Table Of Content
- Many O.C. residents deny Trump election results, potentially swaying key races, poll finds
- McCarthy, All Carrots and No Sticks, Grinned His Way to the Speakership
- Law that ended single-family zoning is struck down for five Southern California cities
- What happened when tempers really got out of control on the House floor.
The political future of the 57-year-old will once again be at stake as GOP lawmakers decide whether he should be elected as House speaker. “Local government has less control under these bills,” says Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg, a former leader of the state Senate. As a legislator, Steinberg pushed through some of the earliest legislation that attempted to incentivize more urban housing near public transportation. GOP leadership announced that the House would stay in session until Saturday to consider the bills. The list of the 10 speakers who served in the job longest includes just one Republican (and in the ninth slot at that).
Many O.C. residents deny Trump election results, potentially swaying key races, poll finds
After a mob of Mr. Trump’s supporters, believing the election was rigged, stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6 and injured about 150 police officers, Mr. Johnson condemned the violence. But he defended the actions of congressional Republicans in objecting to Mr. Biden’s victory. A bloc of Republicans had objected to the speaker bid of Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio, the hard-right co-founder of the Freedom Caucus, because of his role in helping lead Mr. Trump’s efforts to overturn the election.
McCarthy, All Carrots and No Sticks, Grinned His Way to the Speakership
The outgoing speaker will usually join the successor at the speaker's chair, where they will pass the gavel as a nod to the peaceful transition of power from one party leader to another. This time around, that will be Pelosi, the California Democrat who held the gavel for the last four years. Choosing a speaker will be the first vote the House will take before new and returning lawmakers are even sworn into office on Tuesday. As set out under the Constitution, the session will begin at noon on Jan. 3, with all the lawmakers seated on the House floor and members from both parties joining in the vote for speaker.
Law that ended single-family zoning is struck down for five Southern California cities
Members often liven up the proceedings by shouting or standing when casting their vote. If members are absent or if some vote present instead of supporting a candidate, that decreases what the majority vote needs to be. The House is intended to have a total membership of 435, so a majority is usually 218. The vote itself would be done “viva voce” — meaning members stand when their names are called by a reading clerk and verbally announce whom they are supporting.
Speaker Johnson warns that effort to oust him ‘would be chaos in the House’ - CNN
Speaker Johnson warns that effort to oust him ‘would be chaos in the House’.
Posted: Wed, 10 Apr 2024 07:00:00 GMT [source]
What happened when tempers really got out of control on the House floor.
Proponents of earmarks argue that they allow rank-and-file lawmakers to deliver for their constituents and smooth the process of keeping the government running, by giving members of Congress a tangible reason to vote in favor of spending bills. But Mr. McCarthy’s detractors, hard-line Republicans who have railed against federal spending, have demanded a commitment to crack down on the practice as a prerequisite for supporting him. Many are skeptical that McCarthy will reach a majority to become speaker on the first ballot. Should he come up short, it is likely the clerk will repeat the roll call vote several times until he is able to garner a majority. McCarthy is expected to be making concessions and compromises with the holdouts until the moment he is able to grasp the gavel.
House to send articles of impeachment against Mayorkas to the Senate
Mr. Emmer’s demise was the latest evidence of the seemingly unending Republican dysfunction. He began the day with a scant victory, winning an internal party nominating contest by a vote of 117 to 97 over Mr. Johnson. He has also opposed continued funding for the war in Ukraine, which has emerged as a bitter fault line in the G.O.P. and in the spending battles that any new speaker will have to navigate in the coming days. Representative Mike Johnson, a little-known social conservative from Louisiana, emerged on Tuesday night as the latest contender for the post after Representative Tom Emmer of Minnesota, the No. 3 House Republican, dropped his bid only hours after securing the nomination. Mr. Emmer’s downfall followed a swift backlash from the right, including former President Donald J. Trump, that left his candidacy in shambles and the G.O.P. as divided as ever.
Even by the heated standards of the tensions that flared among House Republicans during their four-day push to elect a speaker, what happened on the House floor around 11 p.m. Probing “the weaponization of the F.B.I.” as McCarthy just mentioned, was a big priority of the hard-right flank of defectors. Chip Roy of Texas said earlier tonight that the defectors won an assurance that McCarthy would launch a select committee investigating the “weaponization of government” that would receive “the kind of budget and the kind of staffing” that the Jan. 6 select committee received.
Mr. McCarthy’s supporters have bemoaned the drawn-out process and even praised Democrats for staying united despite their ideological differences. Instead, he waited until the end of the roll call to vote “present.” Republicans cheered, but it was not enough. By Friday afternoon, Mr. McCarthy had won over 15 of the 21 Republicans who had defected, and he pressed into the night for more converts, a remarkable turnabout for a man who only days before appeared to be headed for defeat. His path was narrow until the end; only a few of the six remaining holdouts were seen as open to negotiating further. Yet Mr. McCarthy, who was willing to endure vote after humiliating vote and give in to an escalating list of demands from his opponents to secure the post, denied that the process foretold any dysfunction.
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He once shared the story with a mostly Democratic audience at a congressional hearing on slavery reparations, and he was surprised to hear boos as he spoke, he later recounted to the Council for National Policy, an assembly of conservative donors known for its strict secrecy. The views are sharply at odds with those of most Americans, according to opinion polls that have found the public is broadly supportive of gay rights. Mr. Johnson’s abrupt rise to the speaker post this week in the depressed and divided House Republican conference underscores the rightward lurch of the G.O.P., which dumped his more mainstream predecessor, Representative Kevin McCarthy of California. A social conservative, Mr. Johnson played a leading role in recruiting House Republicans to sign a legal brief supporting a lawsuit seeking to overturn the results. Johnson said Republicans would "dispense with all of the usual ceremonies and celebrations” and get to work. “You’re going to see an aggressive schedule in the days and weeks ahead,” he said.
Rayburn's successor, Democrat John W. McCormack (served 1962–1971), was a somewhat less influential speaker, particularly because of dissent from younger members of the Democratic Party. During the mid-1970s, the power of the speakership once again grew under Democrat Carl Albert. The Committee on Rules ceased to be a semi-independent panel, as it had been since 1910. Moreover, in 1975, the speaker was granted the authority to appoint a majority of the members of the Rules Committee. Meanwhile, the power of committee chairmen was curtailed, further increasing the relative influence of the speaker.
Last call came, before the Republicans voted to go to a 15th ballot instead of adjourning — an unexpected opportunity for another viewing party. Former President Donald J. Trump made a crucially timed call to Representative Matt Gaetz on Friday night after the Florida congressman voted “present” and sunk Kevin McCarthy’s 14th effort to be elected House speaker. The vitriolic attack on the top candidate for speaker from a member of his own party led some of Mr. McCarthy’s supporters to walk off the House floor while he spoke.
On Wednesday, Mr. Johnson was toiling to help Republicans turn the page from the chaos of the past few weeks. He said there would be none of the typical celebrations that accompany the election of a new speaker. Mr. Johnson’s hallmark in Congress has been combining his hard-line views with a gentle personal style. That was on display on Wednesday, when he vowed to try to find common ground with Representative Hakeem Jeffries of New York, the minority leader. On Nov. 8, 2020, Mr. Johnson was onstage at a northwest Louisiana church speaking about Christianity in America when Mr. Trump called. Mr. Johnson had been in touch with the president’s team on his myriad legal challenges seeking to overturn the results, “to restore the integrity of our election process,” according to a Facebook post by Mr. Johnson recounting the exchange.
And by the end of the day, with the majority of the detractors finally coalescing around Mr. McCarthy, Mr. Gaetz appeared to have softened his tone. The protracted fight foreshadowed how difficult it would be for him to govern with an exceedingly narrow majority and an unruly hard-right faction bent on slashing spending and disrupting business in Washington. The speakership struggle that crippled the House before it had even opened its session suggested that basic tasks such as passing government funding bills or financing the federal debt would prompt epic struggles over the next two years. Every lawmaker voting “present” lowers the overall tally needed to reach a majority. Once the House is in a quorum — meaning the minimum number of members are present to proceed — the speaker nominee from each party will be read aloud by the respective leaders before a roll call vote to elect a new speaker. The clerk then appoints lawmakers from each party as tellers to tally the votes.
Johnson has gained stature and won bipartisan praise for letting the whole House vote on the aid package. He also got strong support in the Senate, where even an outright majority of Republicans voted for the aid on Tuesday. But this time around several Democrats have indicated they would cross the aisle to support Johnson and frustrate Greene & Co. if it came to a vote. Democratic leaders have indicated they are open to this, and it essentially repeats the strategy that allowed Johnson to pass the Ukraine portion of the aid bill earlier this month.
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