Speaker Mike Johnson has once again lost a battle against hardline conservatives for control of his own House floor — and he has no clear way out.
A small group of GOP hardliners, led by firebrand Rep. Anna Paulina Luna of Florida, effectively seized the floor from Johnson this week, refusing to allow him to move on their own party’s priorities until Republican leaders come up with a plan to pass President Donald Trump’s federal elections overhaul bill.
By Tuesday afternoon, Johnson was forced into one of the most humiliating possible positions for a House speaker: He conceded he could not regain control of the chamber and instructed members to leave Washington early. It’s the second straight week that GOP leaders have had to scrap their plans, this time losing out on nearly an entire week’s agenda.
They can oust the speaker with a very small number of defections that would achieve a majority. There’s no motivation for the minority factions within the majority to do so though - the only chance they have of passing their hardline agenda is by refusing to give the majority the ability to do anything. This isn’t a problem if you have a much larger majority but they’re barely holding onto the title right now.
Unfortunately, the rebels are on the far right. They may vote to oust Johnson, but they’ll never vote to give Jeffries or any other Democrat the speakership. We’d be back in the endless cycle of Speaker votes that brought Johnson into power.
Are there any examples of the majority party electing a Speaker from the opposing party?
Seems like a given that they wouldn’t vote for Jeffries
The closest example seems to be Nathaniel Banks, in 1855. He was in the Know-Nothing party, which was a smaller third party of the time.
Exactly. Even if it’s just a couple of republicans, there are enough who don’t like Johnson that it could happen…
Then 12 or 15 votes later, the rpublicans look like morons…again.
Too bad establishment republicans have neither the spine, or the moral fortitude to not roll over and assume the position.
Republicans are conservatives, authoritarians, the most important thing for them is adherence to the group. If they valued anything else more, they wouldn’t be Republicans.