An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. I have to take my hat off to Rep. Brendan Boyle, (D-PA) for trying to head catastrophe off at the pass. It’s a sad fact of our political lives these days that any outrage that the Republicans and Donald Trump can pull, they will pull. You’ve heard the rumors that if the Republicans win back the House in 2022, which is not inconceivable considering how thin the margin is, they might decide to make Trump Speaker of the House. Under present law, they can do so. Boyle’s law would prevent that. Forbes:
Rep. Brendan Boyle (D-Pa.) introduced the MEMBERS Act – which stands for Mandating that being an Elected Member Be an Essential Requirement for Speakership – which, as its name suggests, requires House membership as a prerequisite for becoming speaker.
Boyle specifically cited the speculation about Trump as the motivation for the bill, calling it an “alarm bell” that the current requirements should be changed “in the name of protecting our nation and our democracy.”
Article I, Section 2 of the Constitution gives the House the power to “choose their speaker and other officers” without any specific requirements, though every speaker in U.S. history has also been a House member.
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy claims to have Trump’s backing for his inevitable bid for the speakership – and Trump’s team denies their man wants the job – but that hasn’t stopped Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) from vowing to nominate the ex-president anyway.
It’s a sad commentary that politics has become an entertainment medium and a fundraising mechanism to the GOP, and that those things are far more important than governance. But since that is the case, Congressman Boyle’s bill is prudent and timely.
Man, finally we see some motor oil in the House Democrats’ engine, just a little thing but OH so powerful … Trump is poison no matter what his involvement with our Congress or any other part of it … his invite to the NY courts can’t come too soon, something tells me the AG’s in that part of our country are not cutting any corners … the full weight of every criminal action by the Trump family will be another cobra strike against there freedom for awhile … just 20 years or so would definitely be a life sentence for the orange turd himself and as a giant putdown for the kids too … possible time for Junior to get clean from his, “meds”, …
There has been such a close working system with Putin and his money, all family is involved, because of Trump’s handing the top jobs off to his sons …
So sad, but it will be another time for fireworks, year after year, that precious day when the Trump business and family went to prison for being the criminals they are …
I just hope a number of complicit Republicans get some of the same kind of results …
Surprised that they didn’t think of that much, much earlier.
Well, I’m not completely averse to this idea (the only suggestion I’d make is that the Speaker’s job be available to any elected member of the House–sitting or retired, and maybe accepting retired Senators–rather than restricting to sitting members) but it still doesn’t really help Trump’s pipe dream of getting back in the White House. As I understand the whole process behind the “stealth operation,” Trump gets the Speaker’s job and then *he* introduces simultaneous articles to impeach both Biden and Harris and after both have been impeached and removed, he returns to the White House, courtesy of the Presidential Succession Act.
Of course, he and his followers obviously weren’t paying attention to Trump’s own impeachment case. For starters, the SPEAKER doesn’t introduce or even initiate the impeachment process–you’ve got to start in one or more House committees and, depending on the specific rules set by the committee, the effort can be knee-capped right then and there. BUT, let’s assume the committee or committees do present their findings to the full House which leads to a separate House vote on each and every single article. Well, you might get that part through as it takes only a simple majority of the members present (and that’s kind of exactly what happened when the House first impeached Trump) so this part would be incredibly likely with a GOP majority controlling Congress. And, since the House votes are treated pretty much the same way as any other House vote: The measure is put before the floor; the measure is subjected to debate; the measure is put up to a vote; the measure passes or fails. But, it’s the next step that will completely derail Trump and his supporters: The Senate. If Trump and his supporters would just go back and look at how the impeachment process has gone, they’d see how it’s doomed to fail. While Trump’s first impeachment was thwarted in the Senate because McConnell wouldn’t allow a real impeachment trial, it was already doomed because there was simply no way that Democrats could convince roughly 20 GOP senators to vote “guilty” which would lead to Trump’s removal from office (and the second trial wouldn’t have had any real impact as it took place after Biden had already been sworn into office–even then, only 7 GOP senators voted to convict Trump). And it’s that last point that does anything substantial in terms of the process. You MUST have 2/3 of the senators present to vote “guilty” which leads to removal from office. If all 100 senators are present, then 67 must vote “guilty”; if only 90 senators are present, then 54 are needed. ANYTHING LESS than that 2/3 vote leaves the officeholder in office. So, unless the GOP can manage to win at least six to eight seats (and hold on to all the ones that’ll be up in 2022), and then convince at least a dozen Democrats to be “out of town” for the trial process, there’s no way their scheme will ever work.
There are Democrats who’ve toyed with the idea of a non-member Democrat as Speaker in the past too. It never went anywhere of course, just as cray GOP notions of the same nonsense have been suggested in the past too. In the past it’s always been treated like the fringe bullshit everyone with half a brain has known it was. However, Trump is an entirely different creature, and as batshit crazy as it sounds if he wants the title (he’d never want the actual job because it’s damned hard work – but he’d love lording around the title) he could probably browbeat the GOP into putting him in that spot.
I do love the idea of introducing a formal resolution on the matter, if not an actual piece of legislation. It would of course provoke a Constitutional fight in the Courts if this shit actually happened. Sadly, the Constitution give the only Party crazy enough to actually pull a stunt like this the power to actually vote in a Speaker who wasn’t a sitting member of the House. But the cries of anguish mixed in with the howls of outrage from the GOP over such legislation would be something to behold. And drive more Independents our way which is what really matters.
And anyone who doesn’t think Trump’s claims he wouldn’t be interested is kidding themselves. Even the speculation and his denials get him some of the attention he so desperately craves. Actually being Speaker would allow him to upstage even the President. Again, anyone who doesn’t believe that to be true needs to think very carefully. And take the possibility seriously, unlike his candidacy in 2015 and into the early primaries when his whole Presidential run was considered a joke by politicians, pundits and comedians alike. By the time folks realized “uh oh” it was too late.
McCarthy probably shits his pants every time this comes up. Because deep down HE knows that regardless of what Trump’s saying now, the time will come when he declares he’d be the greatest Speaker in history. So great he’d be more powerful than the President. Worse, the reality is that for a REAL Speaker that person holds power second only to the President! A lot less to be sure, but more than even a sitting Vice-President does.