Month: December 2022

House GOP centrists: ‘Put posturing aside’ and back McCarthy Speakership

Posted on (Updated by Emily Brooks

Members of the Republican Governance Group, a more centrist caucus within the House GOP, are urging their colleagues to support House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) for Speaker as he faces opponents that threaten his path to securing the gavel.

"The American people handed us the gavel, but they did so skeptically. If we do not immediately put posturing aside and focus on responsible governance, we will have failed to fulfill the great responsibility they have bestowed upon us before the 118th Congress begins,” the letter from the members of the Republican Governance Group, formerly known as the Tuesday Group, read. 

“Governing is fundamentally a team sport. It comes down to a simple choice: do you want to make a point or a difference?” the letter said.

Five hard-line, confrontational conservative House Republicans have explicitly said or strongly indicated that they will not support McCarthy for Speaker on the House floor on Jan. 3, even though the House GOP Conference nominated him to be Speaker last month: Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.), the former chair of the House Freedom Caucus who mounted a long-shot bid for the Speakership nomination; Rep. Bob Good (R-Va.); Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.); Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.); and Rep. Matt Rosendale (R-Mont.). 

With Republicans about to enter the 118th Congress with just a slim majority — around 222 Republicans to 212 Democrats — those five defectors could potentially sink his bid. Many others have not revealed whether they will support McCarthy on Jan. 3.

McCarthy needs support from a majority of House members voting for a specific Speaker candidate on Jan. 3. If all vote for a candidate, that threshold is 218, but vacancies, absences, and “present” votes can lower that threshold. All five opponents, though, indicate they will not “present.”

“This Conference cannot handcuff itself to a burning building before we gavel in the 118th Congress,” Republican Governance Group Chair Dave Joyce (R-Ohio) said in a statement. “We are the dealmakers without whom this legislative body cannot govern, and we intend to provide the American people with a working majority.”

Joyce led the letter along with Rep. Blake Moore (R-Utah), the group's vice chair. In total, 21 House GOP members and members-elect signed on.

Those outright opposed to or withholding support from McCarthy criticize his handling of previous votes, that he will not commit to slashing and balancing the federal budget, and that he is not completely committed to impeaching Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. McCarthy has, however, called on Mayorkas to resign or face a House GOP investigation and potential impeachment inquiry.

The House Freedom Caucus has also pushed for rules changes that, on the whole, would empower individual members and chip away at leadership’s power. McCarthy has implemented some of the proposals.

McCarthy supporters, on the other hand, praise his fundraising and candidate recruitment efforts that led the House GOP to gain seats for two years in a row, and that he has given every faction of the caucus a seat at the table.

There is also no viable consensus GOP alternative to McCarthy, making him still the favorite to ultimately win the gavel.

"Our Democratic colleagues would only be too happy if we contributed to their efforts to derail our agenda with self-inflicted snags, like rallying around our already elected leadership,” the Republican Governance Group letter said.

This is the day the world changed: Three years ago, the COVID-19 pandemic began

Posted on by Mark Sumner

On this date three years ago, a man walked into Hubei Provincial Hospital in Wuhan, China, reporting flu-like symptoms. Within two weeks, there were 27 cases showing similar symptoms. Then, just four days before the end of the year, the head of the hospital’s respiratory department, Dr. Zhang Jixian, made a report to state health officials that the cases were caused by “a novel coronavirus.” At that point, the number of known infections was approaching 180.

Dec. 1 may have been the official start of the local novel coronavirus outbreak that would become a national epidemic that would become the COVID-19 pandemic. But it certainly wasn’t the first actual case. As early as March 2020, a review of health records suggested that the first case had actually been seen in Wuhan as early as Nov. 17, and that there had been a steady trickle of new cases for two weeks before that first official case.

It would take another two years before scientists were able to pin down what had been suspected all along—the origin of the SARS-CoV-2 virus was almost certainly the “wet” market in Wuhan, where a wide variety of wild-caught animals were sold for food and traditional medicine. A similar market was the source of the original SARS virus in 2002. A combination of health care records and genetic information suggests that the virus made the jump from animals to humans at least twice in the closing months of 2019, though exactly which animal played host to the virus before it made the jump remains unclear.

With all that, it’s hard to give an official date for when the pandemic that has now generated at least 650 million cases and 6.6 million deaths around the world really began. But today is as good a day as any to say, “This is the day the world changed.”

To mark this third anniversary, it seems like a good time to hit some “highlights” of the pandemic’s early days and how it was covered at Daily Kos—much of which, I’m going to tell you right now, easily devolves into “look at all the stuff I got wrong.”

Dec. 31, 2019 — A doctor in China unofficially notifies World Health Organization (WHO) that it has detected a cluster of cases involving “a pneumonia of unknown etiology.” China would send an official notification to WHO on Jan. 3. 

Jan. 21, 2020 — China confirms that the disease is spreading from person to person. At this point, the number of known cases in China is approaching 300, and there are single cases known in Japan, Thailand, and South Korea.

Jan. 23, 2020 — The first article on the outbreak at Daily Kos. That article got some things right.

The outbreak that began near the city of Wuhan is caused by a coronavirus, one of a number of viruses in a poorly understood group that also includes SARS. … The ease with which the new virus is apparently spread through the air, or through superficial contact, suggests that it may be transferred even more readily than the SARS virus, which killed at least 800 in its initial outbreak.

And some things very, very wrong. 

...officials everywhere have been faster to act, faster to impose restrictions, and faster to identify the underlying cause of the outbreak than they had been in the case of SARS. Restricting the spread of an emerging disease remains a near-impossible task, but health officials around the world are giving it a really extraordinary try.

Jan. 31, 2020 — It would be a week before the novel coronavirus reached the front page of Daily Kos again. In our defense, there were a few things going on at the time—such as Donald Trump facing his first impeachment trial in the Senate. That second article actually came on the same day that the House impeachment managers wrapped up their case. Even at this point, what would become a very familiar theme was starting to emerge. And so was that theme of getting something right, followed by getting something else so very wrong.

... it is time to consider the possible effects of prolonged disruption from interrupted supply chains, shortages of items manufactured in China, or further restrictions of travel and trade. Companies, educational facilities, and city managers are already looking at what it could mean if there is an extended disruption of normal activities—not because the coronavirus is likely to have the devastating reach of the 1918 flu, but because the steps necessary to arrest its spread may mean taking unfamiliar actions.

At that point, the frequency of covered increased sharply—which included me providing now highly cringe-worthy praise of China’s management of the outbreak—and it wouldn’t be a week before the “P” word was being thrown around.

Feb. 5, 2020 — What had started with a tiny cluster of cases a month earlier was now approaching 25,000, and small numbers of cases had appeared in an astounding 24 countries. It was a testimony to both how easily the SARS-CoV-2 virus could be spread, and to how interconnected our world has become.

Still, 2019-nCoV is not yet a global pandemic. Despite some alarming cases, including a number of infections aboard a now-quarantined cruise ship, it remains an outbreak with just one real epicenter. However, keeping things that way is going to be difficult. And expensive.

Feb. 6, 2020 — Just a day later came news of the death of Dr. Li Wenliang, one of a group of doctors in Wuhan who had risked their careers to buck both local and state officials and get out the news about the initial outbreak. Li was a previously healthy 34-year-old. His death would make him not just a martyr to the case of transparency, but a signpost for how bad things might become. Even so, half of the post this day was devoted to staying hopeful that the outbreak in China was slowing down, that measures seemed to be preventing a similar outbreak elsewhere, and hey, didn’t SARS burn out just a few weeks after its first appearance?

It would be easy to present a version of this story that played up all the things that were right in these early articles—showing that this virus would be more transmissible than SARS, warnings about the need for quick intervention to isolate cases when detected, walking through the evidence to show that the virus was not the product of a weapons lab, and predictions about coming impacts to fragile international supply chains—but there was just as much wrong. That included praising policy in China that was not only brutal, but may have contributed to spreading the disease by encouraging people to hide symptoms. There was also a lot of happy, hopeful, “don’t panic” talk that utterly missed the boat on the real scale of the threat and the necessary steps to check the coming pandemic. Also, as happened way too many times over the next year, I repeatedly got lost in the statistics, grinding away at numbers to see if I could squeeze just one hint of a rainbow out of all those dark clouds.

The level of naivete can easily be expressed by this headline from Feb. 11, 2020.

Novel coronavirus deaths exceed 1,000. Are there more grim milestones ahead?

It’s safe to say the answer was “yes.” The number of deaths would double in one week, and of course, that was barely the start of a graph that would lead to 6,641,418, as of today.

Three years later, reviewing those early reports about what would eventually be the COVID-19 pandemic leaves me with a lot of embarrassment. It’s hard to find anything in there that seems all that prescient—or all that useful—this far down the line.

One thing that does stand out in these early reports is just how rarely Donald Trump gets mentioned in connection with the virus, because that’s how little he was involved in doing anything about it. It wouldn’t be until Feb. 26, 2020, that Trump finally got around to creating his infamous task force on the virus, the one that Mike Pence would nominally lead, but which Trump would turn into a platform for promoting quack cures and attacking science.

That came one day after what may have been the most accurate statement issued by any official to that point. 

On Tuesday, Nancy Messonier, director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, one of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, warned that Americans can expect to see the COVID-19 coronavirus spread within the United States, and that “disruption to everyday life may be severe.“ Messonier acknowledged in a press briefing, “This whole situation may seem overwhelming,” before revealing that she had been warning her own children that they needed to prepare for what’s coming. “Ultimately, we expect we will see community spread in this country. It’s not so much a question of if this will happen any more, but rather more exactly when this will happen, and how many people in this country will have severe illness.”

After making that statement, Messonier was carefully removed from public speaking roles, sidelined from her daily briefings, and not made a part of Trump’s task force.

But no one may have given a better summary of what was coming than she did less than two months after the first announcement from WHO.

The Republican House majority is the most fragile they’ve had in a very long time

Posted on by David Nir

Republicans may soon find out that the only thing worse than losing the House is winning it. That’s because the foundation on which the GOP’s new majority rests is as shaky as they come—and that’s no mere opinion. It’s an unassailable fact, borne out by hard data.

The 222 seats Republicans will control in the coming Congress is the same number that Democrats held in the outgoing one. But not only do Republicans lack anyone remotely resembling Nancy Pelosi—one of the most accomplished legislative leaders in American history—a critical portion of their caucus represents districts that Joe Biden would have carried.

This batch of 18 “crossover” seats (so called because they voted for different parties for president and the House) is small by historical standards but looms very large indeed when set against the miniscule five-seat advantage Republicans enjoy in the chamber. How Pelosi accomplished so much with so little will be studied by a generation of scholars, but one key factor was doubtless the fact that only seven of her members sat in districts Donald Trump had won following the 2020 elections. (There will still be five Democrats in Trump seats come 2023.)

Campaign Action

And it’s not just the quantity of crossover seats but their quality, as well. We can rank-order every district by its presidential vote (a more useful metric than the results of House elections, which can be affected by varying candidate quality, competitiveness, and uncontested seats) to see which seat gave Pelosi that crucial 218th vote. It turns out to have been the previous version of Michigan’s 8th District around Lansing, which backed Trump by less than a single point and is represented by a reliable Democrat, Elissa Slotkin.

Needless to say, Kevin McCarthy—or any Republican who might have the misfortune to take his place—won’t have anything resembling that good fortune.

Quite the contrary: The seat tipping the GOP over the edge will be upstate New York’s redrawn 17th District, which would’ve gone for Biden by a vastly larger 10-point spread. And Republican Mike Lawler (who beat DCCC chair Sean Patrick Maloney) is already concerned with his immediate political survival—which means, in a blue district like this one, distancing himself from the Marjorie Taylor Greene lunatic brigade.

In 2016, Lawler served as a Trump delegate at the Republican convention, but just days after the midterms, Lawler told CNN that he’d “like to see the party move forward” from the GOP’s overlord and expressed a lack of interest in pursuing the witch-hunts and impeachments his far-right colleagues are frothing for. “I think the top priority is to deal with inflation and the cost of living,” he said. “I don’t want to go from one issue to the next without dealing with the issues that got me elected in the first place.”

It will be quite something to watch when the Greenes and Boeberts and assorted other miscreants grow enraged at the likes of Lawler, but he’ll by no means be the only House Republican prioritizing self-preservation over party unity. And what makes the case of Lawler and his fellow travelers so destabilizing is that their districts are much further to the left than those of similarity situated majority-makers in any recent Congress where Republicans have been in control.

We can say this with certainty. At Daily Kos Elections, we have a deep archive of robust data going back many years, allowing us to analyze the political lean of the 218th seat over time. Below we list the tipping-point districts for every Congress dating back to 2008, along with the results of the most recent presidential election in all of them:

During the last period of Republican control following the 2010 elections, you can see that these districts have generally been clustered right around dead even according to presidential margin: Trump +0.1 in 2016, Mitt Romney +1.1 in 2014, and Barack Obama +0.1 in 2012. 2010 might look like something of an outlier, but don’t forget that Obama won the national popular vote by 7 points. Compared to the nation as a whole, then, that version of Iowa’s 4th was only a touch bluer, as you can see in the column on the far right of the table above; in subsequent years, the GOP’s 218th seat was actually to the right of the country overall.

(By the by, Democrats now hold the current versions of Virginia’s 10th and Minnesota’s 2nd. They also won the successor to Iowa’s 4th in 2018 but lost it by less than a percentage point this year.)

To put Lawler’s district in the same context, it’s almost 6 points left of center. That makes it much more liberal than any pivot-point seat Boehner ever had to contend with, and Lawler knows it. That also goes for all the other Republicans in similar districts—or at least, if they don’t grasp this reality now, they will after they’ve lost re-election in 2024.

Pelosi, by contrast, has regularly handled similar situations and even tougher ones: After the 2008 elections, with the majority-making seat 10 points to the nation’s right, Democrats nevertheless managed to pass a massive stimulus package, a major Wall Street reform bill, and, of course, Obamacare. Republicans don’t even have a legislative agenda, let alone the ability to pass anything so far-reaching.

And this, of course, assumes that McCarthy or another Republican can even put together enough votes to win the speakership in the first place, which is far from assured. But even if he manages to, he’ll find that his authority rests on an exceptionally rickety base—one that both the pragmatists and the crazies will have no hesitation blowing up.

Raphael Warnock needs all the support he can get to help our Democratic majority in the Senate. Chip in $5 today to his runoff campaign.

Morning Digest: Wisconsin’s 2023 Supreme Court race may decide fate of abortion and gerrymandering

Posted on by Daily Kos Elections

The Daily Kos Elections Morning Digest is compiled by David Nir, Jeff Singer, Stephen Wolf, Daniel Donner, and Cara Zelaya, with additional contributions from David Jarman, Steve Singiser, James Lambert, David Beard, and Arjun Jaikumar.

Subscribe to The Downballot, our weekly podcast

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Leading Off

● WI Supreme Court: With the conservative majority on the Wisconsin Supreme Court on the line in 2023—and with it the outcomes of future battles over fair elections and abortion rights—the contest to succeed retiring conservative Justice Patience Roggensack will likely be one of the most consequential elections in any state next year.

Wednesday was the campaign launch date for conservative Waukesha County Judge Jennifer Dorow, who recently finished presiding over the high-profile trial where Darrell Brooks was sentenced to life in prison for killing six people at last year’s Waukesha Christmas parade. Dorow joins a field that includes former Supreme Court Justice Daniel Kelly, who is also a conservative, and two liberal-aligned candidates, Dane County Judge Everett Mitchell and Milwaukee County Judge Janet Protasiewicz.

All candidates will compete on the same nonpartisan primary ballot on Feb. 21, and the top two contenders will advance to an April 4 general election alongside local elections throughout much of the state that day. Petitioning to get on the ballot starts on Dec. 1, and the filing deadline is Jan. 4.

Although Supreme Court candidates in Wisconsin don't have partisan labels on the ballot, the ideological fault lines have been clear in recent elections, which have looked very similar to partisan contests. One key difference this time, though, is that each side is fielding two candidates apiece, meaning either progressives or conservatives could snag both spots in the second round of voting.

To avoid such a lockout, both factions may try to consolidate around a single standard-bearer before the primary. One far-right billionaire is already signaling that he'll make his influence felt: Dick Uihlein, who along with his wife Elizabeth was the biggest GOP megadonor nationally in 2022, has indicated he'll spend millions backing Kelly.

The election will be pivotal, and abortion rights tops the list of reasons why. Most notably, the U.S. Supreme Court's reversal of Roe v. Wade earlier this year resurrected an 1849 Wisconsin law that makes it a felony to perform an abortion in almost all cases. Democratic Attorney General Josh Kaul, who narrowly won re-election in November, has filed a suit seeking to have that 19th century law ruled unenforceable, a case that will likely wind up before the state Supreme Court.

The court has also been central in the battle against GOP voter suppression efforts. In 2020, Kelly was ousted by liberal Judge Jill Karofsky in an election at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic that was plagued by exceptionally long voting lines due to the closure of most polling places. The court's conservative majority exacerbated the problem by blocking an executive order by Democratic Gov. Tony Evers to delay the election, but Kelly nonetheless lost by a wide 55-45 margin. More recently, the conservative majority ruled in favor of a ban on absentee ballot drop boxes following their widespread adoption in the 2020 elections due to the pandemic.

In addition to restrictions on voting, the court is also critical to the fate of Republican gerrymandering efforts. Heading into the current round of redistricting, Wisconsin's state government was divided, with Evers facing a legislature that Republicans dominated in large part thanks to their previous gerrymanders. When the two parties predictably deadlocked over drawing new congressional and legislative maps, the courts stepped in and took over the process, ostensibly with the aim of drawing neutral lines.

However, in another ruling along ideological lines, the court's conservative majority made up its own requirement that any new maps make only the minimum changes possible when compared to the previous maps, solely to restore population equality. Justice Brian Hagedorn, the lone conservative who is occasionally a swing vote, later sided with his three liberal colleagues to adopt new districts proposed by Evers because they moved fewer residents than GOP proposals did. However, the least-change requirement meant that even the maps proposed by the Democratic governor still heavily favored Republicans compared to their statewide vote share, effectively locking in much of the impact of the prior decade's GOP gerrymanders in all but name.

Wisconsin once again saw the dramatic effects of this rigged redistricting in action this year: Although Evers beat his GOP foe 51-48 and Republican Sen. Ron Johnson turned back his Democratic challenger 50-49, Republicans gained a two-thirds supermajority in the state Senate and fell just two seats shy of one in the Assembly. While Democrats have next to no hope of winning majorities so long as these districts stand, a more independent-minded court could overturn these maps for violating state constitutional protections and order the adoption of fairer maps that more accurately reflect Wisconsin's status as a longtime swing state.

The Downballot

● Why did Democrats do so surprisingly well in the midterms? It turns out they ran really good campaigns, as strategist Josh Wolf tells us on this week's episode of The Downballot. That means they defined their opponents aggressively, spent efficiently, and stayed the course despite endless second-guessing in the press. Wolf gives us an inside picture of how exactly these factors played out in the Arizona governor's race, one of the most important Democratic wins of the year. He also shines a light on an unsexy but crucial aspect of every campaign: how to manage a multi-million budget for an enterprise designed to spend down to zero by Election Day.

Co-hosts David Nir and David Beard, meanwhile, take a look at how turnout differed between Republicans and Democrats in 2022 (and why it's bad news for the GOP for 2024); why the Republican House majority is the most precarious it's been in a long time; how bonkers conspiracy theorists in a dark-red county in Arizona could flip two major races by refusing to certify their own votes; and a key special election coming up in Wisconsin that could allow Democrats to roll back the GOP's new supermajority in the state Senate.

New episodes of The Downballot come out every Thursday morning. You can subscribe on Apple Podcasts to make sure you never miss a show. You'll find a transcript of this week's episode right here by noon Eastern Time.

Georgia Runoff

● GA-Sen: Senate Majority PAC's Georgia Honor affiliate is deploying another $5.8 million in advertising for the final week of the runoff, and its new spot opens with the narrator proclaiming, "Herschel Walker's violence has hurt so many people." The commercial then plays clips or quotes of both the Republican's ex-wife and son saying he'd threatened to kill them, before the narrator reminds viewers, "An ex-girlfriend says Walker used threats of violence to force her to have an abortion."

Meanwhile, another SMP affiliate, Majority Forward, has announced that it's spending $11 million on a get-out-the-vote effort in partnership with America Votes. Democratic incumbent Raphael Warnock is also airing a minute-long ad starring former President Barack Obama, who opens, "Serious times call for special leaders."

Governors

● IN-Gov, IN-Sen: Politico's Adam Wren reported Wednesday that Sen. Mike Braun filed paperwork the previous day for a potential run to succeed his fellow Republican, termed-out Gov. Eric Holcomb. Braun, whose seat is also up in 2024, didn't quite commit to a bid to lead the Hoosier State, saying, "We'll talk to you down the road." Braun's chief of staff, though, sounded far more sure about his boss' plans, telling Wren, "Mike Braun has filed his paperwork to run for governor and will be making an official announcement of his candidacy very soon."

There's already plenty of talk about which Republicans could run to replace Braun in the Senate. A spokesperson for Rep. Jim Banks said last week, "He will strongly consider it if Sen. Braun runs for governor in 2024." Politico also reported back in September that fellow Rep. Victoria Spartz had told people she planned to campaign for an open seat.

It's rare for a first-term senator to leave after just one term, though Braun burned his bridges just after the election when he supported NRSC chair Rick Scott's failed effort to oust Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. It's also fairly unusual for members of the upper chamber to campaign for governor, where most states have term limits for their chief executives.

Indeed, the University of Minnesota's Eric Ostermeier last year found that just three sitting senators have been elected governor during the 21st century, with Kansas Republican Sam Brownback pulling this off most recently in 2010. Louisiana Republican David Vitter also tried this career switch in 2015, but the scandal-ridden senator lost to Democrat John Bel Edwards in a true upset.

House

● NJ-07: NJ Spotlight News this week asked outgoing incumbent Tom Malinowski if he planned to seek another bout against Republican Rep.-elect Tom Kean Jr., to which the Democrat responded, "I'm going to stay very very interested in the fate of our district, New Jersey, and the fight for democracy in America. I haven't decided how I'm gonna do that, but I'm certainly not going anywhere." Kean unseated Malinowski 52-48 in a constituency that Biden won 51-47.  

● VA-04: Several Democrats aren't ruling out running in the upcoming special election to succeed the late Rep. Donald McEachin, though they're understandably reluctant to say much this soon after the congressman's death. It also remains to be seen how Democrats will choose their nominee for this safely blue Richmond-based seat.  

Del. Lamont Bagby told 8News of McEachin, whom he's called a father or brother figure, "I think it's a little too soon to talk about it, but there is no secret I've always wanted to follow in my big brother's footsteps." Fellow Del. Jeff Bourne likewise relayed that he was still "trying to process the immense loss of such a wonderful father, husband and public servant."

State Sen. Jennifer McClellan, who succeeded McEachin in the legislature, responded, "We're mourning him right now and that is a conversation that probably will be had eventually but I'm not prepared to have it right now." A spokesperson for Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney also declared that a special election bid "is not on the Mayor's mind at all right now."

Finally, state Sen. Joe Morrissey, who has long been one of the most unreliable Democrats in the legislature in between two different stints as an independent, said, "It's way too premature for me to say yay or nay." Morrissey, though, sounded happy where he is as the key vote in Team Blue's 21-19 majority, adding, "I will say this. I love being in the [state] Senate. I love being able to do something substantive for Virginia, and I'm not so sure that being one of 435 members would allow me to be as effective."

Mayors and County Leaders

● Denver, CO Mayor: State Rep. Alex Valdez this week became the latest candidate to enter the ever-expanding April 4 nonpartisan primary to succeed Mayor Michael Hancock, a fellow Democrat who cannot seek a fourth term. "The next mayor must be able to bring progressives and moderates together to solve challenges," said Valdez, who previously founded a solar energy company.

Valdez, like several other contenders in what's now a 22 person-field, would be the second Latino elected to lead Colorado's capital and largest city; the first was Federico Peña, who won the first of his two terms in 1983. Valdez would also be the Denver's first gay mayor, a distinction he'd share with fellow state Rep. Leslie Herod.

Prosecutors

● Philadelphia, PA District Attorney: The state Senate will begin its trial of Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner, a leading criminal justice reformer whom the outgoing GOP majority in the state House voted to impeach two weeks ago, on Jan. 18, which is after the new legislature takes office. It would take 34 senators to hit the two-thirds majority needed to remove Krasner, and since Republicans will only control 28 of the 50 seats next year, they'd need at least six Democrats to side with them.

That's a tough task, though, especially since just one Democrat, Jimmy Dillon, sided with the GOP on Tuesday on a pair of votes setting the rules for the trial. Potentially complicating things further is the fact that Republican John Gordner resigned this week halfway through his term in order to become counsel to state Senate Interim President Pro Tempore Kim Ward.

McCarthy readies for floor showdown in Speakership bid as opponents dig in heels

Posted on (Updated by Emily Brooks

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) is expected to go to the House floor to fight for the Speakership as his GOP opponents signal their stance is hardening.

McCarthy this week started posturing for a floor showdown and turning up the heat on those withholding support.

On Newsmax on Monday, McCarthy warned that House Democrats could pick the Speaker if Republicans “play games” on the House floor on Jan. 3. He shot down a question from CNN on Tuesday on whether he would step down in the race for Speaker if he does not get support from 218 Republicans. And on Fox News Tuesday night, he warned that if he does not get a majority of Speaker votes, GOP investigative priorities cannot go forward.

“We can’t start investigating [Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro] Mayorkas. We can’t secure the border. We can’t lower the gasoline price by making us energy independent,” McCarthy said.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.)

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) speaks with reporters at the Capitol after returning from a meeting at the White House. (Greg Nash)

McCarthy won support from more than 80 percent of the House Republican Conference for the Speakership nomination. But 31 Republicans voted against him, and with the GOP winning a slim majority — around 222 seats to around 212 for Democrats, all of whom are expected to vote for Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) for Speaker — just a handful of GOP defectors on the floor could force multiple Speaker ballots or sink his bid.

A Speaker can be elected with fewer than 218 votes, as the nominee only needs support from a majority of those voting for a candidate. Vacancies, such as the seat for the late Rep. Donald McEachin (D-Va.), who died on Monday, absences and “present” votes lower the threshold that a Speaker will have to reach, and potentially give McCarthy some wiggle room.

But in an escalation, all five of the House Republicans who have explicitly said or strongly indicated that they will not vote for McCarthy on the House floor on Jan. 3 — Reps. Matt Gaetz (Fla.), Bob Good (Va.), Matt Rosendale (Mont.), Ralph Norman (S.C.) and Andy Biggs (Ariz.) — now say they will not vote “present” during the Speakership vote.

Biggs and Good clarified this week they will vote for an alternative candidate, taking the same position as Norman. Rosendale also said he will not vote “present” and said he could only vote for McCarthy under “extreme circumstances.”

“I’ve been a lawmaker since 2010. Never voted ‘present’ in my life. Don’t plan to start now,” Gaetz told The Hill.

Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.)

Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) has voiced opposition to McCarthy's Speakership bid in the past but has indicated that he has no plans to vote "present" during the vote. (Greg Nash)

“If Jan 3. turns into a shitshow, it will be a direct result of McCarthy denialism. He doesn’t have the votes. He never had the votes. It is time to move on and consider candidates who lack five objectors in our conference,” Gaetz said. “Kevin’s brinksmanship and stubbornness pose the greatest risk of empowering Democrats to impact the Speakership vote.”

Several other hard-line conservative lawmakers have declined to say how they plan to vote. 

House Freedom Caucus Chairman Scott Perry (R-Pa.) said he will not make his position public, and Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) has only said that no one has 218 votes for Speaker right now. Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) has declined to disclose her thinking on the Speakership, saying she is focused on the automatic recount in her election.

There is no viable GOP alternative to McCarthy for Speaker, making him the favorite to ultimately win the contest. But even some of McCarthy’s most vocal supporters, like Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), worry there might be multiple floor ballots for Speaker.

“I don’t want to see that happen. I can’t guarantee that not happening right now,” Greene, a relatively recent backer of McCarthy, said.

Biggs and Good say that they think there are around 20 “hard noes” on McCarthy. Greene said she thought the universe of those leaning against McCarthy is closer to 10 members.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) said she believes there are around 10 GOP members who plan to vote against McCarthy. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)

As those against McCarthy harden their stance, outside commentators are chiming in against the opposition. Conservative commentator Mark Levin on Tuesday called McCarthy’s opponents the “five boneheads.”

“They’re playing right into the hands of the Democrats, right into the hands of the establishment Republicans, right into the hands of the media,” Levin said.

Among the priorities of those withholding support are rules changes for the House GOP conference and House as a whole, with the Freedom Caucus proposing measures that would empower individual members. Biggs has criticized McCarthy for not promising to impeach Mayorkas, though McCarthy last week called on the Homeland Security secretary to resign or face GOP investigations and a potential impeachment inquiry.

Several members of the Freedom Caucus also appear to be preparing for a floor showdown. A group of hard-liners met with the House parliamentarian on Wednesday, Politico reported.

“We are all very interested in how this place operates, the rules that govern it, those kinds of things. You would certainly want us to be well informed, wouldn’t you?” Perry said of the meeting.

There is still time for McCarthy to change minds and forge deals. In mid-December 2018, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) struck a deal with several members who were opposed to her Speakership to win their support. 

McCarthy on Tuesday brought together leaders from several factions and caucuses in the House GOP — the “five families,” he later joked — to discuss rules change proposals and procedures for a House GOP majority.

McCarthy still has time to win over members opposed to his support. Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) struck a deal in mid-December 2018 with members previously opposed to her Speakership bid, helping to secure her victory. (Greg Nash)

McCarthy supporters Greene and Rep. Kevin Hern (Okla.), chair-elect for the Republican Study Committee, said they reached an agreement on a structure that would allow members to submit amendments for review if they meet a certain threshold of support among the GOP conference. In a Wednesday conference meeting, that threshold was set at 20 percent, Hern said.

The Wednesday meeting on making changes to internal House GOP rules was more cordial than before the Thanksgiving break, members said, with several proposals from the Freedom Caucus either passing or being withdrawn.

But one Freedom Caucus priority to ban earmarks, which were brought back in this Congress as “community project funding” after a decadelong ban, was overwhelmingly shot down in a secret ballot vote. Hern said that only about a quarter of the conference voted in favor of the measure.

Hern expects McCarthy to win the Speakership at the end of the day.

“Nobody worked harder than he has to get us to this point in both raising money, but going around the country. He’s done a great job,” Hern said.