No. of Recommendations: 3
Republicans just lost another House member via resignation, whittling their lead to “one.”
If they lost another, then presumably they would be in a tie with Democrats. Who, then, is “Speaker of the House”? Who decides on committee assignments and the like? Anybody know how that would work?
No. of Recommendations: 12
Not totally sure how a "tie" would be broken without one part or the other eventually caving and voting for the Speaker candidate of the other party. Normally there cannot be a tie with 435 seats but vacancies can result in an even number of seats in play and this potential paralysis.
That makes Representative Gallagher's decision to exit more interesting. He announced his resignation now but won't actually leave until April 19. By doing that, his actual vacancy occurs AFTER the cutoff period in Wisconsin state law for holding an election to fill the seat on an interim basis. Instead, the seat will remain vacant and will be filled by the general election in November and remain vacant until the new Congress is sworn in on January 2, 2025. Gallagher clearly understood this when picking his exit date.
It's almost as if he recognized that the best thing he could do was not only to lower the Republican seat count, making their majority more tenuous than ever but to do so in a way that it could not just be filled by another potential MAGA cult member. I wonder how many other states have similar cutoff points looming. It would only take two more incumbents to reach that level of frustration to turn the House over.
Of course, at this point that still might not cure immediate problems with getting vital legislation passed like Ukraine aid. At the same time all of this drama engulfs the House, Joe Manchin announced he will not vote for any judicial appointment that doesn't have at least ONE Republican Senator voting in favor. Manchin's bizarre way of trying to encourage "bi-partisanship." Of course, the likely intent behind this announcement was to squelch commentary that is floating in Democratic circles trying to encourage Sonia Sotomayor to retire so Biden can appoint a younger left-leaning Justice rather than risking the seat being appointed by Trump if he wins in November and she needs to retire later. With Manchin publicly adopting this policy, any dream of trying to "protect" left-leaning seats on the Supreme Court dies when the Senate is evenly divided. It seems likely he will adopt similar obstructionist tactics on everything else, essentially negating the current "soft majority" held by the Democrats in a 50/50 tie plus the VP as tie-breaker. The VP only comes into play with a true 50/50 vote and Manchin is saying he won't be #50 if there isn't at least one R in the Yea column of any vote. He's clearly looking out for retired Joe and his future corporate benefactors.
WTH
No. of Recommendations: 1
Power sharing.
Splinter groups.
Castes combining forces where convenient.
You know, 3rd world traits. (as someone on TMF long predicted)
The best part.....
One day, you people will look back and say "the 2020s were the good ol days"
Continue on....
