Subject: Re: Speaker vote
Any REPUBLICAN speaker is trapped by the following series of conditions:

1) a 10% portion of the Republican caucus has a militant position on debt when a Democrat is President, fighting any budget that improves healthcare, social services, etc.

2) a 10% portion of the Republican caucus (not necessarily the exact same 10% as #1) has a isolationist, anti-military position when a Democrat is President, except for Israel because -- frankly -- many don't care about Israel per se, they just believe Israel has to exist in order for their doomsday religious prophecies about the Rapture to come true, which by the way involves anyone not tight with Jesus going to Hell. An evangelical "Christian Zionist" is not a friend of any Israeli or Jew.

3) Republicans tend to stick to the Hastert Rule, a parliamentary rule of thumb that says a speaker should not / will not bring legistlation to the floor of the House for a vote unless it gains majority suppport within the speaker's majority party.

4) The House is still operating under rules adopted at the beginning of this Congress that allow one vote to call for the ouster of the speaker and there are at least five Republican Representatives with a proven track record of being willing to exercise that option. It isn't clear if this rule will be changed after selection of a new speaker in this session or if the House will have to live with this threat until the end of the term.

At this point in time,

* the US urgently needs a budget deal to avoid a government shutdown in November
* the US urgently needs to provide additional funding for Ukraine to continue wearing down Russia
* the US urgently needs to provide funding to support Israel and maintain air defense infrastructure

Those are three issues with distinct constituencies within the Republican party who are prone to viewing solutions for each of them as mutually exclusive. An "acceptable" budget solution might include DRASTIC cuts to medicare, SNAP, etc. Or NO support for Ukraine. Or NO support for Israel. Any NO on one of those might trigger rejection by other factions or might trigger rejection by the Democratic-controlled Senate or White House.

Jim Jordan has ZERO ability to find common ground among any of these factions. He is demonstrably part of these zero-compromise factions on many of these issues and has zero history of rational policymaking leadership or compromise. I can't think of a single Republican in the House who seems to want to lead that has any of these skills.


WTH