Posted on 10/04/2015 6:56:05 PM PDT by markomalley
Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz will run for speaker.
The Utah Republican announced his decision on Fox News Sunday, citing support from colleagues who “recruited” him to challenge the establishment favorite, Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif.
“We don’t want to fight internally,” Chaffetz told Fox News anchor Chris Wallace, “but realistically we can’t vote to promote the existing leadership.
“Kevin McCarthy’s a good man,” Chaffetz said, “and he’s a reason we have such a solid majority. But things have changed, and there’s really a math problem.”
Chaffetz granted that McCarthy may have the majority of votes to win a secret-ballot fight behind closed doors on Thursday to be the party’s official nominee to replace resigning Speaker John A. Boehner.
But Chaffetz also asserted McCarthy lacks a critical bloc of support from at least 50 conservatives. That’s 50 votes McCarthy has to have if he has any hope of getting the necessary 218 votes in the live roll call vote that comes later on the House floor, when Democrats will participate.
In that scenario, unless Democrats or conservatives relent on the floor, Republicans would have to pick a new replacement for Boehner other than McCarthy. And part of Chaffetz’s calculation appears to be the belief that Republicans could then settle on him — or even that Republicans may look to save themselves the embarrassment of a floor fight for speaker and just coalesce around his candidacy.
“You have a growing number of [Republican conservatives] that will not and cannot vote for Kevin McCarthy as speaker on the House floor,” Chaffetz told host Chris Wallace.
Asked whether he himself was prepared to support the conference’s nominee during the House floor vote, Chaffetz was cagey.
“I will support the nominee,” he said, “but I just don’t believe the nominee, if it’s Kevin McCarthy, can get to 218.”
Rank-and-file Florida Republican Rep. Daniel Webster is also running to succeed Boehner.
In the interview, Chaffetz hinted his speakership style would be conservative, confrontational to the Obama administration and inclusive of all members of the House Republican Conference — all things that members who are lukewarm on McCarthy want to hear.
But Chaffetz also indicated he would perhaps not be a willing partner in budget negotiations to raise sequester caps — a condition of being able to pass a long-term government funding bill, given the White House’s promise to veto any legislation that maintains those current spending levels.
“I just don’t believe we can continue to add to the deficit so I, personally, like the budget caps,” he said. “I do believe we need more money for the military, we need more money for the VA — we need to take care of the people who are taking care of us. And I want to fight cancer … but, again, it’s not my personal agenda. As speaker you have to take the will of our body.”
Chaffetz added he didn’t support raising the debt limit without conditions, which could end up being his first major task as speaker if Boehner doesn’t tackle the matter before he leaves at the end of October: The deadline to increase the debt ceiling is Nov. 5.
“Our job in the House is to actually put forward a bill. I would like to see it actually cut the deficit … not just keep punting it down the road,” he said. “We’re not just gonna unilaterally raise the debt limit. I don’t think that’s the responsible thing to do.”
Wallace asked whether an episode earlier this year would be any indication of what members could expect of a Chaffetz speakership — when Chaffetz took a subcommittee chairmanship gavel away from Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., in retaliation for going against leadership in a procedural vote on the House floor. That incident led to backlash from the House Freedom Caucus that culminated in Meadows’ reinstatement.
“I think I learned from that lesson,” Chaffetz explained, “That you’re not gonna do things by cutting people off at the knees. I think I was a good leader in that I listened for an hour and 40 minutes with my committee and reconsidered that decision. We gotta win the argument and make the case, not just knock people over the head if they don’t’ do what we’re gonna do.”
Chaffetz earlier in the week criticized McCarthy for suggesting on another Fox News program that the Benghazi committee’s major accomplishment so far was helping to sink poll numbers for 2016 Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton, even asking the majority leader to apologize. Democrats have been having a field day with the rhetorical flap, and Republicans have begun to question both privately and publicly whether McCarthy is ready for prime time.
On Sunday, Chaffetz said, “We want a speaker who speaks. We need someone who’s out there, who is actually going out there and making the case to the American people, talking to the Senate about what we need to do and going on the national television shows and winning that argument.
“We don’t seem to win the argument,” he said, “and that’s a problem.”
Gohmert!!!
Burn Baby burn!
Is Chaffetz the only one running against McCarty?
To quote Speaker of the House Thomas Brackett Reed, “They could do worse, and they probably will!”
Amnesty-friendly Chaffetz is not really better than Amnesty-friendly McCarthy.
No... there are 3... the third is the Conservative Daniel Webster.
At least one conservative rating, I’m now looking at, has
McCarthy at 45%, and Chaffetz at 82%.
He appears to be a stalking horse.
Rep Webster is running too.
Chaffetz? Now way. First, I would want to know the real scandal why he was rejected in past. Something doesn’t read right and it will hurt Republicans.
Why haven’t we heard from Louie Gohmert? He would be my choice.
Speaker of the House? Keepers of the purse should all be in prison.
Socialism Is Legal Plunder
The Results of Legal Plunder
It is impossible to introduce into society a greater change and a greater evil than this: the conversion of the law into an instrument of plunder.
/Bastiat
Rules for Changing a Limited Republican Government into an Unlimited Hereditary One…
6. But the grand nostrum will be a public debt…
7. It must not be forgotten that the members of the legislative body are to have a deep stake in the game. This is an essential point, and happily is attended with no difficulty. A sufficient number, properly disposed, can alternately legislate and speculate, and speculate and legislate, and buy and sell, and sell and buy, until a due portion of the property of their constituents has passed into their hands to give them an interest against their constituents…
9. The management of a great funded debt and a extensive system of taxes will afford a plea, not to be neglected, for establishment of a great incorporated bank. the use of such a machine is well understood. If the Constitution, according to its fair meaning, should not authorize it, so much the better. Push it through by a forced meaning and you will get in the bargain an admirable precedent for future misconstructions.
10. “Divide and govern”…
11. As soon as sufficient progress in the intended change shall have been made, and the public mind duly prepared according to the rules already laid down, it will be proper to venture on another and a bolder step toward a removal of the constitutional landmarks.
/Freneau
Debates in the House of Representatives on the First Report on Public Credit 9–18 February 1790
James Jackson (Ga.)
But it is doubted with me whether a permanent funded debt is beneficial or not to any country.
The same effect must be produced that has taken place in other nations; it must either bring on a national bankruptcy or annihilate her existence as an independent empire. Hence I contend, sir, that a funding system, in this country, will be highly dangerous to the welfare of the republic; it may, for a moment, raise our credit and increase the circulation, by multiplying a new species of currency; but it must, in times afterward, settle upon our posterity a burthen which they can neither bear nor relieve themselves from. It will establish a precedent in America that may, and in all probability will, be pursued by the sovereign authority until it brings upon us that ruin which it has never failed to bring, or is inevitably bringing, upon all the nations of the earth who have had the temerity to make the experiment.
http://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/875
CONgre$$
I’ll take Chaffetz over McCarthy any day.
Law enforcement organizations don’t like independent thinkers, so I wouldn’t hold that against him. Might even be a plus.
<<< I’ll take Chaffetz over McCarthy any day.>>>
Second THAT.
Why do these people keep patting themselves on the back saying things like Boehner got the majority blah blah blah, Boehner had nothing to do with us voters that gave them the majorities. It really irks me.
Most government jobs are private clubs who do not welcome outsiders. Once in awhile they will let an outsider in, but only if they can't find one of their own competent enough to do the job. They are the exception, not the rule.
Good idea, but his 20 votes get's him squat.
Judas Chaffetz Announces His Bid For Speaker of The House….
Posted on October 4, 2015 by sundance
Oh, if only Judas Chaffetz could re-write history; perhaps then an electorate could ignore the fact we have Senator Orin Hatch because Representative Judas Chaffetz took Tom Donohue’s 2011 Chamber of Commerce bribery money and agreed not to challenge Hatch in Utah’s 2012 primary (state delegate convention, not election).
In addition to significant amounts of cash, Chaffetz was also promised establishment perks, a House GOP leadership position, and key chairmanship in exchange for his collaboration.
Now Judas wishes to rise in defense of a common sense constitutional electorate which he previously betrayed.
I’ll take Chaffetz over McCarthy any day.
Chaffetz is a climber who will be no better than McCarthy in the end. He’s got a bad case of Potomac fever and would sell his mother to K Street.
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