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How Would You React to a Coalition Majority in the House?
Now that Kevin McCarthy has dropped out of the running to be Speaker John Boehner’s replacement, and given the lack of any clear alternative (who actually wants the job?), some are floating the the idea of a coalition:
One crossover vote — from one member, in one election — does not a precedent make. But Representative Charlie Dent (R-PA) nonetheless told CNN minutes after McCarthy withdrew, to elect the next Speaker “we [may] have to assemble a bipartisan coalition, that’s the reality of this place.”
Moderate Republicans would join with Democrats to elect a speaker. It’s unprecedented in modern history in the House, but it’s happened at the state level before. (It happened in the New York State Senate a few years ago, and I’ve read that it happened in Texas, but I don’t know the details. I’m sure there are other examples).
There are currently 188 Democrats in the House. If they all voted together, it would only take 30 Republicans to get the 218 votes necessary to elect a speaker.
Improbable? Yes. But it’s been a very weird year.
Suppose that happened: If 30 or more moderate Republicans (possibly even members of the “establishment”) joined with the Democrats to form a coalition, what would your reaction be?
Published in Elections, General, Politics
Leigh, what if I don’t think McCarthy is wrong because he isn’t conservative enough or wrong on just a few issues or on strategy but just because he’s an ineffective braggart?
So, it would be like when Democratic centrists reached across the aisle to elect the moderate Nancy Pelosi?
You don’t have to like him. Honestly, I haven’t listened to him enough to have a firm opinion on the man. I hadn’t paid him much attention at all until this week. I’d say the Robinson interview speaks poorly of his judgment at least, and the Benghazi slip speaks poorly of his ability to think on his feet and communicate clearly. So I might be with you.
But he’s not Arlen Specter. And an effective conservative movement is going to have to win the people who thought McCarthy was the best potential speaker.
John Fund put better what I’m trying to get at. There are two ways to run the House: the Republican majority works it out among themselves and then hangs together, or else the whole House runs it. 95% of the time you’ll get more conservative results from the former arrangement. I hardly mean one should blindly vote with leadership, but once there is a Republican consensus one must consider the actual consequence of voting against it on the floor. If 30-40 members refuse to go along with the majority-of-the-majority approach, the Speaker doesn’t have 218 votes — and in effect that often gives the Democrats power.
Liberal democrats managed to hold together and keep their eye on the ball — and the White House — rather than tearing her apart for not opposing Bush effectively enough. Something Democrats usually do better than we do.
Nuts, Dent is my Congressman. Now we have to find an alternative.
Leigh:
“Liberal democrats managed to hold together and keep their eye on the ball — and the White House — rather than tearing her apart for not opposing Bush effectively enough. Something Democrats usually do better than we do.”
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She did that by moderating and compromising from a majority position?
Obviously, I think that’d be awful and would confirm the worst stereotypes about centrist republicans.
However, given the … enthusiasm some have expressed for using Trump to blow-up the Republican Party on conservative terms, I’m not exactly sure why we’d expect moderates to be particularly motivated by loyalty.
Almost every comment here has blamed the current impasse on “The Establishment” because they don’trepealObamaCareDefundPlannedParenthoodblahblah.
There is another, more obvious way to look at this. The party in majority can’t elect a Speaker because a rump faction says “no” to all the candidates without offering a viable candidate themselves. The problem here is with the “Freedom Caucus” – not because of their policies, but because of their tactics. You can’t replace an imperfect something with a perfect nothing.
Jim Jordan, Tim Huelskamp, etc. have no right to complain about Boehner (McCarthy’s big mouth disqualifies him) unless they can settle on an alternative, better leader that they can support, but who is also acceptable to the center-right.
The fact that they can’t control the House from their rump position of 40 or so seats out of 240 explains very clearly why the Republicans can’t control the government- there are not enough of them in the right places.
The tactical disagreement is over whether constant brinksmanship is more effective than trying to pass imperfect legislation and block really bad legislation. The “establishment” has done a pretty good job of the latter.
So who is the Freedom Caucus proposing as Speaker who could actually do the job effectively in a less PR-ham-handed manner? Certainly not Jason Chaffetz of the PP hearings or Daniel Webster.
I am tired of the complaints. Get off the whine platform and propose a viable candidate- or shut up.
This is getting surreal. The need for Trump may be gaining ground, as he may need to steamroll the GOP house to regain our republic. Call it “enthusiasm” if those scare quotes make you feel more discerning, but those of us out here on the barricades don’t share such nuance. We are the “rump” now?
Leigh, the Constitution specifically empowers Congress with the power of the purse. We don’t have the ability to repeal the ACA, but we have no obligation to fund it.
Why is it always Republicans committing mutiny? Why don’t some dems come over to our side a little? It happened in Washington State a couple of years ago when minority Republicans plus 2 Democrats formed a majority caucus in the state senate to elect a leader and get a budget passed.
No way. That’s what Obama wants.
Leigh:
“The Constitution does not provide for a way for Congress to unilaterally block a previously-instituted law.”
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Neither does it require them to fund anything, no matter how popular or properly constituted. So… is that the only reason you call the effort a “sham”?
They don’t need to shut up for my sake. Sometimes it’s more constructive to just stand aside and throw rocks in the machinery.
There is no power of the purse without the will to use it.
Looking at Trump alone is missing the bigger picture. In the Real clear polling the top three candidates are Trump, Carson and Fiorina right now, they get over 50% of the vote. This is bigger than the “far right”. 50% of Republican primary voters are telling pollsters they do not want a Republican Politician to be the President.
So I think you have emphasis wrong. With the mood of the voters it is incumbent on the moderates to make choices that will bring over the conservatives both in the House and in the General Public. I think a coalition style vote (republicans and democrats) picking a moderate republican increases the odds of a Hillary or Biden Presidency.
There is a very clear difference between a Republican who avoids the suicide of his party on a losing strategy, and a speaker who is by definition not interested in a conservative agenda.
Poor use of the word “Exactly”.
You do however have the obligation to leave office after you’ve been crushed in an election for engaging in a futile strategy.
Good point. It would draw a clear line for all to see.
So that is how you remember things? First Trump then moderates and libertarians who are rightly not motivated by loyalty. That requires being very forgetful about even recent history. Our Republican ideologues had a theory about what would happen if they blew up the Reagan coalition. No more abortion talk, no more gay marriage talk, no more immigration talk (you are very disciplined) and finally we would reach a coalition worth having. How do you like it so far? When you blow things up, sometimes it is surprising what springs up in the rubble and most times it will be bad.
Why is it a poor use of the word. According to you a coalition majority in the House calls for armed revolution, but if it is used to give in to democrats demands you find it inconvenient.
This is uncharacteristically inconsistent. Own your position.
And your evidence of this?
The only ones who left office after they’ve been crushed in an election for engaging in a futile strategy were the democrats in 2010 following their tactics to enact ACA.
What is your objective evidence of a party being crushed in an election for fiscal responsibility. Even Larry Kudlow refuted your point recently.
Is there no difference between a coalition on a specific policy that conservatives do not like and a coalition to insure no conservative legislation ever comes up for a vote?
It seems to me at least a difference in magnitude. Should conservatives lose an issue or every issue. The Speaker sets the agenda. Conservatives want to pass bills to push the Presidents to at least veto them. None of those bills come up with Democrat back moderate Republican speaker.
Entirely false. Boehner wants Obamacare gone. I want Obamacare gone. We acknowledge that we need the presidency to be successful in such an effort. You don’t. That is the difference between us. One of stradegy towards the same goal.
A coalition would have a different set of goals. You couldn’t be more wrong on this point. The distinction is abundantly clear.
You and I have had this conversation a hundred times, Brent. Polling in American politics is remarkably good and reliable. Everytime we try a shutdown Republicans get killed in polling. We have only rebounded in the past because the shut downs end so far from the next set of elections that our polling has rebounded.
You cannot possibly deny the polling on this, and I have linked such polls a hundred different times on Ricochet, so you must be denying that polling is accurate. This position is no better, as it is demonstrably true that an average of the polls gets you very close to the actual election results the vast majority of the time.
1. It’s Obama who tries the shutdown. You’re adopting the left/media spin on this.
2. Republicans are ALWAYS going to get killed on polling when they do the right thing. There is no way to avoid it. With Democrat control of the media it takes longer for their message to get through. Republicans ought to be playing the long game, not the short-term polling game.
Wow. Thank God we have more pull than the media. Otherwise we would get killed on this.
Not right. Both parties get killed when they implement their agenda. The trick is that such anger subsides over time. Obamacare devastated the democrats, but that effect has now passed. Similarly, repealing Obamacare will hurt Republicans…temporarily.
A long term shut down hurts us until several months after it ends. That is the difference.
Then why is Gallup abandoning it? Because it’s crap. Their model no longer works. And not just in America. From Scottish independence to the Tory victory in the UK the pollsters are falling flat on their face.
They are not reaching voters and increasingly do not elicit the correct answers when they do. They ask super simplified questions on increasingly complicated issues. When you’re polled you must choose one of their answers, not really give your own.
But more importantly, why live and die by these numbers? I can cite poll after poll that contradicts the Democrats on guns, abortion and even ObamaCare. They. Don’t. Care. They don’t cower in the corner. Neither should we.
This just isn’t true, EJ. There are several Britain specific problems with polling, but American national elections are extraordinarily easy to predict. Years like the 2010 midterms are the exceptions to the rule. If you simply went by the RCP averages in 2012, you would have gotten 49 out of 50 states correct. That is a common result.
Frank, as they say in the investment game, past results mean bupkus.
Again, why is Gallup calling it quits? Why do the Democrats consistently ignore the polls to great success?