Several days ago, I wrote the following on Facebook: “How’s this? McCarthy puts the Senate’s CR to vote in the House, they take Ukraine out but deal with it separately, and House Dems vote McCarthy for Speaker.”

People ignored my prediction, but they should pay closer attention to me, I think, because it looks like I may have forecast it correctly. The CR which McCarthy put on was basically the CR that the Senate had passed without money for Ukraine. It did include additional money for disaster relief (this provision helped by the recent flooding in New York City), but McCarthy took out money for the southern border and took out the 8% across the board cut, both of which had been in the draft CR that the right wing of his party wanted to see. “Wanted to see” actually is a little too mild – without these provisions, a number of right wing Republicans said they wouldn’t vote for an extension at all. That they’d rather see the government shut down. And of course they were cheered on by the still favored, but increasingly irrelevant, nominee for the Republican position on the presidential ballot, Donald J. Whats-his-name.

When the vote on the modified CR came up for a vote in the House yesterday, every single Democrat, but for one, voted for it, and 90 Republicans (over 40% of the Republicans in the House) voted against it. When the same modified CR was brought to the Senate, the vote was 88-9, about as bipartisan as you can get, with 9 Republicans voting against it.

The president signed the bill last night, and so, yes, the United States continues to have a government for the next 45 (oops, make that 44) days.

Those who voted against the CR yesterday will, I am sure, explain their decisions to their constituents, many or most of whom will agree with them. But one thing must be remembered: in voting against the CRs, each of the naysayers (did you know that was one word?) knew that the CR was going to pass and that their vote was not going to shut down the government. So they were each “making a point” or “standing up to principle” or something. It will be interesting to see how they talk about this, and it will be interesting to see what D.J.What’s…. has to say about the vote. And what they have to say about Kevin McCarthy.

When I woke up this morning, I decided that Matt Gaetz would not move to vacate the Speakership (did you know that this is apparently not a word?) on Monday. But I heard this morning that he has said that he will follow through. He probably can’t succeed, but I guess we are back to “standing up to principle” and a guess that this will help him politically when he runs for his next term, or when he runs for the Senate, whichever it will be.

But the Democrats will most likely eventually support McCarthy and McCarthy’s election and potential tenure will therefore be bipartisan. This could have some unanticipated benefits. I would think that the Democrats will try to negotiate a bit with Speaker McCarthy before they cast their votes for him. For example, they will probably get a commitment from him to put a Ukraine supplemental bill on the floor quickly. And he will probably be willing to agree to that……provided that they can also add something for increased southern border security. Whether those will be stand alone bills or melded into the pending appropriations bills, I don’t know. But I think they are likely.

As to the appropriations bills for the next fiscal year, the House has now acted on the majority of them (with figures that Democrats can’t support), and the Senate committees have completed work on all of them – each of which is guaranteed passage when it comes to the Senate floor. Normal procedure would then require some sort of conference committee to come up with final bills. My guess is that, in order to support McCarthy as speaker, the Democrats will at least require a procedural agreement as to how to get the bills into conference quickly, so that as much can be taken care of as possible before November 17, the cut-off date for this CR. And remember, in their conversations on this, the Democrats will fall back on the budget agreement that McCarthy has already made.

These negotiations will be interesting, although most will probably be held out of the public eye. And 44 days are not many, and if there is pressure to remove McCarthy on Monday, we won’t even have anything approaching 44 days.

But what if all of this fails, and a sufficient number of Democrats will not be willing to support McCarthy as continuing Speaker? From what I see, there is a House rule that authorizes the vacating of the speaker’s position, and the election of a speaker pro-tem. Because this has never been done, I don’t think we know how it will work or its effects. One assumption is that such a motion would be a matter of privilege, and come to a vote without the necessity of committee actions, etc. And what happens if such a motion succeeds and there is no Speaker? At the start of each new Congress, the election of a Speaker is an essential first step; that if there is no Speaker, the House cannot do any business. So, is the House paralyzed if there is no Speaker in place because the position being vacated? The Rule I cited above (without attribution, because I don’t know how to attribute it) talks about a Speaker pro-tem. Does this mean that you can only vacate the position if, at the same time, a speaker pro-tem is appointed by House vote to take the position temporarily, so that the business of the House can continue until there is a new vote on a permanent Speaker? If so (and again there is no precedent either way), it makes Matt Gaetz’ job that much harder – it is doubtful that the House, divided as it is, will be able to approve a Speaker pro tem. And if the Speaker position is vacated and there is no interim Speaker elected – does that mean that the House cannot function and that Matt Gaetz has won his initial battle and shut down the government as of, say, next Monday?

Stay tuned……