In a shocking turn of events, McCarthy withdrew himself from the race moments before the caucus was set to vote on the nominees and after making a speech to the caucus that morning as to why he should be Speaker. McCarthy will remain Majority Leader. Additionally, with McCarthy not running for Speaker, the subsequent leadership races are no longer moot because the position of Majority Leader will no longer be vacated. As a result, the vote was immediately cancelled and the Speaker election on the 29th has been postponed. Boehner will remain Speaker until another candidate can be found.
McCarthy said that he did not have the assured votes to secure being Speaker in the larger election on the 29th, which is why he withdrew. The House Freedom Caucus had said that it will not support the caucus candidate in the larger election if it was McCarthy.
The next presumed candidate is Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), who endorsed McCarthy at the morning caucus meeting. Ryan has adamantly asserted he will not run for Speaker. He is currently the House Ways and Means Committee Chair. Immediately following the breaking news of McCarthy’s withdrawal, Ryan stated that he will not run for Speaker, and he has echoed this many times subsequently.
That leaves the Republican Leadership and caucus in a pickle. In the wake of Majority Leader McCarthy’s abrupt withdrawal from the Speaker race, House Republicans kept floating trial balloon speaker candidates Thursday in the wake of Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s about-face on climbing the GOP ladder, including several who might serve as an “interim” speaker.There have been points in history where the House has operated without a Speaker, but it has not been a practice in recent history. The idea of a “Interim Speaker” has been bantered about. The idea that the Member would be someone who has already announced their intent to retire allowing them to serve as Speaker for about 16 months. The only problem with this plan is who exactly would be the individual that could receive the support of both the various factions of the Republican caucus, and how this position would function…and if doing such a thing is even legitimate….
In a shocking turn of events, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) has announced that he no longer intends to run for Speaker. This morning McCarthy addressed the Caucus as to why he should be elected Speaker and just now, he announced he was no longer running.
Here’s a selection or articles the Federal Relations team is reading this week.
Meet the New Guy – John B. King Jr., Obama’s pick to lead the Dept. of Ed through final year of the Administration, is not well known in higher-education circles. Like his predecessor, Arne Duncan, King is most famous (or infamous, depending on whom you’re talking to) for his efforts to remake elementary and secondary education. Read more at the Chronicle of Higher Education or take a look at Politico.
Toward Los Angeles, California ( Lange, D. LOC)
Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing? – Several for-profit colleges have recently restructured as nonprofit entities. But a new report argues that some of them now act like “covert for-profits” and that their backers profit in ways that are not standard at traditional universities. Read more at the Chronicle of Higher Education.
Loan Game Plan – Fall semester is well underway for America’s 13 million full-time college students, many using federal grants and loans to pay for tuition, room and board, and other costs of school. Read more at Politico.
To the Mattresses – Key players in the US alcohol industry are coalescing behind tax reform legislation that could end a long-running dispute between beer industry titans such as Miller and Budweiser and rising craft brewers like Dogfish Head and DC Brau.The Craft Beverage Modernization and Tax Reform Act has a little something in it for the wine, alcoholic cider and distilled spirits industries, but its creation was driven primarily by a prolonged battle between two beer trade groups. Read more at The Hill. Also, find out what beer is made closest to you (or where beer is made around the country) with this handy map, at the Washington Post.
GOP PPA Headache – The House of Representatives plans to defund Planned Parenthood and force votes are causing major headaches for moderate Senators in Democratically-leaning or toss-up states. Read more at The Hill.
Gallup Gives Up – The gold standard in political polling for the last several decades (since 1936 predicting Roosevelt’s first win) isn’t planning any polls for the presidential primary horse race this cycle. Moreover, Gallup will not commit to tracking and polling the general election last year because of how badly its polling went during the last presidential election cycle (where it predicted a Romney win). Even following an internal probe into what went wrong in 2012, Gallup will not commit to tracking the general election. In 2012, many national polls underestimated President Obama’s standing leading up to election, but Gallup’s failure was especially visible because the Obama campaign had pushed back publicly against Gallup’s surveys…several times. Gallup’s final survey showed Romney leading Obama by 1 point — 4.9 points off from the final result, in which Obama prevailed by 3.9 points. It also misidentified the winner. That led to a lengthy and expensive effort by Gallup to retool its methodology, something Gallup still is not confident about apparently. Read more at Politico.
Whoops – A new study funded by an anti-vaccination group, Safeminds, has found that there is no link that vaccinations cause autism. Hurray for public health, sucky for the anti-vaxx cause. Read more at IFLScience. Also, the Supreme Court has decided it will not hear a challenge to New York’s law requiring all students to be vaccinated before starting school (and all kids have to go to school!) or be barred from attending school when there is an outbreak of a contagious communicable disease that is preventable from vaccination. The challenge was brought that the requirement violated religious freedom. In effect the court has held, the state has a reasonable interest in protecting public health that is greater that protecting an individuals religious freedom. Read more at the New York Times.
The Prospect of Joe – The Draft Biden movement continues to escalate and the super PAC will go to the airwaves this week. Even though Biden has not declared, is not raising money, and has weak polling, the potential of a Biden challenge is something the Clinton camp is taking very seriously. Read more at the New York Times.
Excellent Loss – Harvard’s champion debate team lost to a group of prison inmates in the Bard Prison Initiative. What’s more the inmates had to defend the position that public schools should be able to deny enrollment to undocumented students, a topic position they strongly disagreed with. Read more at the Wall Street Journal.
In a move that could spell trouble for current leadership looking to rise in office, current Speaker John Boehner has postponed the House GOP leadership elections from this Thursday, October 8th, until October 29th. The nominees for the Speaker’s positions will be declared on the 8th, but now, the actual election will be held weeks later.
Much of the reason for the oath postponement is due to House Republican’s contention that other GOP leadership spots cannot be filled until a Speaker is officially selected. The full House of Representatives votes on the Speaker, and the request seems to question whether Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy, and current front runner, can gain enough votes to secure Speaker. Over the weekend, Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) announced his intention to run and lost no time airing grievances at McCarthy’s leadership.
Meanwhile, the move will allow the new Speaker to set any subsequent leadership elections if such elections are necessary (if McCarthy moves up and vacates the Majority Leader post).
Also, supporters of Reps Steve Scalise (R-LA) and Tom Price (R-GA), who have both announced their intentions to run for Majority Leader should McCarthy win Speaker, are concerned that the additional time will allow a “true conservative” to enter the fray for Majority Leader.
Secretary of Education Arne Duncan has announced that he will step down at the end of December. He was one the last remaining original cabinet appointees and will have served six years.
His family recently returned to Chicago, where Duncan ran public schools for several years before his appointment as Secretary of Education. During his tenure, Duncan repeatedly clashed with teachers unions, parents, and Congress through initiatives like Common Core and support of charter schools.
Former New York state commissioner John King, a deputy secretary at the agency for the last few months, will take his place.
