Here we go!
The Washington Post has the updated whip count as of 10 this morning. They have also confirmed Reps. Amash and Webber as firm “nos,” giving the anti-Boehner coalition 2 more votes toward an alternative candidate.
Boehner is predicted to lose more votes than in his previous bid for speaker, but he also has more room for error:
As Politico reports, at least 12 House Democrats are skipping the speaker vote to attend former New York governor Mario Cuomo’s (D) funeral. That increases the threshold for pushing Boehner to a second ballot to at least 35, making him even safer.That 35 number, we would emphasize, is a minimum. Boehner needs a majority, so if some members don’t vote, Boehner’s threshold for winning will be lower than the usual 218 votes — as it was in 2013, when it was 214 votes. So if some of these Boehner opponents vote for nobody — as Labrador and Mulvaney did in 2013 — that hurts Boehner less.
We’ll be providing live updates and reactions to the vote, so stay tuned!
You can watch a live stream of the House session here, via C-SPAN.
UPDATES
The live stream is up!
Twitter is already careening around corners at 100 miles per hour:
Tweets from https://twitter.com/LegInsurrection/lists/house-speaker-vote
Here we go. The first order of business for the new Congress is to elect the Speaker of the House. The Republican conference chose John Boehner for the position by unanimous vote last November, so today’s vote will either confirm that choice, or turn the thing completely on its head.
The Democrats have, of course, nominated Nancy Pelosi for Speaker. There’s no rule that says the Speaker must come from the majority, but it would take a major coup for a Representative from the minority party to win.
Republican Representatives Yoho and Gohmert have also been nominated on the floor. Add also Daniel Webster to that list as a last-minute wild card.
The vote has begun! Of note…
This vote is taking a really long time:
And the winner is…John Boehner.
Out of 408 votes cast, Boehner received 216.
Twitter reacts:
The Speaker is sworn, the Members have been sworn en masse, and Congress is in session. Happy 2015, everyone!
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