Speaking Of American Hostages

Some House Republicans try to change the rules so losers become winners

Once obsessed with the ‘majority of the majority,’ the House GOP is now ruled by small minority factions

House Republicans live in a world where math is upside down.

In this fantasy land, five can be as powerful as 217; eight as big as 433; and, in a new twist this past week, 99 out of 223 can somehow be turned into a strong majority.

This latest example came Friday, when Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) claimed the nomination for GOP House speaker, despite a clear majority of the full House not wanting him to be their pick.

On Wednesday, Jordan lost the nomination, running a competitive race but only getting 99 votes — about 44 percent of the 223 ballots cast. He offered a tepid endorsement, at best, to the winner, Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.), and then sat back as his allies sabotaged the front-runner.

They told Scalise that they would re-create the drama of January when Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) failed on the first 14 ballots because about 20 hard-right conservatives voted for someone else, forcing him to make key concessions until they let him win on the 15th roll call.

After enduring about 30 hours of this torture, Scalise said no thanks. He will stay put as majority leader and watch as Jordan now faces the same struggles.

McCarthy, Jordan and Scalise’s long history seeps into speaker fight

Before Friday’s new vote, Jordan’s allies, including McCarthy, who was deposed earlier this month, hyped his candidacy enough that expectations were set for him to blow past Scalise’s initial tally. Instead, a last-minute entrant, Rep. Austin Scott (R-Ga.), a backbencher focused on national security issues who never sought a leadership post, embarrassed Jordan with a strong second-place showing.

Jordan received only 124 votes, claiming about 10 of the protest votes from Wednesday that went to write-in candidates or simply stated “present.” He flipped only about 15 of Scalise’s initial supporters. In a second secret ballot that asked Republicans how they would vote in the required public roll call for speaker, 55 doubled down and said they would not support Jordan.

This sets up the same conundrum that felled McCarthy and prompted Scalise to abandon the race: With 221 on their side, Republicans have just four votes to spare if all 212 Democrats vote the other way.

Jordan’s allies have signaled a political-roughshod campaign that will dare his opponents to vote against the far-right Republican in the public, alphabetical roll call on the House floor. They hope they will crumble from fear of retribution from conservative primary voters.

“I think there’s a clear path to get him to 217. But as long as you’re doing secret ballots, it’s a lot harder to get 217. We’ve got to break cover,” Rep. Dusty Johnson (R-S.D.), a leader of a mainstream conservative caucus, told reporters Friday.

But Jordan’s staunchest opponents warned that a pressure campaign would backfire. “Look, when you’re doing it in a positive way, you can usually get a lot,” Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-Fla.), a staunch Scalise backer, told reporters.

What to know about Jim Jordan, House speaker nominee

Diaz-Balart, who said he would never vote for Jordan, said it would be an arrogant mistake to ignore the adage about catching more flies with honey than vinegar.

“Usually you do it at your own peril,” he said.

After nine months of watching their hard-right flank essentially extort McCarthy, this band of establishment Republicans has declared that it’s time to stop rewarding the hostage-takers. Instead of giving in to Jordan, they want to adopt the very same strategy: minority-rule tactics to sabotage him.

If as few as five refuse to back Jordan, he can’t win. That’s what happened on multiple key procedural votes last month, when just five Republicans opposed McCarthy’s defense spending bill and voted against the parliamentary vote, sabotaging the legislation.

When the hard right decided to take down McCarthy, those Republicans used the obscure motion to vacate that served as a vote of no confidence. As is custom in votes for speaker, all Democrats voted against the GOP option. Then eight Republicans effectively determined for the rest of the House — currently at 433 members because of two vacancies — that McCarthy would no longer be speaker by siding with Democrats.

Johnson, normally one of the more reserved and earnest lawmakers, proposed forcing the full House to vote early in the week even if Jordan is expected to lose. They would then go through round after round after round, re-creating the chaotic January scene to ramp up the pressure on Diaz-Balart’s group.

“Jim Jordan should continue this fight all the way through,” Rep. Chip Roy (R-Tex.) said on Fox News on Friday evening.

That high-risk scenario has some Jordan supporters urging restraint, including Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.), who has previously called for no floor vote until the outcome is certain.

“Right now, we just need cool heads and logic to prevail. I think that can occur,” Donalds said Friday.

Jordan’s opponents view the Johnson-Roy approach as another act of deceit.

Before Scalise’s victory Wednesday, Roy tried to change rules so that the nominee would not go to a full vote in the House until securing 217 Republican votes.

Adopting the look and style of a Hollywood movie mad scientist, Roy regularly plots complex strategies, focused on obscure rules and confounding processes. This time, he wanted to force many ballots in the speaker vote: the first involving both candidates, then the winner would go through more grilling and another secret ballot or two, before finally a public roll call in front of all his GOP colleagues.

It seemed designed to deny Scalise, or perhaps anyone other than Jordan, the requisite support to win — which is why Roy’s proposal got trounced by almost 50 votes.

Scalise then won the actual vote, 113-99, but rather than accepting the humiliating defeat, Roy declared he would vote only for Jordan.

A dozen Jordan backers quickly declared they would never vote for Scalise, while about a dozen more lurked in the backdrop, as well as a half-dozen or so moderates who remained loyal to McCarthy.

Pretty quickly, Scalise’s supporters — who include most traditional conservatives on the Armed Services and Appropriations committees — felt that Jordan had reverted back to his original form. In his first dozen years, before McCarthy brought him into his inner circle, Jordan served as the rabble-rouser, threatening to expel speakers and trying to take down bipartisan, must-pass legislation.

Jordan did not offer Scalise an endorsement and left the closed-door meeting without talking to the hundred or more reporters outside the room.

His aides sent word that he offered to give a nominating speech on Scalise’s behalf, but Scalise supporters reported that the offer required him to only stand for one ballot and, if he failed, turn around and nominate Jordan on the next ballot.

Jordan’s supporters denied any double-dealing. “He has said in the most plain, possible English to the conference, entirely wide, that he would support Steve,” Rep. Brian Mast (R-Fla.) told reporters after a Thursday meeting with Scalise.

Still, Mast acknowledged that his plan to support Scalise after he won “just ran into some things” and that he was still with Jordan.

Once Scalise withdrew on Thursday evening, Jordan jumped back into the race anew, this time as the front-runner.

McCarthy thought he could harness forces of disruption. Instead they devoured him.

In public, Jordan’s opponents have walked a careful line to avoid accusing him of treachery.

Instead, they take him at his word that he truly did support Scalise. But they fault the former national collegiate champion wrestler, given his mythological clout within far-right circles, for being weak.

“There’s two alternatives: Either you lied, or you couldn’t deliver,” Diaz-Balart said. “I’ve never been lied to, I’ve never been lied to by him. So therefore, to me, it’s got to be the other alternative, which is he has not been able to deliver on a relatively simple thing.”

So now the Diaz-Balart wing plans to force Jordan to swallow some of the same medicine he has delivered throughout the years.

All these minority-rule moments turn the tables on a GOP conference that used to assert the “Hastert rule,” an unofficial standard often imposed by J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.), the House speaker from 1999 into 2007. It said legislation that did not have the support of “the majority of the majority” would not get a vote on the House floor.

Now, the majority of the majority no longer rules, given that both McCarthy and Scalise had such support, as Jordan now does.

Instead, a small bloc — sometimes five, sometimes eight, sometimes 20, perhaps 99 — has turned the math upside down.

With the new “Jordan rule,” it’s the minority of the majority that matters most.

Rules

Sometimes, you have to wield your power simply to demonstrate to the other side that you have it and you intend to use it.

Call it dick-waving or whatever you think is fitting, but the Dems have to understand that they're in a brick fight, and that snappy repartee and throwing witty jibes at assholes like Mitch McConnell and Rand Paul just ain't gonna cut it. They don't care about your superior vocabulary or paying homage to institutional traditions - they care about getting smashed in the face with heavy, smartly-thrown masonry.

Two things:

1. Biden has nothing to do with whether or not the filibuster stays or goes, and he needs to respect the separation of powers
2. Biden does have that Bully Pulpit thing to work with

WaPo: (pay wall)

Pressure grows on Biden to end the filibuster

Pressure is building on President Biden, a longtime backer of traditional Washington rules, to do away with the filibuster and other procedures as Democrats press him to seize what could be a fleeting moment of power to enact his agenda.

Liberals have long pushed for sweeping changes such as expanding the Supreme Court, ending the electoral college and banning gerrymandering. But as Biden faces a critical stretch of his presidency, even moderate Democrats are urging more-immediate changes — particularly rewriting the filibuster so that at the very least fewer bills need 60 votes to pass the Senate.

Democrats increasingly worry that popular pieces of Biden’s agenda will hit a wall in the Senate, including his plans for climate change, immigration, gun control, voting rights and LGBT protections. Failing to enact them, they fear, could be a political disaster for Democrats.

Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), a centrist, said Wednesday she wants to “get rid of the filibuster,” her toughest comments to date on the matter. By Thursday, Sen. Tina Smith (D-Minn.) announced via social media that she, too, now wants to abolish the filibuster, because “the more I thought about it, the more I realized that the filibuster has long been the enemy of progress.”

Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.), also a moderate, told The Washington Post he could envision the Senate changing the filibuster if bills are floundering. “We’ve got to figure out whether leadership on both sides wants to have obstruction or if they want to come together and try to get some things done,” Tester said.

For the moment, Democrats do not have the votes to fully abolish the filibuster, which allows a senator to block a bill by refusing to yield the floor unless at least 60 senators overrule the speaker. Some Democrats, such as Sen. Joe Manchin III (W.Va.), oppose repeal. (“Never!” he shouted recently at a journalist who asked.) So advocates are looking for ways to limit the filibuster instead of ending it — and hoping Biden weighs in.

Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) warned that if Democrats fail to pass a popular agenda because of arcane Senate rules, the party will suffer in the midterm elections. “It will be a Democratic Party Armageddon in 2022 if we sit here on our butts and say, ‘Oh, we’re sorry, we’re not as determined to get our agenda passed as Republicans were,’ ” said Merkley, who is spearheading an overhaul effort.

Republicans say such changes would create a free-for-all in the Senate and contend Democrats are threatening to toss the rules to gain an unearned political advantage.

“The same party that wants to change Senate rules when they lose a vote, pack the Supreme Court when they lose a case and throw out the electoral college every time they lose the White House now wants to forcibly rewrite 50 states’ election laws from Washington,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said recently on the Senate floor, speaking in opposition to a Democratic election bill.

He added, “Millions of American voters elected 50 Republican senators and a whole lot of House Republicans to make sure that Democrats play by the rules, not rewrite the rules.”

As the presidential campaign unfolded and the depth of many Democrats’ dissatisfaction became clear, Biden softened his vociferous opposition to changing Washington’s rules. In July, he conceded that his approach to the filibuster would “depend on how obstreperous [Republicans] become.” After resisting proposals to expand the Supreme Court, he promised a commission to look into changes of the court’s structure.

Now that Biden is president, such middle positions could be harder to sustain. Biden faces a choice, some activists say, between ruling mostly via executive fiat — which permits modest accomplishments at best — and pulling down the structural obstacles.

For now, the White House is keeping its options on the table.

“One thing that is nonnegotiable is him delivering for the American people,” said Emmy Ruiz, the White House political director. “The number-one priority here is to get this agenda, this bold agenda, passed through Congress.”

A White House official, not authorized to the discuss the administration’s legislative approach and speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the “strategy is adjusting every single day,” reiterating Biden’s position that the filibuster is not sacrosanct, while the agenda is.

But with Democrats potentially losing their narrow House or Senate majorities in 2022 — a president’s party usually fares poorly in midterms — the Democrats’ window for change may be short-lived.

The vulnerability of Biden’s agenda became clear last week when a proposed minimum-wage increase ran into a procedural hurdle and was removed from his coronavirus relief package. Some Democrats, and many activists, saw that as a warning sign for the rest of Biden’s agenda.

And while Biden hopes to soon pass a $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package, the second-largest stimulus bill ever to go through Congress, he may struggle to repeat that feat with measures that do not fit as easily into “reconciliation,” a maneuver allowing a bill to pass the Senate with a simple majority instead of 60 votes.

Biden will have just two more opportunities to use reconciliation before the midterms, and only budget-related bills qualify. It is the Senate parliamentarian who decides whether a bill fits under reconciliation, and while her advice can be ignored, Democrats have chosen to abide by her rulings.


“It’s not an ideal procedure to get things done, but politically this is the only palatable path right now to progress on key issues,” said Ben LaBolt, an aide in the Obama administration.

Some liberals in Congress sent a letter this week to Biden and Vice President Harris urging them to sidestep the parliamentarian’s decision on the minium wage, a move that has historical precedent.

“There is an institutional deference that maybe would have been fine in times past, but a defense of the status quo is inadequate to the challenges of our time,” said Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.). “We have to follow the rule of law, but we don’t have to defer to traditions and norms.”

Without such changes, Senate rules force advocates into a tortuous process of making sometimes circuitous arguments for why their bills fit reconciliation.

Kerri Talbot, deputy director of the Immigration Hub, a pro-immigrant organization, said reconciliation may be the best hope for passing a citizenship measure for at least some of the 11 million undocumented immigrants in the United States. “We think we can qualify, due to the economic impact of providing a path to citizenship,” Talbot said. “Ultimately it’s a big boon for the economy, but in the short run there are some costs involved as well.”

Advocates and 100 lawmakers have asked Biden to consider legalizing at least 5 million undocumented immigrants via budget reconciliation. Three people with detailed understanding of Senate rules, however, said it is unlikely that a broad immigration plan would pass the parliamentarian’s muster.

Immigration activists are preparing for that eventuality. “We have to understand that the ruling of the Senate parliamentarian is not the end of the story,” said Carlos Rojas Rodriguez, who was among 150 supporters and ex-staffers of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) who wrote Sanders last week urging him to use reconciliation.

If the Senate parliamentarian disagrees, Rojas Rodriguez said, Democrats should overrule her.

Merkley said he is seeing steadily more receptiveness from his colleagues for ending the filibuster. In 2009 when he first joined the Senate, the push for change was “a very lonely journey,” he said, but now “there’s been a massive shift.”

Proponents are casting about for proposals that could win over the last few votes for change. For example, a current Democratic bill to overhaul elections is expected to attract no Republican support, prompting some Democrats to suggest an exception to the filibuster for civil rights and voting matters.

Biden’s climate agenda, a top priority for the party’s liberal wing and many young voters, also would probably struggle to attract 60 Senate votes, nor would it easily qualify for reconciliation. One lobbyist familiar with Biden’s plan said it would be unlikely to meet the reconciliation test without being substantially redrafted.

Some lawmakers believe that if a stack of popular bills passes the House but cannot get through the Senate, it would put critical pressure on Senate Democrats to consider revamping their system.

“The longer the Senate doesn’t function as it used to, pressure will keep building for changes that would allow overwhelmingly popular policies to move forward,” said Phil Schiliro, who headed legislative affairs in the Obama White House.

Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) has sidestepped questions about how Biden’s agenda could make it through the currently configured Senate.

“The bottom line is we’re going to come together as a caucus and figure out a way to get the bold action that the American people demand,” Schumer said recently. “We will put bills on the floor. We’re not going to be the legislative graveyard.”

Biden is uniquely situated to push for a major change to the Senate proceedings, some Democrats say, because of his credibility as a Senate institutionalist. He served in the chamber for more than three decades and frequently speaks of it with affection.

In his previous stint in the executive branch, Biden showed flexibility. As vice president he supported the Obama administration’s push to end the filibuster on most judicial nominations, lobbying his former colleagues to make the change, said Ed Pagano, a legislative-affairs aide in the White House at the time.

But Biden is also on the record defending Senate traditions such as the parliamentarian’s rulings, saying in a 2005 floor speech that heeding them had “been the practice for 218 years.”

As for killing the filibuster — that, he warned at the time, would be “a fundamental power grab by the majority party.”

Sam's Wrap-Up

Samantha Bee

And here's the graphic:

This is a weirdness of the bicameral thing built into the Constitution. Small states were supposed to get outsized representation in order to balance their power against the big states - Separation of Powers and Minority Rights and all that.

Repubs have taken it to mean they get to rule from the minority instead of governing in partnership with the majority.

I don't know how to fix it, but there's much to be done. 

And I think it's fairly obvious that we won't get anywhere without a GOP that's a shitload more honorable than what we've seen from them in the last 30 years or so.

Today's Gaffe

It's well known that a 'gaffe' is when some politician accidentally tells the truth.

At a Dallas County GOP event last month, Bishop John Lawson asked Ken Emanuelson, a Tea Party activist, what the Republican Party was doing for African-American voters. The progressive group Battleground Texas posted audio from the event. "I'm going to be real honest with you," Emanuelson said. "The Republican Party doesn't want black people to vote if they are going to vote 9-to-1 for Democrats." In Emanuelson's view, in other words, the solution to lack of support from African-American voters is to have fewer of them show up at the polls. When the inevitable criticism ensued, Emanuelson backtracked. In a post on his Facebook page, the Tea Party activist acknowledged that he "misspoke" and tried to clarify what he was getting at. "What I meant, and should have said, is that it is not, in my personal opinion, in the interests of the Republican Party to spend its own time and energy working to generally increase the number of Democratic voters at the polls, and at this point in time, nine of every ten African-American voters cast their votes for the Democratic Party."

And Emanualson isn't the first Repub to say something like that.

1) It's not in the best interests of the GOP for everybody who's eligible to vote to go out and vote.
2) The GOP is working very hard in many places to pass laws that effectively keep people - the big majority of whom are likely not going to vote for Repubs - away from the polls.

Here's a slightly different angle:  When everybody who should vote gets to vote, we say yay, democracy - our system is healthy, and it's working the way it's supposed to work.  That's what America's all about.  But that's what the TeaParty Republicans are against; they're saying it's wrong for so many people to vote; they're saying there's too much democracy going on here.  They're saying democracy is bad for the GOP, and so the GOP is opposed to democracy.

It just seems pretty clear, and it's pretty fucked up.