This (from the Hill via NoMoreMisterNiceGuy) isn’t getting as much attention as I thought it would:
He (Republican Congressman Kevin McCarthy) suggested that if that happens some Democrats might not support Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) to be speaker, and might instead opt to vote with Republicans to pursue their priorities.
… “Why do you think that if we don’t win 39, we still couldn’t be able to get speaker?”
His musings suggest the GOP is looking at options to make now-House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) the speaker of the House by pursuing a coalition with Democrats….
When I was in California, Willie Brown convinced someone a Republican in the State Assembly to switch allegiances and support Brown for speaker…which allowed Brown to remain speaker. And there was that debacle in New York State where two Democratic State Senators switched allegiances and made a Republican the Senate Majority Leader (temporarily).
Is there any precedent for this at the federal level? Or is this guy smoking tea?
Update. I forgot about Jeffords. Duh.
But McCarthy suggests that this could be done with 5 or so Democrats switching allegiances. Is there any precedent for anything on that scale?
Sly
James Traficant.
Nuff said.
General Stuck
Smoking tea, or crack. Won’t happen at the national level.
Mike G
I believe nutcase house rep Jim Traficant (D-Ohio) voted for the Repig for speaker a few years ago as some kind of ‘protest’. The Repigs had the majority at the time anyway so it made no effective difference.
Cain
er why would they work with republicans? are they having a wonderful relationship now where republicans meet you half way and get stuff done? Seriously? I’m sure said democrats will get their stuff done too wtih republican help.
cain
General Stuck
Luckily, Trafficant is one of a kind nut. And now a convicted felon, luckily.
fucen tarmal
if its is close, i could see a few being pursuaded, by things like safe seat priviledges, perhaps gop cash to primary obama, who knows…it depends on how close they are…those switching will need hella payola and even the gop can only do that for a few.
Zifnab
With this batch? I don’t even know anymore. There are a few Blue Dogs I would have put up to it back in the Republican hey day, but it’s such a cardinal sign of the party to vote against your leadership that it would be tantamount to switching parties anyway. If you plan to vote for the Republican leadership, why even keep the (D) in front of your name? Just run as a Republican, or at least an Independent. You basically sign away any chance of getting anywhere near a committee chairmanship or other Congressional perk.
I’d predict McConnell taking charge of the Senate before a minority House won the Speakership.
General Stuck
Though it is possible if dems ended up with a one or two seat advantage, the wingers talking a couple of blue dogs into switching parties. That has happened before.
Sentient Puddle
Traficant’s vote for Hastert wasn’t anywhere close to being the deciding vote though, right? From my understanding, it was more like “Well, the Republicans have the speakership, so fuck it.”
I don’t think there’s any precedent on the national level for something like the minority party coming up two or three seats short, but convincing a few of the majority party to flop.
Corner Stone
Anybody else read the George Packer article in The New Yorker? It’s a little long but interesting, IMO. Reinforces some of the things I had considered true. Thought this was funny:
Filibusters and obstructionists
Who the hell do you think they are talking about? GOS? RedState?
Anonymous At Work
There is precedent, but nothing where the person switched votes while remaining in an opposing party. Sen. Jeffords (R/I-VT) left the GOP to become an “Independent” aligned with Democrats; he did not align his vote with Democrats while staying in the GOP.
House caucuses are such that there would be disciplinary reprisals.
Rob
Not while remaining in the party. But to switch parties or to leave the party? Jim Jeffords just did it 9 years ago.
NCProsecutor
With a really close election in November, a few abstentions by some Blue Dogs could tip the balance. Might happen.
MikeJ
This is an attempt to get Dems to start accusing each other of being a switcher, and if they get lucky, have some dumb ass “independent” Democrat say, “I don’t vote for the party, I vote for the man blah blah blah.”
It doesn’t cost a thing and nobody will ever call McCarthy delusional. Dems are such a disorganized pack of prima donnas that you never know what you’ll get when you turn a squirrel lose in the room so what the fuck?
Note that if you reversed it and said a Republican might vote for Pelosi within 15 minutes there would be 432 identically worded press releases about how we need to cut taxes on the rich and bomb Iran. It would start with just the republicans issuing them, but the Dems would join in soon enough.
Bruce (formerly Steve S.)
It’s hard to imagine Blue Dogs abandoning a party that carefully crafts compromises that address their concerns in favor of a party that is heading in lockstep toward extreme rightism, but who knows. If they do vote for Boehner will Obama and Pelosi claim that they are with the party on everything except that one tiny issue?
jimBOB
Hey, remember Parker Griffith? Switched at the end of 2009 to GOP, was promptly primaried and defeated by the teatards since he wasn’t genuine enough.
It’s not a dynamic that encourages party-switching.
YAFB
Doug, just to nitpick, not entirely insignificantly–it’s No More Mister Nice Blog, not NoMoreMisterNiceGuy.
Napoleon
@jimBOB:
Bingo, any one who switches is a dead man walking, and its even worse if they do not switch parties at the same time because no one will vote for them in the next election.
The Moar You Know
No, but the president is a Negro.
The payoff might be massive for any Blue Dog who helps put President Obama is his place.
Kyle
Unless you’re Lieberman (Likud-Jerusalem) in which case the gutless Dems will bend over backwards to kiss your ass and let you keep all your committee posts after you shit on them by campaigning for McWalnuts/Palin, run as an Independent after losing the Dem primary, and be an all-round backstabbing douchebag.
This is why the gutless senate Dems can’t hold onto power. Lieberman should have been politically gutted like a fish years ago. Way to support party cohesion, dumbasses – you just posted a neon sign that says “Urinate on me and I’ll love you more”.
Bob Loblaw
The question isn’t Pelosi losing her chair to Republicans, but being shunted sideways to the Majority Leader in favor of a more blue doggy Speaker (Hoyer I presume). If the caucus only has 220 or so members, and the Blue Dog Caucus could hold the Speakership hostage. And don’t think the White House and the Senate wouldn’t be secretly thrilled at the prospect.
Fortunately, the matter is academic. The GOP won’t make nearly those gains in the House. They went and got all teabaggy instead.
patroclus
There are several historic examples. The most famous is when they dumped Speaker Joe Cannon with Democrats and progressive Republicans about a century ago. In addition, in 1923, the progressive Republicans in the Senate banded together with the Dems for the purpose of committee chairmanships. Then, in the 50’s, Wayne Morse more or less did it all off his own bat in the closely-divided Senate. Recent examples are slimmer, but Ralph Hall notoriously declined to vote for Tip O’Neill once when he was a Dem.
The Moar You Know
@Anonymous At Work: The sternly worded letters that seem to be the Democratic stock in trade at the moment are sure to be a deterrent to…
I can’t go on. You gotta be kidding. The Democrats have utterly and totally forgotten how to do reprisals, or discipline, or anything that remotely resembles party unity.
DanF
What if you vote against the speaker, and she gets job anyways? No pork for you. It’s a high risk, low reward scenario IMHO.
Now if we were in the Senate, a vote against the Democratic leadership might just translate into a chairmanship – just ask Joe Lieberman.
Zifnab
@Kyle:
That was when Lieberman was magic vote number 60. It was in the Senate. And it was a very cowardly move, no doubt. I’m sure Lieberman could have put his back up and sided with Republicans on filibuster there-after. But then what? He’s already a prissy little prima dona. It would change little, except to solidify his retirement in 2012.
patroclus
I should add that they didn’t remove Cannon as Speaker in March 1910 – what they did was remove him from his dual position as Chairman of the Rules Committee, which, in effect, gave him iron-clad control over the House. After numerous delays and House “filibusters,” Cannon finally rules George Norris’s resolution out of order, which was then overturned by the full House.
Immediately thereafter, Cannon demanded a new vote on whether to retain him as Speaker, which he won, but stripping him of his Rules position effectively extablished a more Democratic House for the remainder of that Session.
Davis X. Machina
There were multiple party changes in the House in the ’80’s — Dixiecrats crossing over, mostly, and Reaganolaters.
patroclus
At that time, Cannon also possessed the power to appoint all Members of all Committees, including those of the Democrats. So, if you antagonized him, he would just not appoint you to a meaningful committee. In particular, reprisals were aimed mostly at progressive Republicans like Norris but Champ Clark and the Dems wanted to curb the unbridled power that Cannon wielded not only over the full House but also each party caucus.
A semi-relevant example also occurred following the 1930 election. Hoover didn’t call for a special session so the regular session wasn’t scheduled to commence until late November 1931. In the year+ interim, 14 members (including Speaker Longworth) died, so the original slim Republican majority was converted into a 3-vote Dem majority by virtue of special elections. Until the Kleberg election clinched it, there was a LOT of talk about progressive Republicans switching sides – this didn’t end up happening, but it quite well could have.
PopeRatzy
Actually, Willie went to the lowest ranking Republican in the Assembly and present him with the opportunity to become Speaker of the Assembly. The Republicans at that time had a single seat majority, so the a single Republican could essentially elect himself Speaker. The teeth gnashing histrionics by the Republicans at the tactic was hilarious.
It got better when the Republican resigned as Speaker, Willie went to the woman who was the 2nd lowest ranking Republican and did it again.
“In case you thought the first time was a fluke”
BobS
@Kyle: I hate the little prick as much as anyone, but singling out Lieberman for his lockstep representation of everything Israel is unfair when the entire US Congress, including many ‘progressive’ stalwarts like Wiener and Franken, should be subtitled ‘Likud West’ (in fact, that’s probably an insult to the Likud, where the latest Israeli attack on a neighbor or IDF murder of an unarmed American citizen generally earns a sterner rebuke from at least one or two members).
Mnemosyne
@Cain:
My guess: Nancy is making them work too hard with all of this legislation and debate when they could be doing fundraisers and meeting with lobbyists instead.
Zuzu's Petals
@The Moar You Know:
In California the GOP Assembly Member who voted for Brown for Speaker was promptly recalled.
Of course Brown rewarded him with a job when he became mayor of San Francisco the next year.
Linda Featheringill
It looks to me like some Republican finally did the math and realized that taking back the House is not likely. Therefore, he has moved on to the next Stage of Grief, negotiation.
If this is the case, he will eventually realize that The Latest Plan won’t work either.
Poor baby. The ability to do math does not guarantee happiness.
Zuzu's Petals
@PopeRatzy:
No, DougJ was right.
When the Repubs got a one-vote majority in 2004, Brown convinced Repub Paul Horcher to vote for him for Speaker. Horcher was recalled and replaced with a more “loyal” Repub.
Brown subsequently convinced Repub Doris Allen to run, and Repub Brian Setencich after her. They were elected with the help of the Dem minority – of course Brown was the de facto Speaker. Allen was recalled and Setencich was booted out after Brown resigned to become mayor of SF. Setencich was primaried out in the next election.
The GOP does/did not screw around with its reprisals.
(Setencich also got a job with Mayor Brown, but was eventually convicted of tax evasion.)
Nick
If I remember correctly, Republicans won a one-seat majority in the California Assembly in 1994 and Brown got a Republican, Doris Allen, to elect him Majority Leader, while she (the Republican) was speaker because she was pissed at the GOP for not supporting her in a State Senate primary. When she was recalled, he got another Republican (Brian Setenech) to serve as Speaker. Then eventually he got elected Mayor of San Francisco, said fuck it and the GOP was able to reclaim the majority with their guy (Curt Pringle) as Speaker, but he only served until Democrats won back the body in 1996.
Zuzu's Petals
@Zuzu’s Petals:
2004=1994.
Oops.
FlipYrWhig
I can almost picture this happening — but not to benefit John Boehner. I can see it happening as the result of a two-pronged coup between the Blue Dogs and the younger Republican deficit hawks (like Chaffetz and Schock), resulting in something like a Paul Ryan speakership. It would flatter the self-regard of the House’s would-be intellectuals; the BroderBrooks contingent would be orgasmic; and it would suck spectacularly.
Vadranor
The Republicans had already taken the House in 1994, but they were able to pad their margin when five Southerners switched parties after the election:
Jimmy Hayes (LA)
Greg Laughlin (TX)
Billy Tauzin (LA)
Nathan Deal (GA)
Mike Parker (MS)
With the resignation of Deal to run for governor og Georgia, none of these guys are still in Congress.
DickSpudCouchPotatoDetective
Pelosi has presided over one of the great periods of advancement of the progressive model of government in our history.
Her reward is to be disposable? Because a small army of liars and lunatics and potatoheads don’t like the progress we are making? To replace her with a guy who refers to CBO reports and “just a bunch of numbers?”
I don’t think so. If we hold the seats, she holds the gavel. This thing here is just fiddle faddle.
scarshapedstar
In the House? Oh please.
Now I could definitely envision Nelson, Bayh, Conrad, and Landrieu voting for Mitch McConnell…
stickler
Nancy Pelosi did not get to be the first female Speaker of the House by learning how to be disposable. She’s tough as nails and comes from a long line of Italian-American machine politicians, from Baltimore if I’m not mistaken. Where they know how to reassemble horses and beds to make a point. If the Democrats keep their majority, she keeps her job. End of story.
Karen
And we find the Republicans plan to impeach Obama.
If they only controlled the House and maybe even the Senate before the election then they can begin the procedings.
Don’t tell me that’s not where this is all headed. I’m not saying they’ll succeed but that’s what this is all about. They figure that that there’s no way an N can win, he cheated, etc. They lost the election so they only way to fix that is to invalidate the election.
They want to bring back slavery after all. There’s nothing I put past these people anymore.