It’s also representatives is said to resume business opposed the midterm polls and has a tradition goes the first vote the house will take before lawmakers or sworn in will be election of a speaker members from both parties will vote for a new US speaker US Representative. Kevin McCarthy has struggled to be Hardline conservative opposition. some would be performance in midterm elections. the US House Republicans, however, struggled to stand in unison and on certain sea still hangs over the speaker election the last time a USB Curt was not elected the first rule call was around 100 years ago the US House of speaker plays a vital role in the US government speaker presides over the lower chamber of Congress and also stands a second in line for the presidency.
Republicans have 222 seats in the incoming house the slim majority and the 435 member sharing birth. However, Democrats are all set to vote in quarantee, and there are indications under the Republicans are not United on McCarthy as house Speaker either some of the Republicans believe that McCarthy doesn’t fall under their populist views. the speaker candidates Rebellion from their own party is not new in the US Congress Nancy Pelosi also faced internal opposition when she was out for reelection a speaker back in 2021.
You will Democrats will begin the next congress with a fresh slate of leaders after Pelosi and her deputies accept aside to make way for. a new generation of leaders
here’s a look at the procedure for election of a speaker of the US House of Representatives the nominees of the Republicans and the Democrats are decided. at an informal vote held at a meeting of the two parties Kevin McCarthy won the majority Republican voted a closed on meeting back in November Weeks Later the Democrats chose Hakeem Jeffries to become their leader as the party transitioned into a minority house.
on the floor of the house. The voters will include elected lawmakers present as well as members of the two parties. After the nominee from each party is read aloud lawmakers call out the names of their choice for speaker. That is from the floor. It’s a rare time. It’s very time consuming roll call amid much drama on the floor the clerk then appoints lawmakers from each party is tellers to tally the votes.
now remember members are not obligated to vote for the parties chosen candidates to be elected the candidate needs and majority of votes from house members who are present and voting historically. The magic number has been 20 20. I’m sorry 218 and a four or 35 number house, but many lawmakers do abstain from voting for any candidate and that lowers the total number and the majority the elected candidate. The speaker elect is escorted to the chair of the dayest where the oath of office is administered outgoing speaker in this case Nancy Pelosi hands over the gravel as a knowledge to the peaceful transition of power from one party leader to the other.
For more on this we are joined by Mark marowitz political commentator also a professor at State University of New York Maritime. Called joining us from New York. Thank you so much for coming back and joining us Mark. It’s great to have you so it seems like Kevin McCarthy. will probably most likely have the votes but this is not a good book for the Republicans right now. What do you make of all of this and my am I right? Do you think Kevin McCarthy does have the votes? Well, you know prognosticating.
politics one Diplomat once told me was like making astrology a hard science. Please. Don’t ask me to predict that you’re dealing with Republicans here and Republicans will never miss an opportunity to shoot themselves in the foot which Is actually what they’re doing here. the long game here is a little bit different than the house. The long game is the Senate and controlling the government and the presidential election 2024. in the 2024 election, we’ll have 23 Democrats up for re-election. So the Republicans are just doing some self-agelation and destroying themselves without being unified in 2020 too. as far as telling the coffee is concerned. It’s very hard to know. I think that he has given some concessions, but he’s going to have to give some really serious concessions to
40 this is very remin. Iscent what you talked about previously about Pelosi. because when Pelosi was up for speaker last time she had to give concessions to her left part of the party and now McCarthy is being required to give concessions to the right part of his party. The question is how loud and then all those you call them populists. So right or Freedom caucus to basically, you know, take the whole the whole procedure down and create this image of this Unity. 133.
This would be so destructive to the Republicans and their ability to run so that they can run government efficiently. So I think that the end of the day is you’re dealing with Republicans. It’s hard to predict but he’s a maybe all you may see Steve scalise. Very popular in the in the house. So he may naked they even let you know the house Speaker does not have to be a member of Congress. So somebody was writing an article. They thought nude.
Yeah, that’s very true. And you know, they’ve got a lot of plans a lot of committees and what they want to do right now is really go after first of all, I just in general Hunter Biden they want to go after the origins of covid. They want to set up different kinds of committees on the one hand, but then the question remains whether or not you know, this is something that the American people would have the appetite for at a time when worth it really headed towards a recession people want kitchen table issues resolved. That’s why they voted these Republicans into government. So what are your thoughts on that and how that Republicans need to operate moving forward?
Again, we’re dealing with Audiology. I mean you have Marjorie Taylor green who is kicked off committee. She’s going to be reinstated to committee. She is going to be a political force. The Fringe of your party they’ve talked about impeaching I think McCarthy even impeaching the homeland security secretary Mariachis removing Adam Schiff from all committee all of the things you mentioned Plus to me as a recipe for disaster in terms of the Republicans becoming again in power in the government. So is it possible that they’ll do it? Yes, because the Republican approach and again, it’s all polarization. The Democrats were empowered. They set up the January 6 committee whether you want to debate whether it’s right or wrong real big push real partisan push to to support a similarly now the Republicans government in the United States, which we do not it is not a good thing and it shows of what American think of Congress and what they think of the leadership in congress. That was just the pole.
C-SPAN pole that most Americans want bipartisan leadership by in the 70 plus percent. is this poll? They want bipartisan leadership and they’re not getting it if they’re going to pursue the points that you just described in the ones that I reviewed this very far right agenda. They’re not going to be able to muster the the ability to to win an election in 2024,. Of course the board that means presidents say it means the Senate it means the house. So if they want to be short-sighted, well, they’re gonna go down. That’s what I think right now. Once this Congress figures out what it’s going to do in terms of speaker and it can’t do anything until it picks the speaker right dealing with the Democratic majority, you know.
Eyes. This is a very very bad very it was very very badly for the future. Yeah, very interesting. We’ll have to we’ll have to wait and see the Republicans say that you know, the Democrats have been operating free raid with no checks and balances and right now is the time to implement those checks and balances and that’s why they were elected on the one hand. They can walk and chew go on the other and also I think the recipe for hops for Success would be a way that these committees and these investigations would be presented in a way to the American people where it would sort of demonstrate how it would affect their everyday lives. So a lot of questions left on answered more career with we’ll have you back we have to talk about this a lot more. Thank you so much for joining us.
