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Hakeem Jeffries Can Own Mike Johnson & the Incoming GOP Congress
Here’s the plan:
The first act of the incoming majority is to pick a Speaker. They can’t do a damn thing in the House until a Speaker is chosen. They can’t bring legislation to the floor, can’t swear in new members and basically can’t function.
As of Jan 6th, the new Congress will convene with all of the new members, who’ve already been through the new member boot camp and are ready to take their place in history, but not before a Speaker is chosen.
Rules & Procedures for the Speaker of the House
Well worth reading for those times when you have no idea what the heck they are doing and why.
In the past, choosing the new Speaker has been a non issue. It just simply happened with little public fanfare. Kevin McCarthy’s speakership changed all of that with 15 votes over 5 days where he gave away the farm to keep his job. He ended up losing that job due to those concessions, mainly to Matt Gaetz, where it took only a single members challenge to force a vote for a new Speaker. This was the birth of Mike Johnson who came from well in the back benches to become the next Speaker.
Speaker Johnson immediately faced his own right wing Freedom Caucus that said no to any new spending. He realized that to get anything accomplished, he needed Democratic support as his majority was slim and volatile.
Bringing us up to the present day with the CR vote that finally passed with overwhelming Dem support and over 30 GOP members continuing to resist Johnson’s attempt at legislation, the new year will be even more difficult with an even smaller majority.
Back to the choosing of a new Speaker. Johnson wants the job. He seems to have support from President Musk even though he was forced by Jeffries to strip out the Debt Ceiling increase. Now Trump will have to raise the debt ceiling in his own GOP controlled Congress.
When the voting starts, Johnson may or may not have the votes on the first go around if all the Dems vote no and he’s forced to count on his own caucus, which as previously mentioned, is in disarray and passed fewer pieces of legislation than any recent Congress.
This is when Hakeem can turn the screws and exact some concessions on what, we in the opposition will call, DAY ONE. Ever heard that before?
If Johnson fails to secure the votes for Speaker from his own caucus after several votes, the GOP will either have to coalesce around him quickly or choose another candidate. We saw what happened the last time this happened when McCarthy failed and bowed out.
Jeffries will watch from the sidelines with a Cheshire Cat grin on his face and wait to strike. After 5 or 6 votes, Johnson, Trump, Musk, Vance (who) and the GOP caucus will be in total meltdown. No cream will rise to the top.
As long as the democrats hold strong as they have for nearly 20 years with Pelosi at the helm and now Jeffries, he can say to Mike,
“Do you need my help?”
Johnson will be forced to say yes and Hakeem will explain the cost of Dem yes votes. I can’t think of a better line than that from the first scene in the original Godfather when an undertaker comes to Vito Corleone for a gift on the day of his daughter’s wedding.
Marlon Brando’s character, Vito, is Hakeem Jeffries
The undertaker wanting a service is Mike Johnson
The scene is Perfecto
What Hakeem will want in return for Democratic support is unclear, but the day will come, during the next four years when Hakeem will collect on this favor.
