Led by Massachusetts Rep. Seth Moulton, the handful of malcontents who are trying to stop Nancy Pelosi from becoming speaker of the House again after she helped usher in historic election gains don’t really have much of a plan. In fact, their strategy, such as it is, looks like it was crafted by the Underpants Gnomes—and that’s not a good thing.
If you’re not familiar with them, the gnomes were made famous by an episode of the TV show South Park that first aired 20 years ago next month. These diminutive cave-dwellers, who naturally sneak around at night stealing people’s underwear, are self-proclaimed “geniuses at corporations,” but their plan for turning their thieving into a buck is a bit … lacking:
Phase 1: Collect underpants
Phase 2: ?
Phase 3: Profit
This lampoon of corporate business plans became a celebrated internet meme, applied by critics to skewer all manner of half-baked schemes. But seldom has it been as perfectly applicable as it is now, because the second phase of the anti-Pelosi rebels’ plan truly is a giant question mark.
Here’s the deal.
At the end of the month, on Nov. 28, the newly enlarged House Democratic caucus will convene, including both returning incumbents as well as incoming members who have yet to serve. Depending on the outcome of a handful of uncalled races, that caucus will likely consist of 233 representatives and representatives-elect, and perhaps one or two more. For the purposes of this walk-through, we’ll stick with that figure of 233.
At that meeting, Democrats will conduct a secret-ballot vote to decide whom they should put forward as their nominee for speaker on the House floor in January. We can say with certainty that it will be Nancy Pelosi, because none of her opponents have had the temerity to suggest otherwise—and because no one is actually running against her (more on that in a bit).
We also have some recent history we can rely on. In December of 2016, in the last caucus vote, Pelosi was challenged, by Ohio Rep. Tim Ryan—one of the grumblers leading the charge against her again, a group that Twitter has dubbed the #FiveWhiteGuys. But whatever Ryan’s complaints were at the time, Pelosi soundly turned him aside, winning the party vote by a wide 134-63 margin.
There’s another reason we know this is a lock: The cabal opposed to Pelosi has proposed changing the rules for the caucus vote to require 218 votes to win—in other words, a majority of the entire House instead of a majority among just Democrats. The man leading this push is Colorado Rep. Ed Perlmutter, another of the #FiveWhiteGuys, but it’s going to go nowhere for the same reason Pelosi is going to win the caucus vote: If you can’t secure a majority in favor of a different candidate for speaker, then you can’t secure a majority to change the rules.
So why 218? We’re about to get to that. Once Pelosi’s won among her caucus, her next hurdle will come on Jan. 3, the day the 116th Congress is sworn in. At that point, the whole House, Republicans included, will vote on a speaker, and to win that vote, you need a majority of the full chamber. If everyone is present, and if there are no vacancies, and if everyone casts a ballot for an actual candidate, then you need 218 votes to win.
There are a few quirks to be aware of, though, as that series of “ifs” in the prior sentence might have tipped you. Any member who’s absent reduces the number needed for a majority, and the same for any seat that becomes vacant. So if, for instance, two members are no-shows and two seats are vacant, then you’d only have 431 (of 435) members casting ballots for speaker, meaning you’d only need 216 votes to achieve a majority. There’s also one other way that majority can be reduced: by members who vote “present” rather than for a candidate for speaker. This is going to be important in a minute.
Now, as a preliminary matter, what this means is that it would be all but impossible for Republican Rep. Kevin McCarthy, whom the House GOP just picked as its next leader, to become speaker. There are only likely to be 202 Republicans in the next Congress, so for McCarthy to win a majority, enough Democrats would have to vote for him (which would end their careers instantly), or a sizable number would have to vote “present,” or some combination of the two would have to obtain. We’ll shunt that scenario aside as “not gonna happen.”
But that option of voting “present” is a very interesting one—and potentially very useful to Pelosi and her critics alike. A dissenter who’s promised not to vote for Pelosi can keep that pledge without doing much harm by voting “present.” Even if as many as 30 Democrats did so, Pelosi would still beat McCarthy by a vote of 203 to 202, and that would amount to a majority because, again, members voting “present” don’t count toward the overall total.
These Pelosi-phobes, though, aren’t interested in saving face and letting Democrats enjoy a triumphant election so that they can maximize their new powers to expose Donald Trump’s abuses. In fact, they’ve been swearing they won’t vote “present.” Rather, they know that they can wield far more power if just 16 of them stick together and instead cast ballots for a third candidate. That’s because if they vote for an actual candidate for speaker, their numbers will count toward a majority, meaning that if they can just get Pelosi down to 217 votes, they’ll force a deadlock.
But now, friends, we’ve arrived at the famous phase two: They don’t have an actual candidate. No one at all—not a sausage. The closest they’ve come so far is Ohio Rep. Marcia Fudge, who’s sniped publicly at Pelosi and has suggested she might run for speaker. But Fudge has also pre-emptively laid the groundwork for not running by citing the heavy demands of the job. Fudge even met with Pelosi on Friday and came away saying that she’d withdraw her opposition if Pelosi agreed to serve just one term—a notion Pelosi herself more or less floated last month when she described herself as a “transitional figure” in an interview with the Los Angeles Times.
So the rebels have nothing, nobody. Now, you can go out on the House floor and vote for someone who isn’t actually running for speaker. Tennessee Rep. Jim Cooper, another member of the anti-Pelosi brigades, did just that in 2014, when he cast a goofball vote for Colin Powell rather than Pelosi. But in that case, what the #FiveWhiteGuys are doing is asking their band of insurrectionists to stick together in the face of what will be intense pressure and cast a vote for the parliamentary equivalent of Mickey Mouse.
Repeatedly. See, if no one gets a majority, then the House simply holds another vote. Then another, and another, until someone does win a majority. This has only happened once in the last hundred years (back in 1923), and it ended after nine ballots when the Republican candidate promised his party he’d institute some procedural reforms.
If they even get this far, will Pelosi’s opponents settle for something similar after making their show of force? Or will they continue to play chicken? If they keep at it, that means they’re banking on the sudden emergence of a heretofore unseen alternative, bursting through the walls like Kool-Aid Man to present him- or herself (and really, it had better be herself) as a compromise candidate everyone can agree on. That’s almost the very definition of the big fat question mark undergirding the Underpants Gnomes’ game plan.
On Monday, the anti-Pelosi faction released a letter, signed by precisely 16 of their number (13 of them white men), claiming they are “committed to voting for new leadership.” However, one signatory, Utah’s Ben McAdams, currently trails in a race that hasn’t been called yet, but even if he wins, that’s no help, because the rebels would then need to number 17. (McAdams isn’t included in that 233 figure we expect the size of the Democratic caucus will be.) And it’s worth noting that several other Democrats who'd publicly expressed skepticism of Pelosi’s continued leadership—including Fudge—did not join in.
So while her critics wait for a savior, don’t bet on Pelosi to blink first. This is the woman who, after all, is reported to have told wavering colleagues in 2005 who wanted to know when she’d start negotiating with President Bush about his plan to privatize Social Security: "Never. Does never work for you?" (In fact, “never” worked splendidly, and Bush was forced to shelve his plans in humiliating defeat.)
And let’s be crystal clear about what the #FiveWhiteGuys are trying to pull here: They want a tiny minority of the Democratic Party to override the will of the vast majority. That’s going to engender a lot of bitterness even if they don't succeed, as well as tons of “Democrats in Disarray” headlines that we certainly don’t need at a moment when our nation is in crisis.
But while Gnome King Seth Moulton is busy spewing Trump-esque lies to try to justify his coup, Pelosi is doing what she does best: whipping votes. She’s tirelessly done a tremendous amount of good for her party over the years, both inside the halls of Congress and on the campaign trail, where she raised massive sums of money that helped make this year’s Democratic comeback possible. She’s calling colleagues, securing their support, and even meeting with several of those who signed a letter saying they wouldn’t support her—some of whom are now wavering in their opposition.
Will she prevail? We can hope so. At the very least, we know she has an actual plan for phase two—and beyond.