Rep. Spartz releases list of demands for Johnson to earn her speaker vote

[Ray Bogan]

Congresswoman Victoria Spartz released a list of demands for Mike Johnson to earn her vote for Speaker of the House. The pair met Monday to discuss Friday’s speaker election, where every vote will count due to a razor-thin majority. 

Spartz’s demands were all related to fiscal policy. She released a statement with an illustration that portrayed the USA as the Titanic and the national debt as the iceberg. 

She stated – “Our next speaker must show courageous leadership to get our country back on track before this “Titanic” strikes an iceberg at any moment. Severe fiscal calamities often lead to unrest and more government control.” 

She said the next speaker must create at least temporary structures in the House for: 1) authorizations; 2) reconciliation offset policies, and 3) spending audits.

Authorizations are Congress’s seal of approval to either establish, continue or modify an agency or program. 

Reconciliation offset policies are attempts by Congress to go through the budget and eliminate a dollar spent on something that’s considered no longer necessary, for every new dollar they authorize. 

Spending audits are already done to check for waste, fraud and abuse within departments and agencies. However most agencies, like the Pentagon, fail their audits and can’t keep track of the money they spend and assets they buy. 

Johnson needs an outright majority to win the gavel, meaning he can lose two or three votes depending on how many members are present.

Spartz said if Johnson comes up short, there are others who are interested in running, but they won’t say so publicly because they don’t want to hurt Johnson’s chances. 

Rep. Victoria Spartz, R-IN: “We will have a speaker, I have no doubt about that and we’ll have a good speaker. But I think the speaker needs to have commitments to the American people to deliver on the agenda.” 

If the House fails to elect a speaker before Monday January 6, it will delay the certification of the presidential election. In a worst case scenario, Congress doesn’t certify the election before January 20 and Donald Trump’s inauguration is delayed. 

It took Republicans three weeks to elect Johnson after Kevin McCarthy was ousted, so if history repeats itself, Trump will be sworn in late.