A Parliamentary Congress or a Batshit One?
With the call of two Arizona and one California House race yesterday, it seems clear the Republicans will hold a majority in the House next year — though it’s not yet clear whether the Congress will start with a 219-216 split or a 221-214 split. Sometime today, Kevin McCarthy will win a majority of votes in the GOP caucus to be the presumptive Speaker next year, though not before defeating Andy Biggs, in what will be a test vote of conservative votes.
That’s when things get interesting.
To win today, McCarthy only needs a majority. To win in January, McCarthy needs a majority of the votes cast, presumably 218. So if the final count is 219-216, he can’t afford any defections.
Marjorie Taylor Greene and Jim Jordan have already endorsed McCarthy. Marge — one of the shrewder wingnuts — explained why she would support McCarthy.
If we don’t unify behind Kevin McCarthy, we’re opening up the door for the Democrats to be able to recruit some of our Republicans and they may only need one or two since we don’t know what we will have in the majority.
Since then, Don Bacon has announced that — if Republicans don’t get 218 votes on January 3 — he would consider backing a moderate Democrat as Speaker.
Even newly elected Long Island Republican George Santos, who is a fire-breathing MAGAt but who will be one of the most vulnerable Republicans in 2024, has said he wants the GOP to wait six months before they start launching witch hunts into Biden.
I know maybe four people (aside from Nancy Pelosi) who understand enough about rules of Congress to comprehend the full implications of such a close Congress. For some reason — possibly because they’ve spent the last six months writing beat sweeteners — the press seems to think the Freedom Caucus (led by Scott Perry, whose phone was seized as part of the January 6 investigation) will be in the driver’s seat going forward. In the short term, it’s just as likely that people like Don Bacon will be.
There are several possibilities: One is that McCarthy does get the votes on January 3 and presides over a Congress that reels from day-to-day, serially held hostage by the worse instincts, legal challenges, and health concerns of the members of both parties (the current Congress has lost 16 members over the last two years, six to death, and McCarthy has already said he’ll end proxy voting even as COVID continues to recur in new variants).
If that happens, expect many if not most things to get done via Discharge Petition, in which members can bypass the Speaker if they get 218 votes on something.
Also expect the most vulnerable Republicans to be susceptible to flipping parties if the fire-breathers in the party demand too much, particularly if the margin gets close to even.
Another possibility is that McCarthy doesn’t get the votes, giving Democrats a chance to cobble together a majority of the solid middle, led by someone other than Nancy Pelosi (non-members like Tim Ryan or Adam Kinzinger could be options, though Bacon has said that Liz Cheney is not one). Such a majority would need to command the votes of a larger number of people — probably closer to 240 — but it would also be more sustainable over the Congress.
And all this will be happening as the GOP fights among itself about whether it will continue down a Trumpist cult or become a political party again.
Thanks for the explanation, Marcy. I wonder how many members are “people like Don Bacon.”
You provide INCENTIVES to get more “Don Bacons.”
At current D seat projections, you would only need 4 or 3 Rs to join coalition. You GET THEM — guarenteed — by offering a place on leadership team. So, Q is not how many Rs are willing; question really is how many D seats do you start with.*
If speaker-nominee comes from among the 118th Congress (not Kinsinger, Ryan, or Cheney for example) and leadership team totals 6 in addition to speaker (divided 3D/3R), you need only 4 republicans, including moderate republican speaker-nominee, to come over. Under this scenario, Dems need at least 214 seats. If speaker nominee comes from outside of 118th Congress and Ds offer Rs only 3 leadership posts, they need a 215 seat starting place for Dems.
This assumes that the only Rs willing to join coalition are those who are offered a leadership post. Add Bacon “work together types” to the number of willing Rs and you decrease the number of seats Dems need to win to put together a successful coalition.
Dems could have fewer seats than 214 and still make a coalition happen. It just depends on how you get to 218. You can offer more leadership seats by unbalanced ratio (4 of 6) or upping number of leadership posts (10 posts, offer Rs 5).
*All of this assumes, of course, that all Ds unanimously vote for coalition. *This* you guarentee by requiring as part of coalition deal that any speaker/leadership team must guarentee a floor vote (not passage, just guarantee a floor vote *will* happen): Roe Codification and min age 21 for semi auto rifle purchases. Then, you leave it to progressives to decide if they want the possibility of getting SOMETHING out of 118th Congress or getting NOTHING. They’ve made the wrong choice before, so we’ll have to see.
Thank you for this.
Note: Given that over 45% of House Democrats are members of CPC, underestimating their votes seems like a mistake to me.
“There’s no question this will be the most progressive Democratic Caucus in decades,” Jayapal said, adding that they will have over 100 members in the 118th Congress compared to their current membership of 99.
https://www.axios.com/2022/11/13/pramila-jayapal-progressive-democrats-caucus-power
The House Minority Whip’s job will take on greater meaning, imho.
Yes, tje, thanks for this great explanation!
It seem uncredible that anyone in the Congress would seriously propose having a Speaker who was not an elected member of that same Congress. The historical record from the period prior to the Framing of the Constitution would lend one to believe that the Framers assumed that the Speaker would come from the Congress and not from outside it. Further, the complexities of the Speaker being shoehorned from outside the Congress/House of Representatives start to look too burdensome for the civil and legal frameworks and functions to handle at this late date without considerable churn and adjudications from all the constituent parts of the Federal system.
Here are a series of questions that put the above statement into a starker light.
1. Can a person not naturally born a United States citizen be appointed from outside the the Congress to be Speaker? Presumably this is true but also it weakens the office of the Speakership significantly if they cannot become President within the duties as outlined in the line of Presidential succession.
2. Does the Speech and Debate Clause in the Constitution apply to a Speaker who comes from outside the Congress if they were never appointed to that Congress by a State as a Representative?
3. Does a Speaker appointed from outside the Congress have to meet some or all the requirements to be a Representative in the Congress? For example, if they do not have to be a Representative credentialed by the Congress itself as being legitimately appointed from a state to a seat in the Congress, does the Speaker need to be 25 years old?
4A. Do all laws that are specific to Representatives in a Congress during term of office apply to a Speaker drawn from outside the Congress?
4B. What House (and Senate!) rules within the Congress would apply or not apply to Speaker appointed from outside the Congress that would have the opposite application if the Speaker were drawn from within the Congress?
4C. Would state laws and DC regulations, etc, governing US Representatives apply or not apply to such a Speaker? Which ones would or wouldn’t apply?
5+. Other legal and civil questions not specifically covered by the above points but which might arise or become abruptly apparent if drawing a Speaker from outside the body of elected Representatives were to suddenly be a thing.
The above questions arise because the frameworks built up over the past 200 years or so surrounding how the House Speakership and the Congress functions within a legal and civil framework have become more and more defined and codified. While it is possible that the Congress has the so-called right to appoint a non-Representative to be the Speaker of the House, it is not something that is likely to be attempted at this late in the history of our Republic without considerable head-spinning. Of course, there are some who would like to sweep that all away as if they were mere inconvenient cobwebs…but to what good end point would this truthfully result?
Actually, having a speaker from another party or an independent is not all that uncommen especially in Parliamentary democracies. It becomes useful as a tool to stop that person from directly voting on a proposition. Thus, if you have a hung Parliament (almost what you might have here) and you need a plurality of people voting one way, taking a vote away from the opposition can ensure passage of bills.
I’m not arguing that it isn’t handy, just that it ain’t likely to happen in the US any time soon unless there are circumstances more extenuating than the current slow burn crisis US society faces.
Thanks EW for presenting the fall out from our November elections.
While the GOP fights it out, consider Neal Katyal’s back up plan that might preclude Trump’s human rain delay tactics and McCathy’s plan to put a dagger in the J6 Committee’s recommendations to strengthen and improve the electoral process:
Transfer the J6 investigation to the potential 51-49 democratic controlled Senate
[FYI – Complaining about comments being stuck in moderation doesn’t help matters. We do actually have lives and need to sleep. /~Rayne]
Hi
I was not complaining just responding to the inquiry. In the future when I’m in moderation what should I do?
Thanks, Jack
[When we’re at the keyboard and able to audit traffic in the moderation bin your comments will be freed. If you continue to clutter threads with complaints instead of focusing on the topic, comments will be treated as spam. /~Rayne]
What complaints are you referencing?
I will hazard a guess it may be related to what Rayne, I and others here have tried to impress on you as to relentlessly demanding immediate politically derived, based and biased immediate prosecutions because of “your” perceptions of false, and political, timelines.
2nd request.
If possible, I would like to comment on BMAZ’s assessment.
Appreciate a reply.
Thanks,
Jack
BSL, you are a valued friend here and, by my recollection, have been here as long as we have. But we are tired of beating this dead horse with you. Everybody here, Marcy, me and Rayne, has been crystal clear, from the start, that prosecuting Trump and his inner circle was difficult and would take a LOT of time and effort to do successfully.
You, however, have been relentless in demanding immediate gratification with indictments and prosecutions. Just today I had to address a newbie who wandered in with the same baloney. They are coming out of the woodwork lately. Now you are not one of those newbies, but have been here all along and still want to keep flogging that dead horse. So, with apologies, no, we are not going back there.
Amid the always present, democrats in disarray stories, I do see occasional GOP in disarray commentary. If your “majority of the solid middle” actually transpired (and I’m doubtful), I can’t see how the GOP survives. The MAGA/Freedom Caucus/Tea Party folks wouldn’t stand for it. Another, different, party would have to form. The next few weeks will test the validity of the old canard “Democrats fall in love; Republicans fall in line.” I think they fall in line. I do see two wild cards: 1) the bomb throwers. Are they really prepared to go full on burn-it-all-down, Pol-Pot-start-over-again on their party? My answer is yes. 2) the “sane” ones who’ve complained in private and been gutless wonders in public so far. Are they ready to stand up and be seen and counted? My answer is no. I really think number one is more likely than number two. And if number two doesn’t happen, number one will only be a threat hanging out there to ensure it doesn’t happen. In short, McCarthy is either a leader in name only, dancing to the tune the bomb throwers call, or the bomb throwers put in their own person. The gutless wonders shut up and go along.
Zirc
I suspect that MGT and Jim Jordan took note of how the Senate operated this past year. While they wish they had a larger Freedom Caucus and large GOP majority, they also saw how Joe Manchin and Krysten Sinema were able to extract certain policies in a closely divided senate.
Of course, the downside for these two is that a closely divided house would not give that kind of power to them, but (as Marcy notes) to the most moderate voices left in the GOP House Caucus. Even so, they are smart enough to realize that if these voices choose to leave the GOP, that puts them back in the minority. Jordan, as the presumptive chair of the House Judiciary Committee, will do damn near anything to keep that gavel in his hand.
“I suspect that MGT and Jim Jordan took note of how the Senate operated this past year. While they wish they had a larger Freedom Caucus and large GOP majority, they also saw how Joe Manchin and Krysten Sinema were able to extract certain policies in a closely divided senate.”
Were they smart enough to understand the difference between their position on the far-right fringe and Manchin/Sinema’s position in the middle?
Manchin and Sinema are not “the middle,” not even close. In any other country they’d be considered right-wing politicians.
Sinema votes with Biden and Dems 90% of the time, that is a “right wing politician”? It is easy to dislike what Kyrsten has become, but keep a tad bit of perspective.
By European standards (presumably what @Just Some Guy meant by “any other country”?) Dems are a center-right party. So yeah, by those European standards, politicians on the Democratic right flank are “right-wing politicians.”
It’s worth remembering that “right wing” doesn’t necessarily mean someone who belongs in the Gaetz/Gohmert/Gosar/Greene bowl of nutcases. (Huh, just coincidence that all those names start with “G”? :) )
Thanks for the response. My comparison was not just about Europe, though, since South America has a majority of countries with left and center-left governments now, too.
In just about every other country, Biden would be a center-right politician. And he is still to the left of Sinema on climate change, corporate influence in politics, and probably a few other topics as well.
I’m not describing Manchin/Sinema as “right-wing” or Biden as “center-right” as pejoratives, either: those are just plain descriptions of their policy positions as compared with politicians in other countries.
Other countries are irrelevant. This is the US.
It was a comparison based on actual policy positions and their “placement,” if you will, in the broader political spectrum beyond just American politics which, as it is, does add “perspective.”
I disagree that it’s irrelevant.
At some point, Americans WILL wake up and realize that their politicians are in the complete thrall of private players, special interest groups and companies and demand some action. The Affordable Care Act is a perfect illiustration. Most civilized and advanced countries have serious public health care and their health systems don’t send them bankrupt. Here in Australia we pay 2% of our income for what we call Medicare. A visit to the doctor might cost you about US$25 if you can’t find one that will bulk bill you (no out of pocket). Insulin costs about US$4.50.
In the ‘real’ world (i.e. the REST of the Western world) Hillary was FAR to the right. Biden a little less so but still right of center as noted. And Bernie is no more a Socialist than any average European Social Democrat (and they ain’t Socialists).
The minute the Democrats work out how to message this to the American population better you’ll FINALLY see a turn to the ACTUAL left not the imaginary one the GOP keep railing about.
Thanks for your response.
Other countries are not irrelevant. Assuming they irrelevant are, acting like they are sounds like American exceptionalism and nationalist nonsense pretty much. The world will not stay afloat simply because “Americans” “American”. The US has some significant pull in the world but it is not infinite and it most certainly does not contain all the answers to the world’s problems. And always looking for US solutions within the US will often result in bad policy moving forward. Looking at how other countries handle themselves, how their politics work, and sometimes how things work better than here in the US is a good analytical approach, not one to be pooh-poohed because other countries bore one.
Thanks for your response as well. I agree that our country is in big trouble if we can’t look at ourselves within the broader context of, y’know, the rest of the planet.
Greene and Jordan endorsing McCarthy might help them to be on a committee where they can be bonded in the drug hate looking for a fight.
There are major ballot-curing efforts ongoing in close house races to get signature issues (for example) resolved and get all votes counted. Some efforts to get past recount margins, but here’s hoping that volunteer work bears fruit.
It would be tasty indeed to see Lauren Bobert get cured right out of CO-3. That kind of crazy doesn’t need to be rewarded with re-election.
Today, Jane Mayer retweeted this Nov. 12 observation from Steve VLADECK:
https://twitter.com/steve_vladeck/status/1591640016295694336
10:52 PM · Nov 12, 2022
And the Scotus really thinks we don’t know how political they are? SMH
Sadly, the idea some sort of mythical impartiality by the Philosopher Kings on the US Supreme Court is a nonsense that has only grown more and more. The current so-called “conservative majority” on the Court seem to be leaning more towards a committee of obnoxious schmoes at a sportsbar rather than the higher standard they want us to imagine they harken from.
I don’t think Don Bacon said he’d support a moderate Democrat. Here’s the quote from the article:
“ Moderate GOP Rep. Don Bacon of Nebraska told NBC News on Monday night that if the GOP Conference can’t agree on electing McCarthy or any other Republican as speaker on the House floor, then he would be willing to work with Democrats to elect a moderate Republican for the top post.”
It’s not a direct quote but that seems pretty clear.
Yeah. And I read this as a brush back pitch to people like Matt Gaetz who are seeking to mount a coup from the right, rather than actively seeking someone in the middle. If 4 or 5 Freedumb Caucus types try to insist on one of their own, he still has options they will hate worse than Kevin McCarthy.
I’m not so sure a parliamentary model will apply, because of the rabid nature of the MAGA cult and the ‘market share’ they hold in GOP primaries. Any deviation from orthodoxy will be summarily punished, but let’s watch what happens to Santos. There is a long term mindset among RWNJs that ‘conservatism can’t fail, it can only be failed’ which will IMHO preclude any radical ideas like bipartisanship.
As for the courtier press fresh off another hideous performance in the service of bothsidesism, they continue their desperate search for a rational Republican to put into the horse race scenario that sells ads. That’s why DeSantis got the gushing praise for winning deep-red and voter-suppressed FL as opposed to Gretchen Whitmer who beat Individual-1’s candidate in MI despite a bona fide kidnap attempt. Governor Whitmer also had sufficient coattails to get a majority in the state legislature as well as Ds winning all statewide offices.
Right on cue, Ted Cruz rips on lawlessness being caused by Biden appointees. Never mind the red states are per capita clearly worse and where was Uvalde, again? So, the idea that any sort of centrist ‘common sense’ movement will gain traction isn’t supported by evidence yet.
“There is a long term mindset among RWNJs that ‘conservatism can’t fail, it can only be failed…”
I don’t usually inhabit the right-wing crazysphere of publications but saw this today and you’re pretty spot on. It’s not that we’re wrong it’s that we can’t get enough of the other wrong people to vote for us:
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/its-still-about-the-base/
I think it is entirely possible that we will not have a Republican Speaker of the House with how close the split is going to be. More moderate Republicans that have become disenfranchised with the MAGA wing of the party could be turned off enough to help put a moderate Democrat into the Speaker’s chair.
One thing I haven’t bothered to look into is if there is a shift in political affiliation of Members of Congress between now and the end of their terms. What if the Democrats somehow end up in the majority? Could they replace the current Speaker with someone else if they become the majority?
Long ago and far away, we had a Speaker of Assembly named Willie Brown (who dated Kamala Harris at one point) who was able to retain the Speakership even though the chamber had flipped to the GOP (this was the 90’s and Prop 187 was in play). The GOP members that supported Brown were summarily primaried (and IIRC a couple were recalled too). I would expect any GOP members that go centrist to get the same treatment like Liz Cheney did. They love their seats too much to risk them.
Must have been the mid-90s, while I was in Texas.
I remember an interview with Willie Brown after that insurrection in the chambers. The reporter asked him if he was going to “share power” with the rebels since it was close. (As I recall, it was wild fight.)
Brown replied something to the effect of, “Hell no! I won.” There was more that I can’t recall, but it was clear that he thought it was an asinine question.
You can’t recall members of Congress, and as for primarying, success would depend on how red the district is and the mood of the GOP in 2024. If I were a GOP “moderate” contemplating supporting a Democrat for speaker, I’d be more worried about my family’s safety than being primaries.
[Thanks for updating your username to meet the 8 letter minimum. /~Rayne]
Speaker Trump? Hate Speech & Debate until 2024!
“Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) on Sunday suggested that some far-right House lawmakers could vote for former President Trump to be the next Speaker as an indication that House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) may not have the votes to be the next leader.”
Jesus. Can you imagine the procedural chaos?
I’m guessing Trump thinks that Robert’s Rules refer to chief justice John and the lengths he and the rest of the feckless FedSoc SCOTUS members will go to protect him while acting out their theocratic fever dreams.
Though not an incumbant moc, might it still complicate his prosecution if elected speaker? Not as a shield for past crimes but as another layer of obfuscational dynamics to leverage… Easy to imagine the chaos!
Sneaky procedural move…but, could benefit the Dems.
If a not-too-sizable freedom caucus votes against McCarthy, the D’s have the power to make him speaker anyway by voting “present”
Such a move reduces the number needed for a majority, thereby allowing the R votes that are a plurality, but not a majority, carry the day.
Of course, such a move would require some major concessions by McCarthy, which I’m sure would include promises to pass debt ceiling bills and other democratic priorities that moderate R’s can get behind. Maybe even a Dem chairman or 2, who knows?
Otherwise if the freedom caucus can’t/won’t get behind McCarthy, we are liable to see the newest reality TV show: American Conclave.
Minus the cool hats, of course.
Would McCarthy’s prohibiting on proxy voting would include live pairing, where members on opposing sides of a vote agree that one who attends announces the pair and votes “present?” Damn useful when someone is ill, attending a daughter’s wedding, etc. I don’t think members really want to give that up.
A compromise speaker could be a non-Member, but can’t think of a candidate who has the knowledge and temperament (never Trump – too much work).
The only work Trump would want to do as Speaker would be to create chaos and further destroy government institutions. The quickest way to do that would be to sabotage the raising of the debt ceiling. Is he still making his announcement today?
My money’s on ‘batshit’…
I simply can’t imagine that Jim Jordan, MTJ, Paul Gosar, and so on, are going to suddenly become reasonable, competent legislators now that the GOP will control the House for 2 years.
I’m all in on ‘batshit insane’…
Most of mine’s also on “batshit”—with a small hedge bet on “parliamentary” to hopefully keep me in coffee if I lose.
Edit: Apparently they’ve now officially nominated McCarthy:
https://www.npr.org/2022/11/15/1136811629/mccarthy-nominated-house-speaker-gop-republicans
Yeah, all signs still point to “batshit.”
We’re looking at a nonstop, two year long food fight…
I’m thinking that we are heading a rerun of The Impending Crisis crisis of 1859-60. The Democrats refused to allow anyone who’d endorsed the book by that name to be named Speaker. The crisis dragged on for rudderless months before a Republican was elected by one vote. See Bruce Catton’s The Coming Fury. From this distance, reading the Congressional Record from this time seems unintentionally hilarious despite the seriousness of the situation. I just hope that we avoid the crisis that came after The Impending Crisis crisis.
I am interested in how the Speaker idea would work. Let’s play philosopher for a moment and say Individual-1 is made Speaker. Aside from the verbal diarrhea of a limited vocabulary, would such a post potentially invoke protection under the Speech and Debate clause of the US Constitution? Individual-1 has no patience for details of managing (as opposed to ruling) a caucus and after the midterm elections he will not have full buy-in from everyone, but every R will be needed to keep him in the chair. I’m pretty sure someone tossed that out as an idea to create a firewall against his various legal liabilities.
OT, I did see the report about the missiles that hit a Polish farm, killing two. FWIW, I’m surprised it did not happen sooner given how the Russians have performed to date (and DoD is still getting info about this event). I don’t think the farm was the target, nor would the commanders be so unwise as to deliberately hit a NATO member knowing the hell we could unleash in very short order. If Poland was targeted, it would be one of the supply depots. It is possible that jamming caused the wayward flight, and sometimes missiles do that on their own (remember these are Russian weapons).
If I’m not mistaken, the Speaker of the House is 2nd in line to POTUS, no?
I’ve been wondering about this bit of ridiculous bat shittery too… does the J6 crowd think they’ve discovered the secret back door to the WH and they finally have a way to re-install Trump? Just impeach Biden, then Harris, and then the Speaker becomes POTUS!
This of course makes no sense at all and when that stopped the frothers from frothing?
The Eastmans and Giulianis of the world have already presaged this previously:
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/trump-house-speaker.html
The latest I have heard is that the missiles hit a grain processing facility in Poland, killing two. The facility is just over the border from Ukraine.
Barry McCaffrey thinks is was an error by the Russians, but it is notable that Biden did not go to the
gala dinner tonight. The press in Bali were told that “he had other things he had to do”. Lavrov was at the dinner.
Poland is saying…not a lot, but it “appears to be a Russian built missile” and they say it wasn’t launched from Russia – which may or may not be accurate.
It appears to be an anti-missile missile from Ukraine, but since the Russians were busy bombarding Ukraine with 100 missiles that day (still continuing) the Russians are responsible.
Trump as Speaker? LOL. The work/status ratio is wrong. If voted in, he’d never show up after the first day or do the work, so who would and to what ends? The idea is a brain fart.
Yes, entirely fartastic.
Indded it’s fartastic as bmaz said. Can you imagine exactly how hard the Speaker ACTUALLY works and then place The Donald there? Congress is probably in session before he gets out of bed from his all night tweet/truthstorms, then he’d need a dozen TVs set up next to the Speaker’s chair and call a recess at 10:00 A.M. four times a week so he could go play a round of golf! And that’s before we consider that he can barely read or put words together congruently.
He WOULD like that little gavel though. It makes him look ‘Presidential’.
I read Bacon’s comment as a threat to the Gaetz/Greene wing Bacon is in an interesting position. His district is basically split 50/50 (D/R) (Biden got an electoral vote there in 2020). The fact that he’s an ex-AF general in the district that’s home to the Strategic Air Command is probably the only thing that put him over the top. He’s my top prospect for pulling a Jim Jeffords (switching parties and handing control of the chamber to the other party). If the local Dem establishment would take him, I’m pretty sure he could win the seat as a Dem in 2024.
Today’s post at Steven Schmidt’s substack blog has a headline for the ages: “Lord of the Flies in the House Republican Conference.”
Jack Merridew, the choir boys and the conch.
Good times!
One thing I’m curious about is the ~155 Congress members (CMs) who participated in the coup attempt. With the addition of Democratic Party Governors, are there any vulnerable (R) Senators who might lose their seats and can be replaced by (D) Governors? And, although the DOJ is not political, what are the chances that at least a handful of CMs who participated in the coup wind up in jail or prison? It’s a thought that both intrigues and frightens me…what with the anticipation of a bunch of kangaroo impeachment committees looming…
What is the path forward? Two years of tough sledding through gridlock caused by the GOP House? Then, two years hence, the Senate races look bleak for Dems. Is there a way the Dems can will enough House races in 2024 to capture that body and stalemate the GOP? Or are we on the road to perdition?
It depends on how honestly the media reports the antics of the House majority. I have my doubts, and FWIW, the gerrymandering that delivered the House to the GQP would still be in place.
I wish I had better news but the reporting is where the opportunity to break the GQP hold will be found.
What is the “GQP”? Is there a reason for that junk? Come on, stop, that is neither cute nor helpful.
Will the House GOP overplay it’s hand? Of course.
Will Sotomayor and Kagan resign in the next year or so to allow Biden to appoint young successors before Mitch & Co take over the Senate?
Given that they are 68 and 62 respectively I wouldn’t have thought so.
No.