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January 05, 2015
Insurgents Claim They've Got 25 of the 29 Votes They Need to Block Boehner on the First Ballot
Meh, I don't know, then why don't they just announce themselves?
There's a reason for that, I guess: Because Boehner will punish them by taking away committee assignments and such. So I guess it's possible. But, still, even by their own (optimistic) tallies, they're short.
One wrinkle: Boehner wins if he has a majority of the votes cast for a Speaker, excluding abstentions. If, say, ten people abstain, then those ten are not part of the count used for determining a "majority." That is, abstentions reduce the number of votes needed to get to a majority.
The point is, if Democrats really want to help John Boehner, a block of them could abstain from voting, thus reducing the number of votes Boehner needs to win (and increasing the number of votes the insurgents need to block him).
Skulduggery abounds.