Will any Democrat vote in support of the next Speaker of the House?
448
2.5K
3.5K
resolved Oct 25
Resolved
NO

Resolves YES if any Democrat votes in support of the next winner of the Speaker of the House election, otherwise NO.

If they vote in support of the eventual winner on any ballot (i.e. round of voting), it counts as YES even if that is not the final ballot and they change their vote on another ballot.

Unelected or temporary Speakers (e.g. Speaker Pro Tempore) will not count toward resolution.

Update: Resolves based on the next elected Speaker, even if that doesn't happen until the next term of Congress.

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bought Ṁ5,000 of NO

@jack this one can resolve

predicted YES

If democrats vote "present", reducing the quorum and in the same time the number of vote required for a Speaker to be elected, will it count as "voting in support" of the next Speaker (if the vote leads to an election) ?

It should count as a "vote in support" as it may lead quite directly to the election of the Speaker (that would not happen otherwise), you can nearly see it as a half vote in favour - each two "present" vote reduce the number of direct votes needed by 1.

predicted YES

@Laroussi No. "Vote in support of" means the normal thing which is voting for that person.

Here's some questions on the possibility of voting present:

I guess this will resolve in YES when a few Republicans get tried of the chaos and vote for Jeffreis.

predicted YES

I created a slightly modified version of this market which only resolves YES if a Speaker is elected this term and receives Democratic support:

predicted NO

How does this resolve if no Speaker is elected until the end of this Congress? N/A or based on the Speaker election of the next Congress?

predicted YES

@amoebus It resolves based on the next speaker election, even if it's the next Congress

predicted YES

I haven't completely made up my mind, but here's what I'm thinking:

  • The resolution criteria is "Resolves YES if any Democrat votes in support of the winner of the Speaker of the House election, otherwise NO."

  • The words "the Speaker of the House election" refer to this current election, and the one next Congress would be a different election. Therefore, I think it resolves NO if there's no speaker elected this Congress.

I think this captures both the spirit and the literal text of the question best, but I'm open to counterarguments.

predicted YES

@jack With all due respect, I find this interpretation quite jarring. While you are obviously the question creator and thus know what your intended spirit of the question was, the literal text seemed to suggest to me that if there is no new Speaker elected during this Congress, the question would resolve based on the Speaker election of the next Congress. In fact, the wording seemed to suggest this so clearly to me that it would have never occurred to me to ask for clarification.

The question reads "Will any Democrat vote in support of the next Speaker of the House?", which to me means that this question is open until the next Speaker of the House is elected (however long that might take), and if any Democrat voted in support if the next Speaker, this question resolves to YES.
In my view, the body of the question seems to further support this. It reads "Resolves YES if any Democrat votes in support of the winner of the Speaker of the House election, otherwise NO." and to me that again means that the question will resolve only when there is an actual new elected Speaker (however long that might take), and if any Democrat voted in the new Speakers support, this resolves to YES.
We also have the addition of "Unelected or temporary Speakers (e.g. Speaker Pro Tempore) will not count toward resolution", which suggests even further that this question is only resolved if there is an actual winner of a Speaker of the House election.

You wrote that you intended that the words "the Speaker of the House election" refer only to this current election, but based on the phrasing, to me it refers to the election which produced the new Speaker.

Further, looking at other Speaker related markets, all major markets that I am aware of were very explicit that when refering to the "next Speaker", they intend this to mean the next Speaker of the House, no matter if they are elected during this Congress or later. Look at the main Speaker market as an example. They are very clear that the question will resolve in that way, whenever a new Speaker is elected (however long it might take) and that temporary Speakers are excluded.
Given that you also included a line at the end that temporary Speakers do not count, I interpreted this as a reinforcement of my general assumption that most Speaker market use the same criteria on what counts as a Speaker and what doesn't.

I strongly feel that this market should resolve YES if there is no new Speaker elected this congress and a Democrat votes for the next Speaker at the start of next Congress. As the question creator, you obviously have the final say here and in some ways it is good that this comes up now as opposed to the end of this congress. If you truly stick with your described resolution criteria, the question description severely needs to be updated.

predicted YES

@Hektorpascal thanks for the comment, but I did consider those points of course. They are valid points, but there are plenty of valid points in the other direction, that's why I said I hadn't made up my mind. I will of course update the description once a decision is made.

As per my usual policy in such cases, I will poll trustworthy users for how they would adjudicate the question, and update accordingly.

predicted YES

To respond to some of the specific details:

based on the phrasing, to me it refers to the election which produced the new Speaker.

This is a good point that I hadn't thought of, this seems like a reasonable rationale.

We also have the addition of "Unelected or temporary Speakers (e.g. Speaker Pro Tempore) will not count toward resolution", which suggests even further that this question is only resolved if there is an actual winner of a Speaker of the House election.

Yes, but that doesn't say anything about whether only "this election" counts vs an new election next term.

Further, looking at other Speaker related markets, all major markets that I am aware of were very explicit that when refering to the "next Speaker", they intend this to mean the next Speaker of the House, no matter if they are elected during this Congress or later.

I'm aware, but the descriptions are different, and that matters.

Given that you also included a line at the end that temporary Speakers do not count, I interpreted this as a reinforcement of my general assumption that most Speaker market use the same criteria on what counts as a Speaker and what doesn't.

I don't think that follows, they are unrelated. That line is very clear about what counts as a Speaker and what doesn't. What's unclear is different.

sold Ṁ15 of YES

@Hektorpascal nothing to add, except that this was also my understanding, and it did not seem ambiguous to me.

I've closed out my positions until this is sorted.

Edit: just to be extra clear, I'm agreeing with @Hektorpascal here

predicted YES

Thanks for the comments. The ruling is that this market will resolve based on the next Speaker, even if they are elected in the next term.

Rationale is basically as described above. Based on both the comments here and a poll of trusted authors, the majority favor this interpretation. A minority favored N/A resolution if no Speaker is elected this term. After discussion I personally think these are both reasonable as well, and also personally leaned towards resolving on the next speaker for consistency with the other big Speaker market.

predicted YES

The market description has been updated accordingly.

predicted YES

What's happening?

predicted NO

“Never interrupt your opponent while they are making a mistake.”

Dems are happy to watch the Republican Party fight themselves.

Related market

predicted NO

Dems were unanimous in the last ballot and republicans are likely to elect someone even more to the right, why would the coalition change opinions between these two situations

bought Ṁ10 of NO

It would only take a small handful of moderate, sane republicans to install Jeffries as the new speaker and get us out of this mess. Too bad there aren’t any.

predicted NO

@PatCowdin If the party was functional

, we wouldn’t even be in this mess in the first place.

@PatCowdin

moderate, sane republicans

ah, but you contradict yourself.

The democrats would have huge power to influence the next speaker if they didn’t throw it away by voting for their own doomed speaker candidates

@JonathanRay Currently they can pick Jordan or Scalise, I agree. Do you think they have power beyond that?

@MartinRandall Weren’t there enough Republican McCarthy endorsers the other day that it’d be a majority with all the Democrat votes?

My intuition is still that the Dems have more leverage they aren’t using, but I think I just don’t understand well enough

predicted NO

@Conflux I think at any point if Republicans pick a moderate in their secret ballot the Ds could reach out privately to let the moderate know that they are willing to vote "present" on the Nth floor vote, and then, unlike Scalise, the moderate could face down Gaetz et al.

But so far only Scalise and Jordan have won the private conference ballot, and Ds would prefer to see if they can do better.

I don't expect formal negotiations between Rs and Ds. Relationships are too broken and anyone trying to negotiate on the R side would get primaried.