A group of Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives is pursuing a petition in order to amend party rules for electing the speaker, which represents a bid to prevent the incumbent House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi from assuming her former position, Fox News informed.
Around 10 Democrats who are openly anti-Pelosi have signed a letter to Caucus Chair Joe Crowley in which they request amending of the rules on how the Democratic candidate for the speaker of the House is elected.
The current election process is completed and a candidate is sent to be voted in the U.S. House for vote if the nominee receives the majority of the votes form the Democratic caucus.
Currently, a nominee needs to receive just the majority of the votes from the Democratic caucus to be put forward as a candidate to the whole U.S. House for a vote. This gives leeway for Democrats running in red states as they can distance themselves from the California Democrat and even vote against her without actually stopping her bid.
As lawmakers vote according to their party lines, the caucus’ approved nominee always takes the top position in the lower chamber, assuming the Democratic Party has the most seats.
But the rebel Democrats are seeking to change the process. The letter asks to change the caucus’ rules so that the next nominee would have to get at least 218 votes in the caucus, a majority of the full House, if Democrats have the majority of the seats.
The letter was reportedly delivered by U.S. Reps. Ed Perlmutter of Colorado and Kathleen Rice of New York, the magazine reported.
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