Is Jim Jordan Sabotaging Scalise?
Yep. He is
Hastily written post. I’m sitting in my hotel room in DC, rushed here to do CNN for the Speaker vote… that… didn’t happen. All good, but in some discussions with my former colleagues, frustrations are boiling over. In the past, a vote would be taken “in the family” for speaker, and the winner would then enjoy the support of everyone on the floor.
The idea of voting for someone different on the floor is a new phenomenon, and it’s terrible for the functioning of the house. It empowers the legislative terrorists who simply force their will on everyone by their superpower…shamelessness. Fame is the new currency, and you can become famous by torching the place.
There is a lot of suspicion, which I share, that Jim Jordan is encouraging the holdouts so that everyone relents and puts him in the Speakership. He said he would nominate Scalise, but if he was truly in…he would publically announce that he would not take a further nomination for Speaker, and encourages everyone to back Steve. But he won’t, because he is sabotaging him.
All of this would be generally inside baseball except, there are real consequence in Israel and Ukraine. Empower McHenry to bring those bills to the floor, get it done, and deal with the drama afterwards. It’s what most want, but 12 or so house members have forced their will. The voters need to end their careers next November.
I wish we COULD end their careers & vote them out in Nov. I can think of a couple other Repubs. I'd like to get out who are busy holding up important votes. I'm sitting here in IL where our MOC are Democrats & responsible voters. Other than donating to those running against the holdouts, I feel helpless to do anything.
I'm trying to think of what it is like to be a member of a caucus that cannot get its act together. If it were me, I'd be looking across the aisle to find common ground with people who are at least nominally on the other side, but who are open to discussion and analysis. The Republican mantra of letting the tail wag the dog is unacceptable. These particularists have lost all semblance of reason and balance. Congress was designed to broker differences of opinion. Instead, those GOP fainthearts respond to the loudest, angriest voice in the room. We don't have forever to get a sufficient number of members to agree to work with one another. Time to act.