Scarborough: Seeds being planted for destruction of House GOP majority
Drew Katchen
1:34 pm on 01/03/2013
 If House Republicans aren’t careful, they could see a destruction of their majority in the near future and the appointment of Nancy Pelosi as “the next speaker of the House,” Joe Scarborough said Thursday.
This week, several top Republican lawmakers from New York and New Jersey have criticized House Speaker Boehner for his decision to cancel a vote on relief aid for superstorm Sandy victims. The measure was passed by the Senate last week and is waiting on a House vote.
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie as well as New York GOP Rep. Pete King have publicly criticized the decision, and Scarborough and the Morning Joe panel expressed surprise over Boehner’s decision to not hold the vote on the $60B aid package.
These are the types of moves that could threaten the House GOP’s majority, he stressed.
“I’ll tell you, the seeds are being planted right now for the destruction of the House Republican majority,” Scarborough said. “They’re being planted before they’re even sworn in today…the extremism that is going to be wrapped around this party…The men and women being sworn in today start behind the eight ball; they are already on their way to making Nancy Pelosi the next speaker of the House. They…better turn the ship around quickly, or we’re going to have a Democratic monopoly in Washington D.C. on January 4, 2015.”
The last NBC News/WSJ poll on congressional approval (from August), shows that 82% of the country disapproves of the job Congress is doing, and, of course, that poll is from several months before last week’s fiscal cliff showdown.
Speaker Boehner has since announced he’ll hold a vote on Friday for $9 billion to supplement FEMA flood insurance, and another vote for $51 billion January 15, but several on Thursday’s Morning Joe panel agreed that House leadership deserved the criticism.
“It’s not a bad place to be in opposition to a Congressional Republican Party…within the party,” New York Magazine‘s John Heilemann said.
Time‘s Mark Halperin agreed, and said Republicans like Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, Christie and former Fla. Gov. Jeb Bush can elevate their stature “sky high” if they say what’s wrong with the party without taking “gratuitous shots.”
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