Interim GOP speaker orders Pelosi and Hoyer out of Capitol offices
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Just a moment...
https://www.axios.com/2023/10/04/mchenry-pelosi-office-remove-speaker-act
Numerous sources have said that this is a deliberate act of revenge by Republicans because Democrats didn't jump in to save McCarthy's speaker role. More are expected to come. This has got to rank up there with McConnell blaming Obama when one of his own bills blows up in his face, saying it's Obama's fault for not warning them hard enough even after they overrode his veto.
Of course, they're so far doing nothing to the 8 Republicans who, you know, actually voted to remove McCarthy. Or Matt Gaetz, who started all this shit in the first place. Instead, they're taking their frustrations out on a couple of 80+ year old representatives out of spite.
I also haven't found out where this clown even has the authority to order this. His powers are literally only limited to recognizing the next nominee for Speaker, holding the vote, and sending the House to recess. I am unsure why both of these people haven't just told him where he can shove his orders.
Is this actually established? The actual language states “The Member acting as Speaker pro tempore under this provision may exercise such authorities of the Office of Speaker as may be necessary and appropriate pending the election of a Speaker or Speaker pro tempore.”
Per this:
It comes right after the part you quoted:
The authority of a Speaker pro tempore to exercise certain powers depends on whether he is designated, designated and approved, or elected. The powers of a designated Speaker pro tempore, compared with those of an elected Speaker pro tempore, are relatively limited. Deschler Ch 6 Sec. Sec. 10, 14.
Since he hasn't been elected or "designated and approved", his powers are much more limited. The other important words are "pending the election of a Speaker or Speaker Pro Tempore". This has generally been interpreted as his powers are only limited to being what's absolutely needed to elect a permanent Speaker. As virtually everybody has said that the HoR is essentially shut down for a week until the GOP comes up with a nominee, it looks like this interpretation is still holding.
This asshole is just stroking off to the GOP base with these evictions. Hopefully, they tell him to go fuck himself.
Seeing as this has never happened in US history before... well it's going to be a clusterfuck that the parliamentarian will no doubt have to weigh in on multiple times.
Rep Jim McGovern has expressed some concerns about the validity of all this:
how would he know?
The speaker pro tempore, which is the official title, can only recess the House, adjourn the chamber and recognize speaker nominations.
I don't see allocating office space on that list.
It's funny because this is the best they've got. Forcing someone to change their secondary office while they're away at a funeral. Real inconvenience to the minority leader's staff. Make America Great Again!
You know what's really hilarious about it?
Pelosi is the one Democrat that didn't vote for his removal, because she's in CA for Dianne Feinstein's funeral. Her absence from the vote actually made McCarthy's job easier, as it meant McCarthy could afford one more defection. But hey, it's all her fault, so let's kick her out of her office. And as supposedly pissed off as the GOP supposedly are with Gaetz, I don't see them shoving his office in a broom closet somewhere for leading the whole movement to oust him in the first place. You'd think if they were going to go after anyone, they'd go after the guy that caused their mess in the first place.
But nope. Not gonna do that. Because the party still needs his vote.
The GOP majority in the house exists because of four people:
- A pathological liar facing various legal charges who has lied so often that even his real identity is under question.
- A child sex predator that had his case dropped due to political connections who just led the charge to oust a member of his own party.
- A woman who hasn't managed to pass a single bill in her multiple terms in office, but does seem to have a particular fetish for people willing to expose themselves in public.
- A woman who openly supports white nationalism, harrassing victims of gun violence, and Jewish Space Lasers.
That's not hyperbole. If those four people did not exist, we'd be talking about Speaker Hakeem Jeffries right now. The GOP majority literally exists due to the existence of multiple people who are either wholly unqualified for office, suspected of criminal activity that should have them in jail already, or both.
Another example of how Republicans gain power and immediately try to do stuff then worry if theyre allowed.
While Dems get power and spend years deciding if they can do something before trying, and sometimes it still gets shut down and by then they've wasted too much time.
I wish Dems tried as hard as Republicans. When only one sides does stuff like this, it makes a fight pretty lopsided. Because Dems have to spend all their time undoing what republicans just did.
It puts us constantly on the defensive and why we've been slowly drifting to the right for decades now.
You think that the Democrats not changing the locks on office doors out of spite makes them weak?
No, I think Pelosi saying her replacement got the person she replaced getting an extra 30 days longer than she's had is kind of pointless, and that extra 30 days would only be if he kept the office up to his resignation...
She's had the extra office for 10 months now...
That's more than enough time to move out.
It's nowhere close to the most important issue right now, but it is a legitimate point that she should have been out long ago.
I feel like the one overriding tenet of the Republican party used to be party loyalty, but now they are all convinced that means the party should be loyal to it's members, not the other way around. So while now the party can't even hold a speaker and is fulll of infighting, you still see these petty anti-loyalty attacks like this.
I'd feel like it was more cutting if they weren't constantly attacking each other as well.