For the second week in a row, the United States House of Representatives has no speaker–and no progress toward funding the government beyond mid-November, providing new aid to allies at war in Europe and the Middle East, or anything else.
House Republicans headed into the weekend after a fruitless, embarrassing effort to identify and unite behind someone capable of securing the 217 votes necessary to win the speakership. In a Republican-only vote on Wednesday, Steve Scalise (R-LA) had a slim majority over Jim Jordan (R-OH), but was nowhere near 217 and withdrew on Thursday. On Friday, Jordan won a slim majority over Austin Scott (R-GA) who largely entered at the last minute as a protest candidate against Jordan. But–stop me if you’ve heard this before–Jordan is nowhere close to the necessary 217 votes either. With that, representatives headed home for the weekend with no resolution in sight.
Publicly and privately, several members of the House are questioning the ability of the current Republican caucus to agree on anyone. Frustration and anger is palpable and mounting.
Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Michael McCaul (R-TX) put it this way: “It’s very dangerous what we’re doing. The world’s on fire, our adversaries are watching what we do–and quite frankly they like it. I see a lot of threats out there. One of the biggest threats I see is in that room,” he said, referring specifically to his Republican colleagues.
Democrats offered some olive branches, and members of both parties have not ruled out a consensus candidate. Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), in an op-ed in the Washington Post, proposed changing House rules to “facilitate up-or-down votes on bills that have strong bipartisan support” instead of allowing a handful of extremists to “prevent common-sense legislation from ever seeing the light of day.”
Stay tuned. In the meantime, keep reminding Congress of your priorities and what needs to get done–for starters, full funding for IDEA in recognition of Invisible (Non-Apparent) Disabilities Week, celebrated Oct. 15-21.
In solidarity,
Marc Egan
Government Relations Director
National Education Association
The House majority is pushing an education funding bill that would hurt students, eliminate nearly 248,000 educator jobs, and cut access to higher education.
Tell the Department of Labor you support the proposed expansion of overtime pay for workers making under $55,000 and that teachers should also receive this benefit.
