the MAGA Fringe and the GOP can’t maintain a coalition agreement, they don’t have a government. In the Westminster model, what just happened last night would probably have triggered a new legislative election and we could get clarity going forward; however in our model we’re just stuck with the current distribution of MoCs until January 2025. The alternative to a new election is building a new / different governing coalition. Democrats are united for this purpose, so they actually represent a narrow plurality, 212 : roughly 210 : roughly 10. This is very narrow. However, if Dems stay united as they have so far, and if Gaetz is going to vacate the chair every time the House passes a funding bill that can actually get through the Senate, then there is actually no government unless Democrats approve, which means Democrats are the natural lead-party for the government coalition. We only need literally 5 vulnerable Republicans to cross over and support government over chaos. Caveats: 1. If this were to happen, Democrats would probably have to accept that Hakeem Jeffries probably cannot get crossover votes for Speaker. This is a bitter pill, I acknowledge. IDK who could get those crossovers— Clyburn seems plausible, being from the old leadership generation (already stepped aside = presumably credibly in promising to make way for Jeffries when Democrats regain an outright majority) and generally pretty moderate and from the South; otherwise maybe someone from the rust belt? 2. This is a long shot today, and even if we promote the narrative like crazy, it will probably still be a long shot the next time this carousel spins around. However, talking about this is a winning narrative even if we don’t get the goods at the end: GOP control is chaos, Democratic control is actual governance. We’re asking a handful of GOP reps to choose governing over partisan chaos. Actions: I’m in NY-17, currently represented by Congressman "MAGA Mike" Lawler, after that fellow narrowly defeated DCCC chair Sean Maloney in 2022. (The excellent Mondaire Jones, who succeeded long-term Rep Nita Lowey but then was wedged out by Maloney filing here, is running to retake the seat next year.) I just called Lawler’s DC office to say that he needs to support a Democrat for Speaker if he wants to get any real work done, and that I expect him to do that. Here’s my script: The Congressman has acknowledged that MAGA Fringe representatives like Gaetz are not serious about governing. We’ve just seen clear evidence that any time the House votes for a budget bill that can get through the Senate and that President Biden’s desk, those MAGA Fringe reps will punish the leaders who did that by vacating the chair and freezing the people’s business in the House. A Speaker who needs their votes to govern doesn't have a governing majority and is just a recipe for chaos. The only way out of this chaos trap is to problem solve with Democrats to find a candidate that they and you can support. It probably shouldn't be Hakeem Jeffries, but it will have to be someone from the Democratic side. Please work out a solution that chooses order and actual governance over chaos. It would be great if you could use this script too. If you’re not convinced of pushing for a Democrat right now, please at least push that they can’t support an election denier. McCarthy was spineless, but that doesn’t mean we’ll be better off with the next guy — he might have a spine and be standing up on the wrong side (Scalise is worrisome, honestly). Here’s a script for that: The Congressman is reasonable, but many in his party are not. It will be unacceptable to have a new Speaker of the House who now does or ever did deny that President Biden was fairly elected. McCarthy was a freebie — it seemed like the House could function, and he was the next in line. But now that it’s up for grabs, voting for a Speaker who rejected Biden electoral votes would be a clear endorsement of the election fraud propaganda. The Congressman must not support the installation of any Speaker who voted to throw out Biden electoral votes in January 2021. If that means he has to abstain from voting, fine. If that means he has to support a Democrat for Speaker, fine. But he must know that if he supports an election denier, that will be remembered. If calling is hard, you can also write to a local paper. The Gazette here at home prints almost every letter, and I do actually believe that the Congressman has people reading them. 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