A petite Black woman presiding over the sixth ballot to determine the new Speaker of the US House of Representatives hammered the gavel to close the count results late yesterday afternoon with GOP Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy unable to secure the magic number (218) to win the position.
The 118th. Republican-led Congress that began two days ago has already made history: the last time multiple votes were needed to elect a Speaker was in 1923. That’s right, numbers people. 100 years ago.
My friend Bervin and I were talking early this morning about the optics of the cluster in the House, and he told me two pieces of advice his African American grandmother gave him when he was a young man – he thought they would work well for McCarthy today when the House convenes for the seventh ballot at noon.
“If you feel like you’re catching hell, let it go.”
and then there’s this one
“When the Devil is coming after you, step aside.”
Regardless of how today unfolds in the ongoing battle for House Speaker, the American people have had a front row seat in the dismantling of what was once the party of Abraham Lincoln.
Where to? What next? You got me.
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About Sheila Morris
Sheila Morris is a personal historian, essayist with humorist tendencies, lesbian activist, truth seeker and speaker in the tradition of other female Texas storytellers including her paternal grandmother.
In December, 2017, the University of South Carolina Press published her collection of first-person accounts of a few of the people primarily responsible for the development of LGBTQ organizations in South Carolina. Southern Perspectives on the Queer Movement: Committed to Home will resonate with everyone interested in LGBTQ history in the South during the tumultuous times from the AIDS pandemic to marriage equality.
She has published five nonfiction books including two memoirs, an essay compilation and two collections of her favorite blogs from I'll Call It Like I See It. Her first book, Deep in the Heart: A Memoir of Love and Longing received a Golden Crown Literary Society Award in 2008. Her writings have been included in various anthologies - most recently the 2017 Saints and Sinners Literary Magazine. Her latest book, Four Ticket Ride, was released in January, 2019.
She is a displaced Texan living in South Carolina with her wife Teresa Williams and their dogs Spike, Charly and Carl. She is also Naynay to her two granddaughters Ella and Molly James who light up her life for real. Born in rural Grimes County, Texas in 1946 her Texas roots still run wide and deep.
I'll Call It Like I See It 
Bervin’s grandmother had it right. Car crash television.
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You made me laugh! CCTV – Car Crash TV.
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This shiz show is something else. And they actually expect to get anything done when they can’t even finish Job 1????
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I know, right? Oh, what a tangled web they weave.
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What a s**t show. I can’t even stand watching any of this stuff.
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Pretty won’t watch, either. I’m a glutton for punishment evidently.
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Haha you are. So is the gardener. Sometimes I feel like unplugging the TV and pretending it’s just not working.
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“Let go!” And let the grown-ups take over from the clowns.
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15 ballots. Quite a start.
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