Dems helped block the vote to remove Boehner some years ago, and the situation seems much more critical now. I took my hope from here:
Kevin McCarthy failed to get House speaker votes. In fact, Hakeem Jeffries received more than he did
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A big part of this is just throwing sand in the gears to make it appear that government does not work. Just the threat of that does it.
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What makes you so sure about that? Assuming that the Democrats vote against him it would only take a total of 5 disgruntled Republicans. Considering how many of them already are reluctant to support him (and as of now he still hasn’t achieved his first majority vote) forcing him out seems very, very possible.
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But you repeat yourself. 
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Democrats might vote against him, but they’d have to be voting for someone else. I doubt any virtuous Republicans will suddenly appear, nor enough vacancies breaking their way to flip it.
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No, that’s not how the process works. First there’s a “motion to vacate the chair,” which is what these anti-McCarthy Republicans are insisting be made easier. That’s a straight up-or-down vote that could easily pass with 5 or more anti-McCarthy Republicans. Then if that passes the house needs to elect a new speaker, and we’d be back in the exact same situation we are right now.
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I don’t see any reason for the democrats to vote with the insurrectionists to clear the chair.
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Because if they’re planning to do something incredibly crappy, you can block it by clearing the chair then making sure a new one doesn’t get in.
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No? Even if they’re really pissed at the guy for playing games with the debt ceiling or whatever? Well, time will tell.
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Regardless of the minutia, they’re not going turf McCarthy, throw the House into chaos, be the scapegoat for Republican troubles, unless there’s a prospect of emerging with someone better.
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Yeah, even in that case. Especially since ability to mess with the debt ceiling is one of the things that the insurrectionists are currently bargaining for. The vote to vacate afterward would be a very different beast than the speaker vote currently underway.
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Any ouster of McCarthy would have to be bipartisan so they wouldn’t be the only ones driving this. And if McCarthy was using his position to actively cause harm then a strong argument could be made that vacating the chair would potentially be less damaging than leaving him in place.
Anyway, if they were happy with him being speaker they could have voted for him (or just not voted at all) days ago, so it’s hard for me to see how vacating the chair is fundamentally different from what’s already been happening.
How so? If anything it seems less disruptive to have the position open later in the session because right now nobody is even sworn in and they haven’t voted on the rules yet. Later on if the position is vacated there would at least be a designated speaker pro tempore that would facilitate House business until a new speaker could be elected.
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It’s worth remembering there is nothing in the Constitution about a “debt ceiling.” Its only function is to either consume empty busywork every few years or to literally bankrupt the country.
An earlier generation of legislators strapped that suicide vest onto the treasury for some reason, and whenever there’s a Democrat in the White House, “conservatives” want to play with the detonator again.
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I was going to use a lot of words, but it felt rambling. Of course, this is all speculation, and like I say, I feel like I must be missing something because the demand to lower the threshold to initiate the vacancy vote doesn’t make sense to me. All that said, my thinking goes something like this:
If the freedom caucus wants to lower the threshold to initiate a vacancy vote, it’s because they don’t expect to have a large enough GOP or bipartisan coalition to force the vote under the current rules. Which also means they wouldn’t have a large enough coalition to actually vacate the seat or to elect the next Speaker.
Dems are currently showing their unity and I’m sure trying to show the mainstream GOP that they would be easier to work with than the Freedom Caucus. They’re not enabling the GOP, but they’re not being obstructionists. A vote to vacate would be obstructionist. The Democrats have demonstrated that they’re more willing to govern than the modern GOP and certainly the FC. I don’t see them participating in that kind of chaos in the middle of a legislative session.
A coalition of moderate Republicans + some Democrats seems much more likely than a coalition of Freedom Caucus + all the Democrats. But it’s not the moderate republicans demanding a lower vacancy motion threshold.
Just my thoughts. No crystal ball.
ETA: just saw your edit re:obstructionist implications of current versus mid-session voting. Interesting, compelling, and not a way I’d thought of it before. I…don’t think I agree, but I can’t really articulate why at the moment.
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Gaetz is the last “Freedom Caucus” holdout who hasn’t cast his vote yet for round 14. Four others voted against McCarthy and one voted “present,” so I believe that means it’s up to Gaetz, who missed the first roll call but will be called upon again shortly.
A pretty transparent way to drag out the drama and assure all eyes will be on him at the end.
ETA: yup, voted “present” along with Boebert. Showboating pricks.
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Looks like the final vote was 216 for McCarthy, 212 for Jeffries, 4 for others and 2 “present.” So McCarthy got exactly 50% of votes cast and they need to do it again.
Now they’re voting on whether or not to adjourn until Monday. Some of the people in that room sure look pissed off.
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From WaPo:
Democrats who are near the huddle are telling leadership that people were trying to flip Matt Gaetz in real time before the vote was officially tallied. […] McCarthy and his top allies rushed over to Gaetz, who is sitting next to Colorado’s Lauren Boebert and a dramatic showdown is happening. At one point a McCarthy ally, Mike Rogers of Alabama, stormed into the huddle and seemed on the brink of violence, but he retreated to a cloakroom off the floor.
Intra-party fisticuffs on the House floor would be the perfect encapsulation of the GOP right now.
I bet Rogers stormed off to the cloakroom so he could leave a turd in Gaetz’s coat pocket.
ETA: I love this bit about Democrats mocking Republicans for being unable to count.
Confusion set in after most of the GOP conference celebrated Matt Gaetz’s (R-Fla.) “present” vote, seeming to believe that was enough for Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) to win. It was not. The room grew quiet, except for the sound of some Democrats laughing.
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Gaetz certainly will have a lot of colleagues who won’t hesitate to screw him over if they ever get the opportunity. Two members flew halfway across the country earlier today just to make it back for this vote, and now they’re probably going to turn around and get on planes again to fly home again for the weekend.
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Not quite yet. Looks like there’s going to be another vote.
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Huh. I saw they already voted to adjourn. They somehow voted to un-adjourn? What’s the mechanism for that?
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