October 24, 2023
Three nominated – three dropped out.
Moments ago – the latest republican to be nominated to be the next speaker of the house dropped out.
Representative Tom Emmer – a moderate from Minnesota won the majority of House Republican votes this morning. But shortly after that –26 Republicans said they would go to the House floor and vote against him. During an afternoon meeting of Republicans– it became clear that Emmer could not convince enough republicans to get behind him.
This is the same thing that has happened to the two other House Republicans who were nominated and then dropped out. Steve Scalise and Jim Jordan.
So now what? It looks like the Republicans are going to try again to find another candidate the entire party can get behind. There will be another GOP meeting this evening – but there’s no guarantee the Republicans can find someone who can get 217 Republican votes. It’s unclear if that person exists.
I don’t need to remind you of the stakes here – but I will because this has never happened before in our country’s history. For the last three weeks — we have been without a House Speaker. We are a little more than three weeks away from the next government shutdown. The White House is counting on the supplemental funding request to get passed so weapons and other military support can be sent to Israel. The White House says current approriations for Israel can last for a little bit longer, but it is critically important that this money is approved as soon as possible. All of those things – require Congress to be functioning.
