Reports are coming out that Kevin McCarthy has moved into the Speaker’s office. This is despite reports that 10-15 GOP Congressmen and women are not expected to vote for him on the first ballot tomorrow.
Kevin McCarthy has a lot of baggage to overcome to win the Speaker of the House. He famously questioned in a phone call released by MSNBC whether those who protested the stolen election in 2020 could have their Twitter accounts removed.
At the same time, McCarthy said that the only discussion that he would have with President Trump is to encourage him to resign. This was how McCarthy reacted after a million Americans showed up on Jan 6 to the Washington Monument to protest the stolen 2020 election.
Because of these and numerous other actions, McCarthy reportedly does not have enough votes to win Speaker of the House. McCarthy needs 218 votes and the GOP holds 222. With 10-15 GOP representatives expected to not vote for McCarthy for speaker, he is in jeopardy of winning the Speakership.
In a piece at CNN, McCarthy is reportedly trying to win over GOP Reps by offering to change Pelosi’s rules for a vote to remove the Speaker.
National File reports on the CNN piece by Melanie Zanona.
Predictably, Zanona’s article neglected to mention that the offer McCarthy actually endeavored to keep a major measure of Nancy Pelosi’s House Rules.
At issue is the critical “Motion to Vacate the Chair,” a parliamentary rule that has been in place since Thomas Jefferson’s time, that allows a single member of the House to introduce the topic of a fifty-fifty up or down vote on the tenure of the occupant of the “chair” — The Speaker of the House.
Zanona neglected to include the fact that a single member could file the motion, but that it would not be privileged — meaning, that any Member can offer such a motion at any time and is subject to an immediate vote. Effectively, that means Pelosi and Steny Hoyer’s Rules Package took away autonomy from the Democrat conference to remove her.
Instead of covering this particular rule, Zanona attempted to gaslight CNN’s audience by convincing them that McCarthy was doing House conservatives a favor by reducing the number required to file the motion from fifty — a fictional number, which has never been in place under Republican majority — to five members.
A requirement of five members to file the motion to remove the House Speaker is 500% greater than the number required previously, when Donald Trump was President and Paul Ryan was the House Speaker.
Apparently, the rule that McCarthy is offering for GOP votes was in place for years before crooked Pelosi changed it.
Apparently, McCarthy must believe that he has to the votes for Speaker, because it was reported moments ago that he has set up his shop in the Speaker’s Office.
The next few days should be interesting.