By Lambert Strether of Corrente.
Anyone inform Steve Bannon: Here’s a technique for MAGA to win on H1B. Congress is so intently divided that even a couple of members maintain veto energy over the Home’s alternative of a Speaker. Take these steps: This week, kind a MAGA caucus (minimal dimension: 4. See under). Then, when Congress reconvenes at midday ET on January 3, the MAGA caucus ought to deny their votes to any Speaker nominee. No speaker could be elected. With out a Speaker, the Home can’t perform, not to mention rely and certify the outcomes of the Electoral School in order that Trump can take the oath of workplace on January 20. The one manner out: The Republican Get together agrees to the MAGA caucus calls for on H1B coverage. The MAGA caucus then permits the vote for a speaker to proceed to a conclusion.
That’s it, actually. That’s the put up. However I’ll broaden a bit on particulars of the technique, touch upon H1B controversy over the previous few days, focus on what the demand is likely to be, and conclude.
Technique Background
The thought of utilizing the Speaker’s election as leverage comes from Chad Pergram, who covers Congress for FOX. He writes in “The Hitchhiker’s Information to failing to elect a Home speaker shortly” (an earlier model appeared in Water Cooler)
[T]he speaker’s election on Jan. 3 poses a particular problem. Right here’s the bar for Johnson – or anybody else: The speaker of the Home should win an outright majority of all members casting ballots for somebody by title. In different phrases, the particular person with probably the most votes doesn’t win.
The pinnacle-count:
The Home clocks in at 434 members with one emptiness [Gaetz]…. That is the breakdown when the Congress begins: 219 Republicans to 215 Democrats…. However the speaker’s election on Jan. 3 poses a particular problem. Right here’s the bar for Johnson – or anybody else: The speaker of the Home should win an outright majority of all members casting ballots for somebody by title. In different phrases, the particular person with probably the most votes doesn’t win.
This is the reason it took McCarthy so many ballots to win in January 2023.
So let’s crunch the maths for Mike Johnson. If there are 219 Republicans and 4 voted for somebody moreover him – and all Democrats solid ballots for Jeffries, the tally is 215-214. However there’s no speaker. Nobody attained an outright majority of all members casting ballots for somebody by title. The magic quantity is 218 if all 434 members vote.
By rule, this paralyzes the Home[1]. The Home completely, unequivocally, can’t do something till it elects a speaker. Interval.
Subsequently, the Maga Caucus ought to include a minimal of 4 members. Extra:
This additionally signifies that the Home can’t certify the outcomes of the Electoral School, making Trump the forty seventh president of america on Jan. 6.
The failure to elect a speaker compels the Home to vote time and again…
And over… and… over…
Till it lastly faucets somebody.
McCarthy’s election incinerated 15 ballots over 5 days two years in the past.
After all, no person desires that. Which is why the Republican Get together ought to accede to the MAGA Caucus’s calls for. In writing, naturally.
* * *
I’m not at all an professional in Republican politics or factions; I got here up as a Democrat. However following the H1B controversy on the Twitter, it struck me forcibly than many MAGA supporters have been actually very properly versed in coverage, historical past, and information, and deployed their information successfully in opposition to Musk and his tech bros. For instance, H1B will not be about importing employees who’re “extremely expert” (a pervasive, unexamined, and dishonest, tech bro speaking level). That’s why, for instance, Trump introduced Mar-a-Lago waiters into the nation beneath H1B. Slightly, H1B is about importing employees who’re low-cost and compliant, as a result of administration can maintain the specter of visa removing over their heads. That signifies that different issues being equal, administration will at all times want H1Bs over residents (the ability imbalance, as idpol varieties would say).
If MAGA is a celebration faction whose salient function is loyalty to Trump, the MAGA caucus technique simply outlined won’t ever be adopted. If MAGA is about coverage, there may be at the least an opportunity. Right here, the distinction between Democrats and MAGA could be very nice. It’s laborious to think about a livid debate over coverage going down amongst Democrats in public, one with little or no deference to leaders proven. It happens to me that Democrat costs of authoritarian followership and cultishness are, properly, projection. It’s additionally laborious for me to think about any Democrats having the stones to undertake the MAGA caucus technique. However maybe MAGA does!
H1B Controversy
Axios has timeline of the controversy, in “Trump sides with Musk in H-1B combat“:
The MAGA-DOGE skirmishes began final Sunday, with anti-immigration and anti-Indian vitriol in opposition to Trump’s choose of enterprise capitalist Sriram Krishnan as his AI advisor.
I missed the Krishnan “vitriol.” Unhappy to say, however when so many “physique retailers” (InfoSys, and so on.) are based mostly in India, and vital Indian cititzens, it’s simple to see why animus may develop.
It escalated into full battle Thursday when Musk ally and DOGE co-lead Vivek Ramaswamy took to X to blast American “mediocrity” tradition. Musk defended Ramaswamy, and the 2 sides began participating in an more and more bitter disagreement.
I entered when Vivek posted his screed. Suffice to say that you would have swapped out Vivek’s phrases and swapped in Hillary’s “deplorables” speech, and no person would have seen. On the brilliant aspect, it’s splendidly clarifying to see that management in each events hates the working class.
On Friday afternoon, Musk doubled down, saying MAGA adherents who continued to blast immigration and the tech neighborhood have been “contemptible fools,” later clarifying he was speaking about “racists” who would “completely be the downfall of the Republican Get together if they don’t seem to be eliminated.”
That “later clarifying” is doing quite a lot of work; it’s virtually as if anyone handed Musk the speaking level. After which:
Simply earlier than midnight Friday, Musk as soon as once more defended the H-1B program in vulgar, all-caps phrases, saying this system was the important thing to the success of his (and different massive American) corporations.
“Take an enormous step again and F–Ok YOURSELF within the face.I’ll go to warfare on this problem the likes of which you can’t probably comprehend,” Musk wrote.
Oh? How precisely? The Axios timeline provides out earlier than a sequence of engagements between Musk and MAGA, the place MAGA beats Musk like a gong on information and coverage. This can be a very lengthy thread, however provides the flavour:
Earlier than I begin, one observe: All charts on this thread are for purposes that have been “licensed” (in different phrases, accredited for entry into the H-1B lottery). I filtered out purposes the gov rejected.
All numbers listed here are subsequently for visas employers really and realistically…
— Robert Sterling (@RobertMSterling) December 29, 2024
And:
You possibly can see that salaries are disproportionately weighted towards the decrease bands:
17% are < $75k (blue)21% are $75-100k (orange)22% are $100-125k (pink)15% are $125-150k (teal)
In different phrases, ~75% are jobs paying < $150k. Solely 25% are $150k+, and, of these, solely 2.5% are… pic.twitter.com/tMfTxlSYkx
— Robert Sterling (@RobertMSterling) December 29, 2024
And:
America must be a vacation spot for the world’s most elite expertise. However the H-1B program isn’t the best way to do this.
I’m going to cease posting for now, however let me know if there are every other visualizations that may be useful.
For those who made it this far, thanks for studying!
— Robert Sterling (@RobertMSterling) December 29, 2024
Oh look. Labor arbitrage! To which Musk responds, meek as a lamb:
Simply mounted by elevating the minimal wage considerably and including a yearly price for sustaining the H1B, making it materially dearer to rent from abroad than domestically.
I’ve been very clear that this system is damaged and desires main reform.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 29, 2024
Fairly the change in tone, eh? From ” F–Ok YOURSELF within the face” to “simply mounted”! It’s virtually as if Musk bought a name, isn’t?
After all, if H1B have been that “simple to repair,” it could have been mounted alongside in the past. And it’s fairly revealing that it took a number of blows to Musk’s head and physique over many hours by MAGA with pores and skin within the sport who really understood the information and the coverage points to get whoever in Susie Wiles’s workplace screens Musk’s tweets to choose up the telephone.
The Demand
Primarily based solely on having consumed huge numbers of Tweets on H1Bs, my conclusion is that Musk is mistaken to need “reform.” The aim of H1B is, in any case, labor arbitrage: low-cost, compliant labor. If labor arbitrage is reformed away from H1B, then there’s no cause for it within the first place. If not, it needs to be abolished totally. If Elon desires to import mind geniuses as a substitute of waiters for Mar-a-Lago, now we have one other class for that: O-1 (“O-1 Visa: People with Extraordinary Capability or Achievement“).
So that’s my demand, ill-informed although it could be: Abolish H1B; reform O-1 as wanted.
Nonetheless, get the dedication to satisfy the calls for in writing, for 3 causes:
First, my takeaway from the controversy is that the H1B supporters — i.e., DOGE — are essentially dishonest; they held onto their “extremely expert labor” speaking level like grim demise, even that MAGA was simply capable of present it was a lie (Sterling’s thread was the most effective response, however there have been many, many others that have been good too). Something not lowered to writing can be gamed or not delivered on.
Second, it was amusing to see the cuddle puddle of Silicon Valley enterprise capitalists and media service suppliers — i.e., DOGE — performing as enforcers as quickly as Elon took the “reform” line; they used the identical phrases and ways Democrat enforcers do! (“Now will not be the time,” “one workforce,” “time to maneuver on”). So, with dishonest get together enforcers, sure, get it in writing.
Lastly, I’m sick of DOGE simply tweeting it out. It’s superb to see a heated coverage argument play out in public, however Elon’s commitments are well worth the digits they’re written with. Elon tweeting “Reforming H1B is nice, really” and an entire cheering part chanting “The controversy is over” simply doesn’t make it[2]. Get the dedication to satisfy the calls for in writing.
Conclusion
Let me shut with phrases from the candidate who, if the Democrats hadn’t stabbed him within the again, may need forestalled Trump:
When Bernie is extra MAGA than the tech bros we’ve bought an issue.
I understand corporations need low-cost overseas labor however investing into technical schooling for Individuals is the precise America first coverage I’m unsure why that is controversial.pic.twitter.com/GXhA7oZtor
— Will Donahue (@realwilldonahue) December 27, 2024
I’ve gotta say, quoting the President of School Republicans wasn’t on my Bingo card. However I don’t suppose quoting Bernie Sanders was on his Bingo Card both.
Up to now — Hey, President Romney! — Republicans have turn into extra like MAGA, not MAGA like Republicans. Maybe the H1B controversy will present whether or not this tendency will proceed, or stall.
NOTES
[1] It could be that in excessive conditions — and a number of votes for Speaker are usually not excessive — there are methods out. From “Home Observe: A Information to the Guidelines, Precedents and Procedures of the Home“:
Below the fashionable follow, the Speaker is elected by a majority of Members-elect voting by surname, a quorum being current.
As Pergram says. Extra (citations omitted):
In two cases the Home agreed to decide on and subsequently did select a Speaker by a plurality of votes however confirmed the selection by majority vote. In 1849 the Home had been in session 19 days with out with the ability to elect a Speaker, no candidate having obtained a majority of the votes solid. The voting was viva voce, every Member responding to the decision of the roll by naming the candidate for whom he voted. Lastly, after the fifty-ninth poll, the Home adopted a decision declaring {that a} Speaker could possibly be elected by a plurality. In 1856 the Home once more struggled over the election of a Speaker. Ballots numbering 129 had been taken with none candidate receiving a majority of the votes solid. The Home then adopted a decision allowing the election to be determined by a plurality. On each of those events, the Home ratified the plurality election by a majority vote.
So if historical past is any information, 129 ballots is the baseline for altering the process Pergram describes. Feedback from Congressional guidelines experts welcome.
[2] Re: President-elect Trump, as soon as a Speaker is chosen, the election is licensed, and he takes the oath of workplace, a cheerful ending would seem like this: “Congratulations, you’re nonetheless my agent.”
