Nine Republican Representatives put their name in to be speaker. After 5 rounds of voting, the GOP caucus narrowed it down to Tom Emmer (R-MN), as Fox News reports.
But it quickly became clear that he did not have enough support to outright win a House-wide vote. With Republicans’ razor-thin majority, a GOP speaker-designate can only lose four members of their own party to win the gavel without Democratic support.Emmer is the third speaker-designate House Republicans have had in as many weeks. Congress has been paralyzed since eight GOP lawmakers voted with all Democrats to oust ex-Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., the first time in history the House deposed its own leader.
This being the case, Emmer withdrew his name. And the process started anew, with candidates even less likely to gain majority support.
We may be spectators to the slow motion suicide of the Republican Party, happening in real time as we watch. Anybody who tells you he or she knows how this impasse is eventually resolved is lying, though some brave few have hazarded a guess.
