Tag Archives: speaker of the House

national news

Will the coward find courage?

I have gone on record calling Kevin McCarthy, the man who wants to become speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, an unmitigated coward.

The House Republican leader is trying to muster enough House votes to be elected to the post he wants to inherit from Democrat Nancy Pelosi. He doesn’t have 218 votes yet, as some of the 222 GOP House members have said they want someone else to lead the body.

How can the coward demonstrate some needed courage in the event he takes the gavel from Speaker Pelosi? He can stand up against the MAGA wing of his GOP caucus, telling them to settle down and learn to work with Democrats if they hope to get anything constructive done in the118th Congress.

Some of the MAGA-ites have declared they do not want to work with Democrats. They say working with the other party is similar to surrendering to their philosophy.

The MAGA Republicans are feeling their oats these days, despite so many like-minded candidates losing in the midterm election to Democrats. They hold plenty of power as itis, but they want more.

Whoever ascends to the speakership — and it well could be McCarthy — can show significant courage by telling the MAGA cabal to, um … stuff it.

Will it happen? I am not holding my breath!

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news, political news

Pelosi bows out with class

Nancy Pelosi has made her share of foes — as well as friends — over her many years as a leader in Congress.

Today, though, the lame-duck speaker of the House demonstrated a rare form of grace and class as she declared her intention to stay in Congress while forgoing any future attempts to remain a leader within the Democratic Party caucus.

Pelosi can consider me a friend and a fan, for sure.

She spoke to a nearly full House of Representatives chamber today to announce her political future. Pelosi declared her intent to remain loyal to her San Francisco constituents … also while remaining loyal to the oath she took as a member of Congress to protect and defend the Constitution against “all enemies, foreign and domestic.”

She soon will hand the gavel over to whomever becomes speaker.

As is always the case, one side of the chamber stood and cheered at the appropriate time. The other side, the one occupied by Republican members, didn’t always stand, but one could see some GOP members clapping politely.

They all stood and cheered as Pelosi paid tribute to her husband, Paul, who is still recovering from injuries he suffered in that brutal attack at the couple’s SF home in what clearly was a political assault.

Pelosi called herself a “proud Democrat,” a mother, grandmother and a patriot who loves our country to the fullest. I believe in her faith and devotion to our beloved nation.

Yes, the Pelosi era in the House is about to come to an end.

May this classy and devoted public servant continue to serve her constituents with the same honor and dignity she served the nation as the speaker of the House.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Tough to comprehend

I am likely to go to my grave never understanding how a politician can be heard threatening his colleagues over their conduct in the wake of a violent political insurrection can receive — allegedly — a standing ovation when he rises to speak to them in person.

So it was, reportedly, when U.S. House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy spoke to his GOP colleagues today. It all comes after media reports — complete with audio recordings of McCarthy — of the pol’s indignation over the 1/6 riot that sought to subvert our democracy.

I mean, you can hear McCarthy talk angrily of his colleagues’ behavior during and immediately after the riot. Then he said something profoundly stupid to them.

He wasn’t talking “publicly” about them, only “privately,” and added that he wouldn’t ever say those things in public.

Why, the House Republican caucus members just stood and cheered their hero, who wants to be the next speaker of the House if his party takes control of Congress after the midterm election later this year.

Go fu**ing figure.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

State news

With new speaker coming up, here’s my wish for next session

Texas is going to have a new state House of Representatives speaker when the next Legislature convenes in January 2021. The matter that got the current speaker, Republican Dennis Bonnen of Angleton, into so much trouble has been well-chronicled … mostly.

I want to focus briefly on one matter that needs a bit more exposure: the promise to grant a political action committee media passes to the floor of the Texas House.

Bonnen and Empower Texans founder Michael Quinn Sullivan had a conversation that Sullivan recorded. Bonnen gave Sullivan the names of 10 GOP lawmakers who Sullivan could target in the 2020 legislative election. He also promised to give Sullivan’s group media credentials, enabling Empower Texans to lobby legislators on the House floor.

That is a seriously bad move by the speaker, who decided against seeking re-election next year.

If Republicans keep control of the House, the next GOP speaker needs to ensure he or she does not cross that line. If Democrats take control of the House, which is a possibility, then the next Democratic speaker must avoid that line as well.

Empower Texans trumpets itself as a “news” organization, that it purports to report news on its various information platforms. It is no such thing. It is a strong advocacy group that promotes a rigid ideology. They are repugnant to me personally.

It would be equally wrong for a group such as, say, Planned Parenthood or the American Civil Liberties Union or any other progressive political activist group to be granted that kind of access to legislators.

It was bad enough that Bonnen betrayed his GOP colleagues by offering up the names of 10 of them to appear on Empower Texans’ hit list. It was equally improper for Bonnen to promise media passes to a PAC whose mission is to turn the Legislature into a mouthpiece that echoes Empower Texans’ right-wing agenda.

May the next speaker — and those who come later — learn from this sorry example of a political double-cross.

national news

Speaker ups the ante; now it’s ‘bribery’

Oh, brother. Here we go. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi now is tossing out the “b” word in connection with the impeachment inquiry under way in the House of Representatives.

She believes Donald Trump has committed an act of “bribery,” one of two crimes mentioned specifically in the U.S. Constitutions as grounds for removing the president from office; the other crime is “treason.”

So, where do we stand? Pelosi has stated out loud that Trump’s attempt to obtain a political favor from Ukraine in exchange for sending weapons to Ukrainians who are fighting Russia-backed aggressors is a bribe.

I am left to say, um, wow!

The Constitution states that the president “shall be removed from office on impeachment for conviction of treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.”

OK. You got that? What does the handy-dandy American Heritage Dictionary say about what constitutes a bribe? “Something, such as money or a favor, offered or given to induce or influence a person to act dishonestly.” 

As I try to connect these dots, I conclude the following: Donald Trump’s asking Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenksiy for a “favor, though” falls directly into the definition of a bribe. He wanted dirt on Joe Biden and his son, Hunter; in return for the dirt, the president would release weapons slated to go to Ukraine.

Hmm. Is that a bribe? I believe it is.

The more troublesome question rests with how congressional Republicans are going to act on this conclusion. I fear they won’t consider it a bribe. They likely will insist that it’s done “all the time.”

But … is it?

I often have written about how “elections have consequences.” Well, consider this little observation: We are now reaping the consequence of electing someone with zero understanding of what the United States Constitution allows and prohibits.

State news

Bye, bye … Speaker Bonnen

It’s one and done for Dennis Bonnen.

As in one term as speaker of the Texas House of Representatives and now he’s gone, retiring at the end of 2020 from the Legislature.

The Angleton Republican won’t seek re-election next year to another House term. It’s is just as well, given that he squandered the trust of his fellow GOP lawmakers by engaging in a surreptitious conversation with a well-known right-wing radical political activist — in which Bonnen offered the radical the names of 10 GOP lawmakers the said radical could target in the next election.

I am referring to Empower Texans main man Michael Quinn Sullivan, who’s made a career out of targeting Republicans in Texas who don’t adhere to the same rigid ideology as he and his group. He has drawn a bead in the past, for example, on state Sen. Kel Seliger of Amarillo and state Rep. Four Price, also of Amarillo. He lost those effort to unseat two fine legislators.

There are others, too, who have been victimized by this guy.

He now has brought down Speaker Bonnen, which the more I think about it might have been his aim all along. Sullivan and Bonnen aren’t exactly allies, but Sullivan recorded that meeting he had with Bonnen and former Texas House GOP caucus chairman Dustin Burrows of Lubbock. He said he had the goods on Bonnen, who denied giving up the names of those 10 legislators. Oh, but then the recording was released and Bonnen can be heard using some pithy language to describe his fellow Republicans.

At least 30 GOP House members had declared they either would not support him for re-election as speaker or flat out asked him to resign his speakership.

Bonnen took the least painful course. He won’t run for his Gulf Coast seat in 2020.

That’s all fine with me. I don’t want the Man of the Texas House to be a tool of a right-wing outfit such as Empower Texans, or of Michael Quinn Sullivan. My hope is that the next speaker of the House will stand up to this guy, tell him to take a hike and proceed to run the legislative chamber with at least a modicum of honesty and integrity.

Dennis Bonnen has failed to do so. For that reason I am glad to see him gone.

national news

Trump tempts impeachment … but wait!

Donald Trump is tempting the U.S. House of Representatives to enter into a most dangerous political minefield.

The leader of the House, though, isn’t having any part of it.

At least not just yet.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi continues to dig in on her resistance to impeaching the president of the United States. I happen to believe she is taking the correct course.

She wants more “evidence” to come forth in order to proceed with a full-blown impeachment inquiry. I agree with those who believe there’s a mountain of circumstantial evidence already building. However, I believe the House’s consummate political operative — the speaker — understands the consequence of impeaching the president only to have him “acquitted” if the Senate fails to convict him of a high crime or misdemeanor.

I also understand that momentum might be shifting under Pelosi’s feet. Trump keeps stiffing Congress’s effort to conduct oversight hearings. He instructs his staff and former staff to ignore congressional subpoenas. Trump, therefore, is building all by himself a case of obstruction of justice, but he’s not there just yet.

He also is losing court fights. Judges are ruling against the president’s efforts to keep his personal financial records out of congressional hands. He hasn’t yet been issued a court order to fork them over. If such an order arrives, and then the president decides to break the law by disobeying a direct order from a duly constituted judicial authority, well . . . there’s your high crime and misdemeanor.

This rush to impeachment, though, is a fool’s errand. Speaker Pelosi knows it.

I want Donald Trump to walk out of the Oval Office for keeps. I want voters to boot him out in November 2020. I intend to use this blog as a forum to boost that electoral result.

If impeachment is in this nation’s immediate future, I also intend to speak loudly and often in favor of this action.

However, I want the House of Representatives to get it right. I want there to be no room for Trump to wriggle free.

Might that moment come? Perhaps. I am willing to wait for it.

national news

Paul Ryan: big-time letdown

I had high hopes for Paul Ryan when he was dragged kicking and screaming into the speakership of the U.S. House of Representatives.

The Wisconsin Republican reportedly didn’t want to become the Man of the House when John Boehner resigned his speakership and left public office in 2015. Ryan had to be talked into it.

He took the job. I was hopeful that this policy wonk, a serious young man who knows the ins and outs of public policy would be able to manage the House effectively and work to enact meaningful legislation. I had hoped he could work effectively with the Democratic minority in the House chamber.

Then I had hope that after Donald Trump was elected president in 2016 that he could resist some of the new president’s more bizarre impulses.

Well, he didn’t deliver the goods. He didn’t work well with the other party. He certainly didn’t resist the president. He became a Trump Man. Not a Republican Party Man. But a Trump Man. He became the president’s enabler.

Ryan ran on the 2012 GOP ticket for vice president. He and Mitt Romney lost that election to President Obama and Vice President Biden. He went back to the House, resumed his post as Budget Committee chairman. Then fate — and Speaker Boehner’s frustration with the TEA Party wing of his party — delivered him to the House’s highest post.

If only he could have shown a bit of spine as the Republican In Name Only president proceeded to hijack a great political party. There were faint signs of spine-stiffening, such as when he would offer mild criticism of some crazy Trump utterances.

But then he would roll over as Trump pushed through the House a tax cut that over time will benefit only the wealthiest of Americans.

Speaker Ryan gave a farewell speech today, bidding goodbye to the House where he served for two decades. He lamented the “broken politics” that afflicts the House. Uh, hello, Mr. Speaker? You helped break it.

I, of course, live far away from Janesville, Wis., from where Ryan hails. However, given that he managed the legislative body that approves legislation that affects all Americans, I have a significant stake in the job he did.

Thus, I shall declare that I won’t miss Paul Ryan.

political news

Term limits for congressional leaders? Why not?

I dislike the idea of term limits for members of Congress.

However, the idea of imposing such limits on congressional leaders is another matter. To that end, the next speaker of the House of Representatives is on to something constructive.

Nancy Pelosi, the leader of the House Democratic caucus, has agreed to serve only two terms as speaker once she takes the gavel in January. She is set to favor a vote among congressional Democrats to impose similar limits on committee chairs, following the lead set by their Republican colleagues.

Pelosi getting push back

I like the notion of imposing those limits on leadership, despite my aversion to mandatory limits on the number of terms House members can serve on Capitol Hill. I have said all along that we already have limits on terms; they occur in the House every two years and every six years for senators. The 2018 midterm election demonstrated quite vividly the power of the electorate to give incumbents the boot.

Congressional leaders, though, aren’t necessarily beholden to the voters for the power they obtain in the halls of Congress. They are beholden to their fellow lawmakers.

Why not enact mandatory regular changes in committee chairmanships — as well as the speaker of the House?

It’s a good call from the new speaker.

national news

Pelosi employs her superb ‘inside game’

This is what they mean, I suppose, when they say Nancy Pelosi plays an unparalleled “inside game” on Capitol Hill.

The Democratic leader in the U.S. House of Representatives is knocking off her former foes by “killing” them with promises. She intends to become the next/returning speaker of the House and she is lining up her friends to ensure they cast their votes in her favor.

Rep. Brian Higgins of New York had been a foe. He’s now on her side, thanks to a pledge to prioritize infrastructure legislation and Medicare expansion next year. Earlier, Pelosi struck a deal to win over Rep. Marsha Fudge of Ohio, who had considered running against Pelosi for speaker; Fudge climbed aboard the Pelosi haywagon after the presumptive speaker promised her a committee chairmanship and pledged to work to correct voting problems.

Isn’t that the sign of someone who knows how to turn foes into friends and start the process of organizing an occasionally unruly caucus of partisans with their own agendas, their own concerns and their own constituents?

This kind of skill is precisely what made her such an effective speaker during her first go-round, from 2007 until 2011.

Republicans will continue to demonize her. They do so at their peril.