Next Man Up

Here's a sentence we never expected to write: Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) is the Speaker-Designate of the House. Following the withdrawal of Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA), after Scalise realized he couldn't get to 217 votes, the House Republican Conference met to pick a new nominee and gave Jordan their "support." We put "support" in quotation marks because, as Scalise just showed us, and as Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) demonstrated back in January, being the speaker nominee of the Republicans, even with them in the majority, does not mean a glide path to becoming speaker, the way it has on both sides of the aisle for more than a century.

Prior to Friday's voting, Rep. Austin Scott (R-GA) announced that he was throwing his hat into the ring for the speakership contest. You know who Scott is, of course. He is... well, he was... er, he is known for... wait. Actually, you probably don't know who he is. He's a backbencher who isn't even well known in his home state of Georgia, and who has no real claim on the speakership since he has no experience in any leadership positions. He's never even chaired a top-line committee (only the House Agriculture Committee's Subcommittee on General Farm Commodities, Risk Management, and Credit). However, he's a staunch conservative and an ally of McCarthy. Scott put his name into consideration primarily so there was an alternative to Jordan for the Conference to support. Presumably, the opportunity to get some national attention was a welcome bonus.

Up against Scalise, a legitimate candidate for speaker, Jordan lost the Conference vote 113-99. Up against Scott, a virtual unknown, the Ohioan won 124-81. That's not a big improvement. Well aware of the purpose behind Scott's "candidacy," Jordan then asked the Conference for a straight up and down vote as to whether they would support him on the floor of the House. He got 152 votes, which is 65 votes short of the promised land. Put another way, it looks like the House Republican Conference has about 100 members who prefer Jordan, 25 who like him well enough if there's not a better option, 25 who will support anyone in the name of unity, and 65 who are Never Jordan. The Speaker-Designate adjourned the House for the weekend, and said he will spend his time today and tomorrow whipping votes. For our part, we are extremely skeptical that he can win over 61 of those 65 (in other words, about 94%).

There are, just to lay it out again, two fundamental problems with Jordan's candidacy. The first is that a lot of his colleagues hate him, either because of all his "show horse" nonsense, or because he's a backstabbing louse who threw both McCarthy and Scalise under the bus. Those men did not become speaker/a viable speaker candidate without having a fairly broad base of support in their conference, and some of those allies are going to remain loyal.

The second problem is that Jordan as speaker is all-but-certain to do things that thrill the hardliners/Trumpers, but that just about everyone else finds appalling. It is entirely plausible, for example, that he will pull a Tuberville and say "Until I get a bill cutting funding by 8%, I won't bring any spending bills to the floor, and if the government shuts down for a year, then so be it." Liz Cheney, who may just know a thing or two about electoral politics, agrees with us that Jordan would be disastrous for the Party, tweeting: "If Rs nominate Jordan to be Speaker, they will be abandoning the Constitution. They'll lose the House majority and they'll deserve to." And note that she thinks the mere nomination of Jordan (which is now a done deal) is enough to cross the Rubicon. Imagine the harm done by his actual elevation to the speakership.

It is unclear whether there will be a vote on the floor of the House on Monday, or anytime this week. Obviously, if Jordan thinks he has the votes there will be, but he is not likely to have the votes. So, "show horse" that he is, will he insist on a vote nonetheless, in hopes of creating some momentum and/or some pressure on the holdouts? He could. On the other hand, while he probably doesn't care about embarrassing the Party on national TV, he probably doesn't want to embarrass himself by losing big. In short, we could see him playing it either way.

McCarthy, for his part, offered up a reminder on Friday of the kind of "leader" he is, launching into a rant about this is all the Democrats' fault. Perhaps he never heard about how the buck stops here. In any case, he's the one who got the speakership by giving away the rules change that ultimately cost him the speakership. And it's his conference who initiated the motion to vacate. Ironically, the Democrats actually did what a House caucus is supposed to do, which is make a collective decision on the leadership and then have all members vote accordingly. It is the Republicans' near-total lack of party discipline that got us here.

And indeed, it is the Democrats who appear to be doing the legwork needed to move the ship of state forward. Assuming that the Republicans cannot elect a speaker with Republican votes, then there are really only two ways forward. The first is to have Speaker Pro Tempore Patrick McHenry (R-NC) assume some/most/all of the duties of the speakership for some indeterminate amount of time. Yesterday, four moderate Democrats—Ed Case (HI), Jared Golden (ME), Josh Gottheimer (NJ) and Susie Lee (NV)—sent McHenry a letter committing their support to an arrangement of that sort, particular as regards funding for Ukraine/Israel and funding for, well, the federal government.

There are plenty of news items out there asserting that McHenry's only power, as Speaker Pro Tempore of the House, is to initiate and oversee elections for a new speaker. These news items are somewhere between "incomplete" and "flat-out wrong." To explain, we will point to something that is small, and yet very meaningful. Upon assuming his new, temporary job, McHenry's first order of business was... to kick Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) out of her Capitol office. Reassigning office space has nothing to do with speakership elections, and is the prerogative of the person serving as speaker.

In other words, McHenry has already presumed to exercise powers beyond holding speakership elections (there are a couple of other examples, but the Pelosi office is the clearest and simplest). And it could well be that he was acting out of turn, but that doesn't matter unless someone objects (and that objection is sustained by a majority). Members on both sides are leery of letting McHenry do too much right now, because they don't want to establish precedent for the office of pseudo-speaker, whose powers are ill-defined, and whose existence could be used to do a future end-run around normal order (think: acting cabinet secretary). That said, if push comes to shove, the members absolutely will amend the House rules to allow McHenry to do what needs to be done or, instead of changing the rules, they will just look the other way and not object when he presumes to, for example, bring a Ukraine funding bill to the floor.

The other way forward, of course, is to elect a unity speaker. This, as we have noted, is the option that House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) prefers. Yesterday, Rep. Ro. Khanna (D-CA) gave an interview in which he hinted what that might look like:

I have said they should lock us in the Capitol until we can solve this issue and have a new speaker. What I would like to float is a suggestion to get someone who is a consensus person, someone like Rep. Tom Cole (R-OK). And many people on my side respect someone like him even though we have strong ideological disagreements. He doesn't have any ambition to have further political office and he could come as a consensus person, with two conditions:

One is that we honor the funding agreement with President Biden so that there's no government shutdown until the 2024 election season is over. And two is that he stops the impeachment inquiry.

Khanna is one of the leftier Democrats, so his views are not necessarily the views of his caucus. That said, he's pretty dialed in, and this is exactly the kind of deal we'd expect the Democrats to want in exchange for their support. Though we don't think Cole can or will be the guy, since he was among the members who voted against certifying the 2020 election results. Maybe Khanna forgot that, or maybe he doesn't think it's a big deal, but we think that would be a deal-breaker for many of Khanna's Democratic colleagues.

There's one other concession that would go a long way to getting the Democrats on board, and that would also make life easier for the would-be unity speaker. And that concession would be to lower the number of signatures needed for a discharge petition to, say, 200 (or 205 or 210). That way, if the Democrats really wanted a bill to come up for a vote, they could make that happen solely with Democratic signatures. This would make it much harder for a group of Freedom Caucusers to completely gum up the works.

Overall, because of the Republicans' shooting themselves in the collective foot over and over, the Democrats are currently in a position where anything that happens is a win for them. To wit:

1. Jordan Fails to Become Speaker: In this scenario, it's more GOP chaos, and it's more leverage for the Democrats.
   
   
2. Jordan Becomes Speaker, Is a Train Wreck: In this scenario, the Democrats get a hammer to wield against the Republicans in 2024, very possibly allowing the blue team to reclaim the trifecta.
   
   
3. Jordan Becomes Speaker, Proves Capable: This scenario would mean that Jordan, as a Freedom Caucuser, proved able to herd the FC cats and to get things done, including getting a budget and aid for Ukraine/Israel. A functioning government is what Democrats want, and what the message of the party is built upon.

Our guess, then, is that the House Democratic Caucus is going through a lot of popcorn at the moment. This whole drama is not only fascinating for them, they also know it has a happy ending. They just don't know which happy ending.

So, that is where it stands at the moment. Presumably the next big news will break Monday, and so will appear in Tuesday's posting. We should know, by then, if Jordan managed to whip the votes or if he's just another dead man walking. (Z)

Saturday Q&A

Better late than never. In view of the tardiness of this posting, as well as the fact that the news was dominated by two subjects this week, we are going to focus on just those two subjects.

Also, we got a vast response to the question of the week of last week, and we want the largest number of readers to be able to see those responses. So, we'll table that section for this week and run those letters next week, when we resume normal order.

Current Events: Israel

D.H. in Mashpee, MA, asks: The recent Hamas attack on Israel was clearly not an accident, nor could have been accomplished by someone going rogue. The complexity and sophistication of the attack and the fact that one of the world's most capable intelligence gathering entities had no hint of what was coming indicates that the attack could not have been planned and carried out without the support and commitment of Hamas at the highest levels.

Why did Hamas choose to do this? What could have been their objectives? What could they have thought they could accomplish? Israel has the military capability to all but wipe the Gaza Strip off the map, and Hamas is surely aware of that fact. And yet they did what they did.

K.S. in Jefferson City, MO, asks: In what reality did Hamas think their attacks were a great idea? In one fell swoop they managed to be condemned by the world. They had to know there would have to be a ferocious response. This baffles me.

(V) & (Z) answer: We've thought a fair bit about this, and we've got three theories:

1. The status quo was so problematic for the Palestinians, and there was so little hope of changing it, that blowing things up was deemed the best/only alternative. Call this the "There is nobody more dangerous than someone who has nothing to lose" theory.
   
   
2. Hamas is hoping that their extreme actions will lead to an extreme response from Israel, making both sides international pariahs, and leading to some sort of external involvement.
   
   
3. Some entity that has significant influence over Hamas, say the government of Iran, insisted that an attack be commenced, otherwise funding and other support would be cut off.

We do not have a theory that we favor. These are just the only explanations we can come up with.

Also, we must note that "no hint of what was coming" may not be correct. Keep reading.

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D.K. in Stony Brook, NY, asks: Do you think the Hamas attack on Israel helps or hurts Benjamin Netanyahu and his efforts to stay in power?

Ordinarily one would think it can only hurt; after all, it happened on his watch. But I can picture him arguing that now you need a strong leader, "only I can fix it," and if only we hadn't been held back by all those softies in the opposition this wouldn't have happened.

(V) & (Z) answer: Clearly, it helps Netanyahu short-term, as it allows him to assume a central role in a unity government and shifts the focus away from his shaky governing coalition and his personal legal problems.

Longer-term, according to people who are far more expert than we are, Netanyahu looks to be in trouble and there is an excellent chance he'll be swept from power once the current crisis abates. At best, his government was caught asleep at the switch. At worst, he deliberately ignored warning signs, such as a tip from the Egyptian government that something very big and very ugly was about to go down. It is true that George W. Bush managed to survive under similar circumstances, but presidents are only up for election every 4 years. An Israeli government, by contrast, can fall at any time.

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D.E. in Sanford, FL, asks: If Hamas is the legal government of Gaza and if it sanctioned war crimes in Israel, could Hamas face trial in the International Criminal Court?

(V) & (Z) answer: Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court Karim A. A. Khan, who is responsible for making those decisions, says they could. He surely knows better than anyone.

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C.S. in Philadelphia, PA, asks: As a Never Trump Republican and an observant Jew, I genuinely respect your commentary and ability to cover issues evenhandedly. Yet, your use of "militants" frustrated me. (And, to be fair, nearly every media outlet does this, too.) If a terrorist organization sends its members to target and murder civilians, why are they not called "terrorists"? What gives? I would like to hear your own personal views as to this choice and as to why the media, particularly in the Arab/Israeli conflict, often refuse to call terrorists terrorists.

(V) & (Z) answer: We can't speak for other outlets, of course, but for our part the issue is not squeamishness about using certain terms, or some sort of attempt to be "fair" to both sides. It is because "terrorist" has become such an amorphous word that it does not convey all that much information. By contrast, "militants" carries a connotation of "acting as soldiers" combined with "using extreme/terror-based tactics." So, we find it to be more meaningful in conveying information.

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R.K. in Moultrie, GA, asks: My day really doesn't begin until after I read your daily post. So on juicy days when you don't cover what I want to see, I feel somewhat shortchanged...

I was really wanting to see your take on the Trump leak of information that got into the hands of Hamas on the attack on Israel. It's a tragedy all around, but the silver lining for me would be that it knocks Trump completely off the political stage and into the deep doo-doo he should be in, someplace from which he cannot possibly recover from.

(V) & (Z) answer: The problem here is that the chain of custody is somewhat speculative. The notion is that Trump gave information to the Russians back in 2017, the Russians gave it to the Iranians, the Iranians gave it to Hamas, and then Hamas used it—6 years later—to get around Israel's "Iron Dome." It's possible that this is correct, but there's a LOT of supposition in there. If we are persuaded that the evidence supports this version of events, and in particular if we are persuaded that this notion is going to achieve broad awareness, we'll write about it. But right now, it's more in the realm of conspiracy theory than fact.

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S.K. in Sunnyvale, CA, asks: You wrote: "The biggest backers [of the modern state of Israel] are evangelical Christians, who believe that having a Jewish state in Israel is a precondition for [the rapture]."

I've never heard this before. Do evangelicals really believe this? Is there any Biblical evidence they point to in support of it? My impression of evangelicals' unwavering support for Israel was that it's basically rooted in extended pity over the Holocaust.

(V) & (Z) answer: This is called Christian Zionism. It dates back hundreds of years and is rooted primarily in interpretations of the Book of Revelation. Perhaps the loudest and most influential American adherent of this way of thinking was Billy Graham.

If you would like hard numbers, there was a widely reported survey a few years ago from LifeWay Research (which, as its name suggests, looks at religious-based questions). According to the survey, more than 80% of American evangelicals believe that the creation of Israel in 1948 was a fulfillment of Biblical prophecy that would bring about Jesus' return, while more than 50% said their ongoing support of Israel was due specifically to their view that the nation's continued existence is necessary for fulfilling Biblical prophecy.

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D.C. in Portland, OR, asks: Joe Biden is Catholic. Is he pandering to evangelicals with his strong support for Israel or does he genuinely not care for the Palestinian plight?

(V) & (Z) answer: Biden is not, in our view, pandering to anyone. He seems to be very sympathetic to the people of Israel, who are clearly victims here. At the same time, he also recognizes that most Palestinians are victims, too, and are not responsible for the actions of Hamas. And so, he gave a speech on Friday in which he emphasized the need for humanitarian aid for Palestinians, while on Saturday he spoke to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to emphasize that the U.S. knows Hamas does not represent Palestine and to talk about sending humanitarian aid to Gaza.

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E.C.R. in Helsinki, Finland, asks: Recently, the U.S. made a complex deal involving prisoners in both the US and Iran plus Iranian funds in South Korea. Currently those funds are now in Qatar, I believe. But U.S. Senators are calling for those funds to be withheld. While this might feel good in the short term, what will be the implications in the long term in terms of U.S. ability to negotiate with adversaries?

(V) & (Z) answer: The Biden administration has merely re-frozen the funds for now, and has not formally reneged on its agreement. Further, this choice was not arbitrary, but was driven by legitimate international and national political considerations. Whenever you negotiate with a larger and more powerful entity, there's always the risk that you'll be double-crossed and unable to do anything about it. But in this case, we don't think the evidence supports the conclusion that the U.S. and/or the Biden administration negotiate in bad faith.

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P.L. in Denver, CO, asks: Let me start by saying I am fine with the U.S. providing aid to other countries (for a variety of reasons). I am supportive of Israel (but not Netanyahu). However, I have wondered why Israel gets so much money from us when they are not a poor country. I have concluded that while they are not poor, they are small and in a neighborhood of larger countries that have a lot of arms, and some of those countries would like to harm, or have harmed, Israel.

Recently, I have read that the money that we give Israel is mostly credits toward buying defense items from the U.S. So, it also sounds like a congressional payoff to the defense industry.

Am I accurate on these points?

(V) & (Z) answer: We don't object to your assessment, but we'll note that Israel also advances American geopolitical objectives in that region (promoting democracy, a hedge against Iran, etc.), and at a bargain price. The U.S. gives Israel about $4 billion a year. By contrast, the Iraq War cost north of $100 billion a year.

Current Events: The House In Disarray

M.M. on Bainbridge Island, WA, asks: It seems to me that the longer the House goes without a speaker, the more likely that DJT will volunteer to "help the country out." Do you think there are enough, or any, Republican votes against him to keep him from being elected?

(V) & (Z) answer: We suspect that if it ever came to that, members would either find a convenient excuse not to vote for him ("I want to vote for him so very much, but we can't selfishly take him away from his presidential campaign") or a convenient excuse not to be present for the vote on the House floor ("I wanted to be there, but I was donating a kidney to my spouse").

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K.F.W. in El Dorado Hills, CA, asks: Why aren't Republicans suggesting Speaker Pro Tempore Patrick McHenry (R-NC) as the permanent Speaker? I haven't heard any Republicans saying anything negative about him.

(V) & (Z) answer: In part, it's because McHenry has not given any indication he wants the job. In part, it's because he's very close with Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) and so is probably unacceptable to the Freedom Caucusers. That said, and as we've written, we think he could very plausibly be a unity candidate.

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P.M. in Encinitas, CA, asks: You discussed potential scenarios for resolving the Speaker situation. Would it also be possible that enough Republican members get so fed up with the process that they vote "present" during a roll call vote, allowing House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) to capture a majority of those voting?

(V) & (Z) answer: It's not impossible; if it did happen, our guess is that the thought process would be that it's way easier to be the minority in a closely divided House than it is the be the majority, and that the today's Republicans are much better at opposing, obstructing and complaining than they are at governing. We doubt the GOP members would vote "present," however. If this was the plan, they would skip the vote entirely so as to achieve Jeffries' election without having any direct responsibility for it.

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T.C. in Olympia, WA, asks: If you had to wager a guess as to what former speaker Kevin McCarthy wishes he would have done differently, given the situation the House is in now, do you think he regrets not working with the Democrats—either 9 months ago to prevent having to give up so much authority as speaker, or 2 weeks ago in order to overcome the motion to vacate? After all, given his years-long desire to become speaker, surely he must be questioning the choices he made that lead to him being a weak speaker and his eventual ouster. Do you think he really preferred this outcome, as opposed to collaborating with the Democrats and still being speaker? Or, given the current make-up of the House Republican Conference, did he really have no choice?

(V) & (Z) answer: We assume he had no choice, and that he had some reason to believe that if he worked with the Democrats, even a little, his conference would have turned against him en masse. It's not like the possibility of working with Democrats last week in order to save his bacon wasn't on the table—it was an obvious option, and yet McCarthy didn't take it. And working with Democrats 9 months ago was almost equally obvious; we wrote about it back then numerous times, and so did everyone else.

The only other possibility we can come up with is that McCarthy has so thoroughly internalized the notion that "Democrats are evil" that he simply couldn't bear to work with them, no matter what.

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J.P.R. in Westminster, CO, asks: Most regular readers of your site are well aware that a Speaker of the House need not be an elected member of the House. I think Speaker Pence makes as much sense as anything considering the current state of the GOP. While I'm no supporter of the former VP, I'm very in favor of the mold that would be broken. Do you imagine there's a scenario in which he could be convinced?

Two additional questions: (1) Was the technicality that a Speaker need not be an elected member of the House intentional by the framers and (2) Why has it never happened?

(V) & (Z) answer: We think that if Pence was asked to become speaker, he'd say "yes" in a heartbeat. That would make him a historic figure, of a sort. And even if he sticks with this silly presidential run, he's going to get more press and more positive attention as speaker than as a guy who's giving speeches to 50 people at the Springfield County Bull Semen Auction.

And the framers definitely intended to leave open the possibility that the Speaker would be a non-member of the House, since they were modeling the job on the non-partisan Speaker of the House of Commons, and they wanted to leave open various routes for achieving a non-partisan Speaker of the House of Representatives. That said, the Speaker of the House of Commons usually is a sitting member of Parliament, just one who cuts all ties to his or her party for the duration of his or her speakership. Initially, the U.S. House followed that model, picking a sitting member to be a non-partisan referee for the chamber's discussions and debates. However, when Henry Clay got the job in 1811, he turned it into a powerful and partisan post, and it's been that way ever since.

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L.K. in Los Angeles, CA, asks: Can the House pass legislation by using the discharge petition without a speaker being chosen?

(V) & (Z) answer: Yes. If the speaker was essential to the maneuver, then there would be no point in having it, since the whole purpose is to do an end run around the speaker. Largely, the official responsible for handling a discharge petition is the Clerk of the House.

That said, the rest of the House (particularly the Rules Committee) has the power to make the process smoother or more onerous.

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J.H. in Flint, MI, asks: On Wednesday, the Acting Speaker convened the House for a couple of minutes and then adjourned. What was the point of doing so?

(V) & (Z) answer: The Constitution says that neither chamber can adjourn for more than three days without the agreement of the other chamber that Congress is in recess. Since the Senate is not currently hamstrung, it's operating normally and is not interested in recessing. So, the pro forma session keeps the House from being out of compliance.

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R.M. in Concord, NH, asks: Has there ever been a time in U.S. history where there were two former speakers and a sitting speaker before?

(V) & (Z) answer: Yes. It generally happens when the speakership is handed back and forth between parties across a small number of congresses. That was a pretty common situation in the nineteenth century, particularly the mid-nineteenth century, when there was much instability in party membership. It is less common when one party predominates for a long time; in that case, speakers tend to leave on their own terms rather than being demoted to "regular member." As the Democrats had an iron grip on the House for the better part of 80 years of the 20th century, the last time there were three people in that body who had all served as speaker was the term that began in 1919, when Republican Frederick H. Gillett assumed the speakership. He took the gavel from demoted-to-House-Minority-Leader Champ Clark (D), while also counting former speaker Joseph A. Cannon (R) as a member of his conference.

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W.S. in Austin, TX, asks: Could the Democrats in the Senate add a clause to approve all the outstanding military promotions in a bill for aid to Israel? Or does that have to be handled separately?

(V) & (Z) answer: No, it has to be handled separately. Per the Constitution, confirming civilian and military officers is the sole prerogative of the Senate. Putting it into legislation would give the House input into the process and so would be unconstitutional.

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Z.C. in Toronto, ON, Canada, asks: Hamas launching an invasion of Israel seems like something the "Gang of Eight" would normally be briefed on. Who would get that briefing right now for the House majority?

(V) & (Z) answer: There was some hemming and hawing about this earlier this week, but the decision ultimately rests with the president, and Joe Biden—after consulting with advisors—decided that Patrick McHenry would get the briefings. This is another thing (see the above note about Nancy Pelosi's office) that suggests McHenry is more than just "the guy who can hold speakership elections."

Gallimaufry

J.R. in Harrogate, England, UK, asks: I couldn't help but wonder what the story was behind your experience at the state criminal bar as implied when you wrote: "We are hardly experts in federal criminal procedure, especially since every time we've been put on trial, it's been for state-level offenses."

(V) & (Z) answer: Truth be told, the only time either of us has been "on trial," it was for traffic tickets. However, one of us, namely (Z) was in the courthouse for much of the O.J. Simpson trial. Not in the courtroom, mind you, but in the courthouse. That was quite a scene.

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T.B. in Leon County, FL, asks: I could read Wikipedia and guess, but please tell us, (Z), what is the overwhelming dissatisfaction you have with the 13th president of the then United States, Millard Fillmore (1850-53)?

(V) & (Z) answer: He knows what he did.

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