Rep. Kweisi Mfume on the House Speaker Fight, MLK Day events

Now, it's Midday on Politics, and we turn our gaze to Washington for a look at what transpired in the House of Representatives last week. It is not a pretty sight.\ A little after 1:00 in the morning on Saturday (January 7), the House of Representatives ended their stalemate over electing a speaker, finally giving the gavel to California Congressman Kevin McCarthy on the 15th vote. The House will reconvene Monday evening at 5:00 to begin hammering out rules changes that Rep. McCarthy pledged to enact in exchange for the votes he needed from extremists in his party to be elected Speaker. Almost all of the 20 Republicans who withheld their votes for McCarthy until the wee hours of Saturday morning are election deniers, as is McCarthy himself. It’s anybody’s guess as to just how effective McCarthy will be, working under rules that greatly attenuate the Speaker’s power. We get an important perspective on these developments now from Congressman Kweisi Mfume, a veteran Democratic lawmaker who represents Maryland 's 7th district (including Baltimore City) in the US House of Representatives.  Rep. Mfume joins us by phone…Email us at [email protected], tweet us: @MiddayWYPR, or call us at 410-662-8780.