MCCARTHY CAVES: California RINO Offers HUGE Concession to Conservatives in Exchange for Speakership Votes
Looks like Kevin McCarthy can actually do math after all. He now understands there is no pathway to Speaker of the House without conservatives and is now offering a significant compromise to get their votes.
CNN reported Friday that McCarthy has pledged to reduce the threshold required to oust a sitting speaker. He had previously made this a red line in negotiations with House conservatives, vowing to never give in.
One cannot understate the significance of this concession by McCarthy. This has been arguably the top demand from McCarthy’s critics in exchange for possibly supporting his Speaker bid.
Present rules within the Republican caucus state that majority support from members is required to force a floor vote to remove the Speaker. McCarthy is looking at shrinking the threshold to as low as five votes.
House Republicans will welcome 222 members to Congress in a few days so McCarthy is offering to reduce the threshold for ouster by over 95%. Talk about desperation.
Here are the key details from CNN:
McCarthy has been trying to find a compromise threshold that would appease his critics enough to earn their speaker vote, while still being palatable to the rest of the House GOP, and has been sounding out all corners of the conference in private phone calls this week.
One of the numbers that has come up in recent conversations between McCarthy and GOP lawmakers – and which has not been previously reported – is a five-person threshold, according to two of the Republican sources.
Currently, the majority of the House GOP is required to call for the so-called motion to vacate the speaker’s chair. But some conservative hardliners are pushing for a single member to be able to call for such a vote, which they see as an important mechanism to hold the speaker accountable.
A five-person threshold, however, may be too low for the moderate wing of the party, some of whom have privately suggested they would be willing to agree on a 50-person threshold.
Damned if you do, damned if you don’t. Should McCarthy give too much to the GOP’s conservative wing, he seriously risks losing votes from his fellow RINOS. But if McCarthy fails to capitulate completely, a pathway to the speakership is nearly impossible.
Conservative McCarthy opponent South Carolina Congressman Ralph Norman, for his part, does not trust McCarthy to keep his word on lowering the threshold. Instead, he wants an agreement in writing that McCarthy will find impossible to weasel out of.
“The ‘devil is in the details’ as far as threshold & other rule concessions,” Norman said. “Until the details are spelled out, in writing and sealed with social media posts, people will not move on votes.”
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2022/12/mccarthy-caves-california-rino-offers-huge-concession-conservatives-exchange-speakership-votes/