House To Decide Who Will Be Second In Line Of Succession To The Presidency

House to decide who will be
second in line of succession
to the presidency!

Today in Washington, D.C. - Jan. 5, 2015:The Senate are not in session today. They will both convene tomorrow at Noon for the 114th Congress.

When the Senate convenes tomorrow, newly elected and re-elected senators will be sworn in by the Vice President. Senators continuing on to the 114 Congress and newly elected Senators gathered in Washington in December for their conference meetings. On Dec. 11, 2014, Senator Mitch McConnell was unanimously elected to be the Senate majority leader by his Republican colleagues. Thus it is expected meets, Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY), age 72, is assured of becoming the next Senate majority leader. Sen. Harry Reid (D, NV) almost age 75 will be the Senate minority leader.

In November 2014, House Republican and Democrat lawmakers met into cast ballots for there leaders. Rep. Nancy Pelois (D-CA), age 74, was elected to continue as the Democrat House Leader. Republicans met to choose their person for House speaker and for other Republican leadership positions. at that time. Rep. Boehner (R-OH), now age 65, won the support of the GOP conference for a third term.

Tomorrow (Jan. 6, 2015) the first day of the 114th Congress,  the official votes on House positions will take place. All House members Democrat and Republicans) will vote for the next speaker as the first order of business. Present reports indicate that John Boehner is now facing limited opposition from conservative members of the conference.

Boehner needs 218 votes — a majority — to remain being Speaker. To stop him for getting a majority on the first ballot, 29 Republicans must oppose him. There are 246 GOP lawmakers in the House after New York Rep. Michael Grimm resigned last week. Presently 10 have identified that they will vote no on the first ballot.

Democrats plan to nominate California Rep. Nancy Pelosi for speaker. However, with just 188 Democratic lawmakers in the House, she will be unable to win a majority of votes unless Republicans vote for her or abstain in large numbers.

Should Boehner fail to secure the 218 needed to win House speaker on the first ballot, members will continue voting until a member secures a majority to win.

Despite opposition by limited numbers of conservatives, Boehner’s office remains confident he will retain his post as speaker. According to Michael Steel, Boehner's spokesman, “Rep. Boehner was selected as the House Republican Conference’s choice for speaker in November, and he expects to be elected by the whole House this week.”

According to a national survey of over 600 Republican voters, 60% said they want a new House speaker. While, just 25% believe Boehner should be elected again. However, the decision does not rest with the general public but with elected Representatives. Also, when someone challenges the current speaker, they risk losing their committee assignments, fundraising opportunities and potentially their political career.

The Republican representatives who have identified that the will vote no on the first balloting for Speaker Boehner are Marlin Stutzman (IN), Thomas Massie (KY), Steve King (IA), Walter Jones (NC), Paul Gosar (AZ), Jim Bridenstine (OK), Dave Brat (VA), Ted Yoho (FL), Louie Gohmert (TX), and Gary Palmer (AL).

Now turning to the Executive branch, it appears that the president may not have gotten the message voters were sending in the election two months ago. Reports follow:

Politico reports:

• “The Obama administration is preparing another active year of executive action in 2015, pumping out new rules and enforcing others for the first time — setting tougher standards on everything from air pollution to overtime pay to net neutrality, food safety, commercial drones, a college ratings plan and a crackdown on for-profit colleges that don’t prepare their students for well-paying jobs. There’s even going to be the first draft of a rule for organic pet food.”
• “The rules and regulations will set up more confrontation with a newly unified Republican Congress, which will use all of the tools at its disposal to try to stop individual policies and blast the Obama administration for being too rule-happy in general.”
• “The president doesn’t seem to care about the impact of these regulations on families,” said John Barrasso of Wyoming, the chairman of the Senate Republican Policy Committee, adding that the administration is showing “a complete neglect of the economic impact” of the load of new rules.
• “Incoming Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said he’ll do everything he can to stop the Environmental Protection Agency’s rule to limit carbon dioxide emissions from coal plants and other facilities, which is supposed to come out in final form this summer.”
  

Even the AP acknowledges that the president isn’t presenting any new ideas, though.

• “Obama will roll out new executive steps and proposals for Congress this week on home ownership, higher education and manufacturing jobs - a similar menu to the one Obama has offered in years past.”
• “As Obama closed out 2014, he was visibly energized by a string of high-profile presidential moves in the last six weeks of the year. Following brutal midterm losses for Democrats, Obama's actions on Cuba and immigration suggested he still retained some relevance, and Obama said he intended to carry that momentum into 2015.”
• “Yet since the midterms, the key question has been whether Obama will lean in or away from compromise with Republicans in his final two years. Of the issues the White House said Obama will emphasize in the coming weeks, none were among the handful of areas that both Democrats and Republicans have cited as ripe for compromise - like trade, tax reform and infrastructure.”

Leader McConnell told CNN recently:

• “I think the American people had two messages. They were certainly upset with the president and wanted to express that opposition to what he's been doing, but they also want to do something about the dysfunction in Washington. . . . And so I think the message from the American people is they'd like to see a right-of-center, responsible conservative governing majority.  That's what the speaker and I tend to provide.”
• “I think jobs and the economy are clearly what the voters are concerned about. They are tired of inaction.  They want us to act.  And what does acting mean?  Just to give you some examples, it won't surprise you, things like approving the Keystone pipeline, which would put a lot of people to work almost immediately, trying to do everything we can to push back against this overactive bureaucracy of the current administration that's created much job loss, for example, in my state, in the mining industry, coal mining industry.”

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