Summary
House Speaker Mike Johnson faces growing Republican dissent over his handling of government funding, potentially jeopardizing his reelection as speaker on January 3.
Allies are urging Donald Trump to reaffirm his support for Johnson to avoid a prolonged leadership fight, which could delay certification of Trump’s 2024 election victory on January 6.
Johnson’s bipartisan spending bill, criticized by Trump, narrowly averted a government shutdown but failed to include Trump’s core debt-limit demands.
Some Republicans warn that a speakerless House would disrupt critical legislative processes, including election certification.
So if they fail to elect a speaker and can’t certify before the 20th, in theory Chuck Grassely as president pro tempore of the senate, would assume office at least until such time that the votes would be certified.
That’s assuming they keep with tradition of electing the most senior member of the party in power to the position. In all likelyhood if this were even a remote possibility they’d put some trump loyalist in the position until trump was sworn in. Grassley may be a loyalist, I’m not entirely sure. And of course this is assuming the senate has their shit together. If they don’t, I think the current Secretary of State gets it.
If you expect any of them to hold to tradition you’ll be disappointed
They’ll hold to traditional when it suits them. There’s no particular reason why they would turn against Chuck.
However there’s no saying what suits them. They’re too fractured to have a predictable policy outside of fuck the poor.
If they don’t certify on time, it’s supposed to go to a contingent election, where the House votes for the President (with 1 vote per State delegation) and the Senate votes for VP. Presumably, the Senate would vote for Vance in short order. But if the House still can’t get it’s shit together, and there is no contingent election for President, what happens? Would Vance get directly inaugurated as President?
I am convinced that this was the loophole that Trump was talking about to deny the Presidency to Harris if she won the election. It would be poetic justice if the GOP establishment uses it to screw Trump over.
To clarify:
A contingent election occurs if Congress will not choose a president. This, theoretically, would only occur in the case of an electoral college tie but can also occur if Congress refuses to certify for whatever reason.
In the event both Certification and a Contingent election cannot occur by the 20th, we have an Acting President according to the line of succession.
Without a speaker, they cannot hold a Contingent Election. With a speaker, they would not need to.
But wouldn’t the Senate be empowered to pick the VP in their part of a contingent election, even if the House is still picking a speaker? And then that person would be in the valid line of succession if there is no contingent election for President by inauguration day.
The senate can theoretically do their votes to choose a Vice President. It wouldn’t matter without the House.
And while MAYBE there could be years of debate over whether the VPOTUS can be chosen without a POTUS, that ain’t happening.
Ah good point. In this case Vance could be elected as vice president in the senate, and the assume the office of president until the house gets its shit together
The House would only have until inauguration day to get it’s shit together, though. If they don’t elect someone by then, someone has to actually take office on that day. If no President has been certified, but a VP has, then the VP would.
I mean, the senate could just remove him as senate pres pro-temp on Jan 19, and pick some
republicanmaga loyalist, so he won’t ever become acting president.