If we’re serious

About organizing the House

Given the parlous state of the House right now, the optimum likely outcome of the organization events of Jan. 3 will be the re-election of the current Speaker for a second term. He’s not very good, he weasels a lot, and he’s far too susceptible to outside influencers like President Mump but he’s also been willing to go to the Democrats for votes when something absolutely positively has to be done overnight.

To that end I suggested in a call to my Republican Congresswoman that, if Johnson is the only GOP candidate for Speaker that she vote for him and that if any other Republicans were nominated that she abstain and stay out of the mess. The value of the abstention is that, with Kay Granger in a managed care facility in Texas and not likely to emerge, it will take only 4 abstentions of the remaining 218 Republicans to give the Speakership to Hakeem Jeffries which would be the most desirable outcome, however unlikely. If the credibly accused slimeball from Florida, Mr. Gaetz, chooses not to be sworn in not only would the atmosphere in the House be much cleaner and less odiferous, there would only have to be three abstentions or, even better, defections to vote for Jeffries, to hand the House to the Democrats and throw a fairly good sized spanner into the Mump administration works. If the former Speaker, Mrs. Pelosi, is unable to be there on the 3^rd, that just adjusts the math by one each way.

There was a time when political logic dictated that the two aging and infirm Congresswomen would retire and allow their replacements to get a few days or months of seniority and experience, but apparently ego trumps logic today.