Ben Sasse Pitches Arthur Brooks for Speaker
In an extraordinary flurry of tweets Sunday night, freshman Sen. Ben Sasse proposed drafting Arthur Brooks, the president of the American Enterprise Institute, as the next speaker of the House.
The Constitution doesn’t require a House member to be elected speaker, leaving people to dream up any number of scenarios like, hey, Donald Trump. But Sasse, a Nebraska Republican, appeared quite serious.
He even bought the domain for DraftArthurBrooks.com, although the page is currently just a blank GoDaddy.com page. And, of course, Brooks would need 218 votes, something that is looking to be a tall order for just about anybody at this point with GOP infighting emboldening more candidates for speaker to take on Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., long seen as the odds-on favorite to wield the gavel.
(Roll Call profiled Brooks and his effort to forge a “new right” in 2013.)
Sasse also expressed distaste for the media coverage of the leadership fights.
“Media framing of Speaker’s race is reductionistic choice: small-ball Establishment vs wild-eyed Visigoths who want to burn govt to ground,” a view that he called “junk.”
Here’s the full tweet-storm:
I typically dont tweet politics here b/c I think we need more celebratory / politics-free zones in life. But am making an exception tonight:
— Ben Sasse (@BenSasse) October 5, 2015