From House Speaker to School Boards to the Free State of Florida, It’s a number’s game – Top 3 Takeaways – January 4th, 2023
- 218. That’s the number of votes needed to accomplish anything in the US House of Representatives. And specifically, with a new Congress set to be sworn in yesterday, it’s the number that was needed to elect a new Speaker of the House. Which by the way, was required for members of the House to even be sworn in. It was more than a mere formality; it was an actual showstopper. No other House business including recognizing those elected to represent us could take place before 218 votes lined up behind somebody. In the House, it’s what’s known as a simple majority. A majority which proved to be anything but simple to achieve. And that’s largely because while Republicans now hold the majority of seats in the House, they represent just 222 of the votes – meaning as few as five Republicans can make attaining a simple majority anything but simple. Outgoing Speaker Nancy Pelosi was all too familiar with this as she likewise had the majority in the previous Congress with just 222 votes. And that not-so-simple to achieve majority, you may recall, led to AOC and company creating a fair amount of drama and a great deal of power in successfully rewriting House rules. Rules that for example led to remote voting and remote hearing participation. Rules that Kevin McCarthy vowed to change as Speaker as part of the package of concessions offered to his raucous caucus members. Now if you’re wondering just how hard obtaining a simple majority in the House can be? What we saw yesterday is child’s play. While it had been over 100 years since a first vote hadn’t resulted in a new House Speaker, all previous records for the number of votes needed, took place in the 1850’s. If there was any indication that the United States was headed for a Civil War prior to the 1860’s, it was in the House Speaker votes of the 1850’s. In 1859 44 votes for Speaker were required for someone to obtain a simple majority. And the all-time record had occurred just two years previously as 133 different votes over the course of two months were required before Nathaniel Banks became Speaker of the 34th Congress. So yes, we have drama for sure. But in the end, we have a reminder that the country’s politics have been far more divided than they are now and that you heard Steve Scalise would likely be the next Speaker of the House first, here, yesterday.
- 39%. That’s the percentage of time incumbent school board members had run unopposed prior to two years ago. As illustrated, in today’s Q&A, greater than 70% of the time organizations like Moms for Liberty and the 1776 Project PAC got behind local school board candidates challenging incumbents over the past couple of years, they’ve won. But the 39% hasn’t just been specific to school board races, it’s endemic to local races generally. Low levels of candidate engagement, lower levels of voter turnout. But as I’ve long said, the elections which often have the biggest impact on our daily lives are those which happen closest to us. In Palm Beach County, we have our Uniform Municipal Elections on March 14th. That’s under two and a half months away and will be here before we know it. The deadline for candidates to file to run is February 13th. Now’s the time to see if your municipality is holding elections. And now’s the time for good potential candidates to raise their hands to become part of the process. If you’re happy with your municipality’s current leadership, that’s great. If not, we’ve seen what we can do as a community and a state when we choose to get engaged. In my opinion, in many communities and with Palm Beach County generally, we’ve still got work to do.
- 2. As in Governor DeSantis’ second term where he presides over what he referred to as the land of sanity. For the past two years I’ve consistently said the one thing that keeps me sane is waking up in the Free State of Florida. So, whether Governor DeSantis was borrowing a line from my train of thinking or whether it was a case of great minds... His second term as Florida’s Governor started with an inauguration speech which was far feistier than his first touching on pretty much every major political theme. Calling Florida, the “land of sanity” DeSantis delivered line after line about what’s happened, a la, When other states consigned their peoples’ freedom to the dust bin, Florida stood strongly as freedom’s linchpin. To what’s happening...Florida is where woke goes to die. Apparently, woke is like a virus, it doesn’t thrive with fresh air and lots of sunshine. Actually, that full quote in context is perhaps the most notable within his speech: We reject this woke ideology. We seek normalcy, not philosophical lunacy. We will not allow reality, facts, and truth to become optional. We will never surrender to the world mob. Florida is where woke goes to die. Now, lots of politicians deliver lots of rhetorical haymakers but what makes his speech different is what he’s done. Forcing lockdown wannabees in the peak of the pandemic in South Florida to reopen. Banning vaccine mandates. Enacting Parental Rights in Education. What was so remarkable about DeSantis’ speech is that for every political talking point there was an action item he could point to within our state illustrating the point. Yes, Florida’s beautiful with generally great weather. Yes, we’d have lots of golf courses no matter who the governor was (though you may not have been able to use them), but the reason that Florida’s the land of sanity is what we’ve done to preserve, and in the case of issues like education, reform it – with record setting results. Of course, that’s why he won a landslide reelection, and a record number of Republicans are now serving top to bottom in the state of Florida, that is once the new Congress is sworn in anyway. But in the meantime, its evident what real leadership looks like in Florida, and what a dearth of it looks like on Captial Hill, where the House will reconvene at noon today for a fourth vote for Speaker of the House. It’s little wonder why DeSantis’ star continues to rise on the national stage. But DeSantis’ speech is also a reminder about how nice it’d be to retain him and our sanity for four more years as he was just sworn in to do.