CategoryPolitics

• After 11 ballots, the Republicans remain unable to elect a speaker and thus unable to organize the House, with the Democrats united behind Hakeem Jeffries and delivering 212 votes for him 11 times.
• Kevin McCarthy has allegedly agreed to the demand of the hard-right Freedom Caucus that a single person can force a vote to get rid of the speaker, and has offered them two spots on the House Rules Committee and control over appropriations bills.
• President Joe Biden is working to make sure people understand just how much the Democrats got done in the past two years, and is also stepping up to address the influx of migrants to the border with new measures.
• On Sunday, Biden will go to El Paso, Texas, to meet with local officials and community leaders, and on January 6 he will honor people who distinguished themselves by protecting the country during the 2020–2021 attempt to overturn the 2020 presidential election.
• Trump’s name has barely been mentioned during the fight over the House speakership, and he has gotten just one vote.

Published January 5, 2023. Visit Letters from An American to read Heather Cox Richardson’s original post.

• The Republicans won a narrow majority in the House of Representatives in 2022, but have been unable to elect a speaker due to a group of 20 far-right Republicans backing their own choices.
• The chaos suggests that Republican leadership does not have the skills it needs to govern, and the roots of their current worldview lie in the Reagan Revolution of 1980.
• The Republican Party has been purged of traditional Republicans and replaced with ideological fellow travelers, and their policies have concentrated wealth upward and hollowed out the middle class.
• A new era is pushing the Reagan era aside, with Republicans recognizing that it is our democratic government and the rule of law that protects their investments, and that maintaining the government will take basic laws and the skills to negotiate and pass them.

Published January 4, 2023. Visit Letters from An American to read Heather Cox Richardson’s original post.

• The Republicans took control of the House of Representatives by removing the metal detectors installed after the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
• Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) failed to win the House speakership on the first ballot, due to internal feuding among the Republican conference.
• Extremists tied to former President Trump and right-wing media are demanding outsize influence and power.
• Democrats united around Representative Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), while the Republicans are still deciding whether to accept the extremist Jim Jordan (R-OH) or work to find a compromise candidate.
• Former Republican governor of Ohio John Kasich has called on House Republicans to work with Democrats to pick a speaker and create a coalition government.
• George Santos (R-NY) was conspicuously excluded from the talking and visiting on the House floor today, despite his crucial vote for McCarthy.

Published January 3, 2023. Visit Letters from An American to read Heather Cox Richardson’s original post.

• The 118th Congress is gathering in Washington and GOP minority leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) is struggling to get the votes to become speaker.
• McCarthy has made several concessions to far-right House members, but they still won’t back him.
• Republican representative-elect George Santos of New York is facing fraud charges and his vote for speaker is crucial.
• The Democratic-controlled Senate is confirming judges and rebalancing the Supreme Court, while the Biden administration will be traveling around the country to highlight the laws passed in the last two years.
• The January 6th committee’s transcripts revealed an email from rally organizer Katrina Pierson showing that Trump’s invitation to supporters to march on the Capitol was part of the plan, and Hope Hicks and Ivanka Trump’s chief of staff Julie Radford exchanged horrified texts after the riot.

Published January 2, 2023. Visit Letters from An American to read Heather Cox Richardson’s original post.