US House Republicans face tangled path to picking a new speaker

SPC Kevin Ford
"WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republicans who control the U.S. House of Representatives will try to move closer to picking a successor to former Speaker Kevin McCarthy on Tuesday, under mounting pressure from a war in the Middle East and another looming government shutdown.

The House Republican majority was due to hear from at least two candidates for the top congressional post - Majority Leader Steve Scalise and Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan - at an evening closed-door forum, a day before party members were expected to vote on a nominee by secret ballot.

Republicans hold a narrow 221-212 majority, which made it possible for just a handful of their members to oust McCarthy last week, and could make leading the caucus challenging for any new speaker.

While McCarthy was the first speaker to be ousted in a formal vote, the last two Republicans to hold the job wound up leaving under pressure from party hardliners.

Ahead of voting on a speaker, Republicans may first have to tackle other thorny issues, including how to move forward on government funding for the fiscal year that began Oct. 1 and whether to change the rule that allowed just one lawmaker to call a vote to oust McCarthy.

"Those are all points that members are talking about among themselves, and they do have to be reconciled and they have to be agreed to before we can go forward," Republican Representative French Hill told Reuters.

Over 90 Republicans have also called for a party rule change that would require any nominee to have the support of 217 Republicans, enough to win election to the speaker's post on the House floor in the face of Democratic opposition."...

This should be less painful than it was in earlier this year. Even the radicals like Jim Jordan. Stephen scalise is a good pick though he may be too weak if he's going through chemotherapy but I want to remind Democrats that there are also left-wing terrorists who tried killing him a few years ago. One of them was a Bernie Sanders supporter. I wonder if the Mandalay Bay assassin killing at the country concert got the idea from the lay and wait assassin who was shooting at the baseball field?

https://www.newsweek.com/rep-steve-scalise-shot-sanders-supporter-replies-request-evidence-bernie-bros-being-bad-1488354.