Dick Pettys examines just how firm is House Speaker Rickardson's grip on the gavel after last week's defeat

Dick Pettys writes in InsiderAdvantage Georgia:

Of the Democrats on the floor that day, all but seven voted against the measure.

Of the Republicans on the floor that day, all but one voted for it.

That’s an accomplishment that shouldn’t be overlooked . . . .

Yet another observer, when asked how Richardson was faring with his Caucus, replied, “Not well at all. He put ‘em out there on the tax thing that was viciously opposed by their local governments. And losing the DOT fight and stripping these guys of their positions, all that begins to pile up.”

He acknowledged that former House Speaker Tom Murphy doled out punishment on occasion and sometimes strong-armed his Democrats on particular issues, but he added, “He never made you vote against the folks at home. You just had to come tell him.”

And another observer said that while Wednesday’s vote may have made the Caucus look unified, “underneath they’re treading water, trying to figure out how to stay in power. A lot of them are chapped because they think Glenn is dictating to them what to do.” [Think? Richardson is dictating what to do, and if you don't follow his dictates, you get publicly spanked, lose positions on committees, get removed as a “hawk,” and get banished from your Capitol office to less-desirable digs across the street.]

There's also the fact that he's been a lightning rod for controversy for several years now and that during his watch, a statehouse that was expected to calm down once Republicans cemented their takeover has, instead, generated a steady stream of news stories about conflict between the House and the Senate and the House and the governor.

But has all of this left him with an unsteady grip on the gavel and vulnerable to a leadership challenge, as his critics like to suggest? That's unlikely. It’s no easy thing to unseat a Speaker. It takes more than the occasional episode of unrest or controversy. It takes a challenger who can rally the discontented in the Caucus and then manage to woo over those who are comfortable in their committee chairmanships or other positions of power. It’s a dicey proposition. A wrong guess about which candidate to back can have terrible political consequences.

“I don’t think anybody has the courage to oppose him,” said one of the observers we’ve quoted above.

In addition, a successful challenge to a sitting Speaker is likely to require a major triggering event, just as the loss of GOP seats in the U.S. House after the 1998 elections was blamed for Speaker Newt Gingrich’s resignation.