Save John Boehner!

Or perhaps more like "save" John Boehner.

First, read this post by Jonathan Chait, and then perhaps also read the long-form piece he links to in the first sentence. Basically the point is that John Boehner's ongoing struggles to control the insane right-hand flank of his caucus, which is about 60% of that caucus, are, well, an ongoing struggle, and not getting any easier. Okay, now you're caught up, and I can make my point, which is this:

It seems possible that, sometime in the future, John Boehner might lose his Speakership. Well, okay, as phrased that's a certainty. More interestingly it seems likely that he might lose his Speakership to a Republican, possibly before the end of 2014 or possibly in the next Congress, when it's quite likely we'll still have a Republican majority. But actually I should rephrase this again: it's quite possible that Boehner might, without his party having become the minority, lose the party leadership election, i.e. lose the support of a majority of his caucus. Ordinarily that is tantamount to losing your Speakership, but in this case it might not be, and this is where my proposal comes in.

Suppose we reach a situation sometime early next year, or late this year, where 60% of House Republicans would prefer a different leader. Maybe Paul Ryan, maybe Paul Broun, who knows. They're crazy, and I shan't bother trying to predict their craziness on this score. The other 40% of the Republican caucus, however, still wants Boehner as their leader, and as Speaker. That's about 94 votes for Boehner, and 140 for the designated loon. There are also, in the House of Representatives, 200 Democrats. Now, I honestly don't know what happens if they all vote for Pelosi, who's presumably their first choice for Speaker right now. I think we go into further balloting, and probably eventually one or the other Republican side gives up and they coalesce around one candidate. But what if the Democrats vote John Boehner for Speaker?

That would give him a majority.

A majority most of whom were Democrats.

And it would make him Nancy Pelosi's pet.

Now, this strategy is not guaranteed to succeed. In fact, making it work would be kind of tricky. The ordinary play is that parties hold internal leadership elections and then, when it comes time to vote for Speaker, they all fall in line behind the person who won the internal election. But there are 200 Democrats, so if they were disciplined about things we would only need 18 Republicans, one of whom would presumably John Boehner himself, to go along with it. There are 234 Republicans; that's 7.7% of the caucus required. The more conservative guy could get 92% support from his caucus and yet lose to the fusion Boehner ticket. So we would just need a) for Boehner himself to feel sufficiently desperate to retain his job that he'd be willing to do it using Democratic votes, and to become Pelosi's pet (which might honestly be easier than his current gig, heh) and b) for 17 other Republicans to feel sufficiently loyal to Boehner and/or betrayed, threatened, etc. by the Tea Party types to go along with it.

The former, well, in his heart of hearts I imagine Boehner would do it in a heartbeat, but I'm not sure he'd be able to actually do it in reality. For one thing, he'd almost certainly lose his next primary, so it would be a short-term solution, but if he's lost the Speakership anyway that might be better than the alternatives. As for the latter, they'd also definitely lose their next primaries, so I doubt it would be possible. And I honestly doubt the Democrats will be creative enough to think of it, although if there's one Democrat who might be it's definitely Nancy Pelosi. Still, I think it would be a pretty effective strategy to mess with the Republicans and maybe, just maybe, make it possible to get an act of legislation through the Chamber. The only alternative, I think, is just pure, unremitting chaos as soon as the insurgent faction get a majority of their caucus. Oh wait, that's exactly what's happening right now.