Why the House GOP is such a shitshow

[tencats]

by Andrew Prokop on October 9, 2015, 8:30 a.m. ET @awprokop
http://www.vox.com/2015/10/9/9483463/kevin-mccarthy-john-boehner

The House speaker election doesn't make sense for an ideological and partisan era

When the Constitution was written and early American political traditions were established, it wasn't understood that organized parties would quickly come to dominate American politics. Accordingly, the position of speaker of the House was at first created with some expectation that the speaker would represent the institution as a whole, not just partisan interests.

The modern House of Representatives, though, is a partisan body, and its speaker has for decades been the majority party's leader — so it's a bit odd that the speaker is still elected by the House as a whole. However, the Constitution says that "the House of Representatives shall chuse their Speaker," and that's interpreted to mean that all members of the chamber — not just the majority party — have to get a vote.

In practice, this hasn't been much of a problem. The majority party has repeatedly chosen its speaker behind closed doors, in private, with a simple majority vote. The later "official" vote from the full House has just been considered a formality, with that previously designated internal winner getting overwhelming support from his or her own party.

But if a sizable organized faction of the majority party decides instead to abandon its nominee on the House floor — as some conservatives have now threatened — everything can be thrown into chaos. As political scientists Jeffrey Jenkins and Charles Stewart recently wrote, this is "uncharted territory" in modern times. The House GOP has no idea what will come next, and neither do we.

[HooptieWagon]

1. They could easily get 218 votes...

...if a few dozen 'moderate' republicans asked Democrats to vote for a moderate speaker. However, any kind of cooperation with Democrats to do the Country's business would quickly be met with the moderates being primaried by the tea-baggers. And of course, why should the Democrats help a dysfunctional and broken Republican Party? Let the country see them for what they are...a bunch of childish and idiotic extremists.

[enough]

2. In 1849, the election for speaker took three weeks and 60 ballots, in 1855 it took 133 ballots.

http://www.democracyjournal.org/1/6456.php?page=all

The Fall of the House of Representatives
The long, sad slide from Henry Clay to Tom DeLay
Brad Carson

snip>

The House of Representatives during the 1840s and early 1850s was populated by Know-Nothings, Free Soilers, Northern and Southern Whigs, and a divided Democratic Party, all of whom gave the institution a tumultuous feel. In 1849, the election for speaker took three weeks and more than 60 ballots. In 1855, the election for speaker took 133 ballots. Characteristic of the House were men like William Yancey of Alabama, of whom it was said that a duel was only a “pleasant morning recreation.” Even the great Henry Clay routinely challenged opponents to duels, including one with John Randolph of Roanoke, a flamboyant Virginian well-known for aggression and for bringing his hound dogs onto the House floor. Before House debates in the run-up to the Civil War, congressmen would arm themselves with knives and pistols; many, perhaps most, House members carried derringers to protect themselves from sudden attack. There was reason for fear: in 1856, Congressman Preston Brooks of South Carolina marched over to the Senate, where he brutally attacked Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts for insulting Southern honor. Disorder quickly became bedlam after the deaths in 1850 of John Calhoun and in 1852 of Clay and Daniel Webster, who had done so much to bottle up the centrifugal tendencies that, in their absence, would soon violently overtake the nation.

snip>

MUCH MUCH MORE at link