The GOP House brought all the chaos they promised in the first two weeks of their shaky majority – By Joan McCarter (Daily Kos) / Jan 13, 2023
The new, tiny House Republican majority set out its agenda for the first week of the new session on Dec. 30. It was ridiculous in theory, and it was doubly ridiculous in practice only in part because it took until Week Two to accomplish. The Week One display on the House floor from fractious Republicans in even getting a figurehead speaker installed wasn’t enough to deter them from forging ahead with that divisive, unpopular agenda this week. Then to head off early on Thursday for a 12-day recess observing Martin Luther King Day. Yeah, some of us get one day. They get 12.
Here’s what they accomplished in their first week of “legislating.”
On Monday, Republicans passed a new rules package to govern the House for the 118th session, keeping in place some of the rules from the previous Congress and jettisoning others, mostly in the name of “fiscal responsibility.”
Getting the most attention because it was one of the key demands McCarthy caved on to the maniacs is allowing just one member to make a “motion to vacate the chair,” or call to oust McCarthy. It’s a privileged resolution, meaning it takes priority on the floor ahead of anything else once it’s called. One thing to note is that the one-member motion rule had been in place forever until it was weaponized by the Freedom Caucus in 2015. In 2019, Democrats modified the rule to say it could only be brought “if offered by direction of a party caucus or conference.” The maniacs insisting that it be reinstated to a single member is their power play over McCarthy. And they won.
