Maybe two ways, but only if you count “The Year Without A Speaker®” as a way it could have ended. But that was pretty unlikely.
I’m reading a lot of comments from folks on this site who think Jeffries should have worked with the GOP moderates to find a bipartisan solution. And a lot of wise folks in the media want us all to believe that if only Jeffries and the House Democrats could have been reasonable and worked with the “moderates” in the GOP we could have had someone in the speakers chair who could be reasonable.
This is a pipe dream. No one on the other side was asking for support from Democrats. No one on the other side was listening to any offers. And no one on the other side who would have accepted any support would have then been able to get a single GOP vote. They wouldn’t have even been given the courtesy of getting told no in a floor vote.
Even if you think Jeffries should have backed a “reasonable” GOP designee with nothing in return, no reasonable GOP designee, if such a person exists anymore, was going to get a floor vote. Not if there was any chance they would get a single Democratic vote. That would have been giving up control of the process.
- Scalise: A little racist, but not even crazy enough to get a floor vote
- Jordan: Took three floor votes to realize how much they really didn’t like him
- Emmer: Rumored to be reasonable. Said he didn’t want to overturn the election, except that one time in college and that didn’t mean anything. No floor vote
- Johnson: Not reasonable. But by this time the GOP was, “Meh. At least he’s not Jordan”
No, as crazy and chaotic as the last month was, it was only going to end with someone acceptable to the MAGA party in charge. It took them a while to herd all the cats, but they never lost control of the process.
Sanity never was going to get a floor vote.
