Mr. Speaker
Thank you for reading, subscribing, and solving! Here’s a link to the crossword puzzle: Mr. Speaker.
Obviously, the big news this week is the ouster of Kevin McCarthy as Speaker of the House of Representatives. For the first time in the history of the United States, a motion to vacate the speakership succeeded by a vote of 216 to 210, based on a coalition of 8 dissident Republicans and the entire Democratic membership. Long involved in party leadership, McCarthy had finally achieved his goal of becoming Speaker only in January of this year. His victory then was a narrow, begrudging one that came amid concessions that enabled his relatively thin majority to coalesce behind him on the 15th ballot. He thus entered the Speaker’s office in a weak position and spent the rest of this year navigating his way between the Scylla of conciliating Trump-aligned Republican extremists bent on confrontation and the Charybdis of cooperating with President Joseph Biden and the Democrats to achieve institutional goals.
The key questions that emerge from this week’s political upheavals are these: How did McCarthy lose the vote on the motion to vacate (MTV)? What kind of resolution of the Republican leadership crisis may be likely to occur?
How did McCarthy lose the vote? In some sense, he lost it back in January when he agreed to a rules change proposed by Rep. Matt Gaetz and others that permitted any one member to introduce a motion to vacate the chair. That concession made it possible for McCarthy to become Speaker … however, the price he paid to gain the speakership was the loss of any job security. Particularly in a caucus with a minority faction of strong-willed and combative members, the appearance of a motion to vacate was more or less inevitable.
As a politician, McCarthy has been the sort who made a quick splash when he entered Congress and then steadily moved up the ranks of the leadership in his party. Starting as a deputy whip, he parlayed personal skills and fundraising ability into enough good will to become Minority Leader in the last Congress and then Speaker in the current one. His political and personal relationships with many members helped McCarthy earn majority support in his party conference, but he could not maintain his position as Speaker after sacrificing a significant amount of power — and developing a reputation for double-dealing.
When working to his Republican colleagues, particularly the extremists in the party, McCarthy would often say the right things re Biden, budgets, or border security but he could never maintain enough purity to satisfy them over the long haul. Certainly he could not retain their support if he aimed to be the sort of Speaker that passed meaningful bills and helped govern the country. Indeed, he ultimately committed the unpardonable sin of working with Democrats, particularly when it came to financial issues such as the public debt and government spending.
Democrats also came to see McCarthy as an untrustworthy ally, even during those few times they actually shared positions with him. For example, when Democrats supported the continuing resolution (CR) that averted a government shutdown, McCarthy rewarded them for their help in passing the bill by publicly blaming the minority party for causing the budgetary impasse in the first place. By itself, this kind of ingratitude certainly does not win or keep any friends, yet it constitutes a problem of much less significance than McCarthy’s own head-spinning turnabouts on Trump’s election denials, on the investigation into the events of January 6, and on the institution of an evidence-less impeachment inquiry into President Biden.
Moreover, there are reports that Democratic members of the Problem Solvers Caucus were trying to negotiate a deal that would enable enough support from across the aisle for McCarthy to survive the effort to oust him. True to form, perhaps, neither McCarthy nor Republican members of the caucus were inclined to offer Democrats much of anything in return for their support. Indeed, after the MTV vote, not only did McCarthy blame Democrats for his defeat (spurring an effort to punish Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer by taking away some of their office space in the Capitol) but some Republicans also retaliated by threatening to leave the group of “problem solvers.”
What kind of resolution is likely? In the U.S. House of Representatives, the Speaker is chosen through a process by which each party chooses its preferred candidate, nominates each to be Speaker, with the election ultimately decided by a party-line vote. No Republican majority wants or expects any support from Democratic members, and vice-versa. With Republicans still in the majority, barring any defections or party-switching, the next Speaker of the House will certainly be a Republican.
That said, the next Republican Speaker is very likely to be closely aligned to the right-wing of the party. Having given McCarthy power grudgingly, and then turning their back on him, the eight radicals who voted for the MTV will not be in a mood to accept another relative moderate in the chair. Further, despite another flirtation with the unusual idea of making a non-member the Speaker, the two leading candidates are actually quite traditional choices. Majority Leader Steve Scalise of Louisiana has a more conservative voting record than McCarthy had, but remains an important part of the leadership team that was willing to compromise not only with the radicals in the party but also with House Democrats. His opponent, Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, represents the firebrand element of the party having been one of the founders of the Freedom Caucus, having worked closely with Trump to deny and alter the 2020 election results, sought an impeachment of Joe Biden, and fervently pursued a combative style of persistent opposition to anything associated with the Democratic Party.
If I were to wager on the outcome, I would bet on Jordan winning the contest. The current mood of the Republican party supports people seen as fighters, regardless of how extreme or crazy they might otherwise appear. Jordan’s election will be especially likely if either of two things happen. The first is that Republican “problem solvers” continue to remain more loyal to the party than they are committed to moderate politics or effective governance. The second is that the congressional party’s decision is excessively influenced by external actors instead of being an internal matter, as it has been traditionally. Unfortunately, given Trump’s recent endorsement of Jordan and the apparent plans for a televised debate between Scalise and Jordan, it certainly seems that the congressional party is no longer autonomous from the MAGA movement and the right-wing media environment.
Regardless of the eventual choice made by House Republicans, though, I think that the rule for vacating the chair will likely be changed. The next Speaker will not want to make it easy for another small group of malcontents to cause any trouble, let alone threaten their job. Beyond that, I further expect that the oppositional orientation of the party’s members will deepen and solidify. Budget negotiations that need to be resolved by mid-Novemeber are not likely to be successfully concluded. Stalemate and gridlock—as well as the accompanying blame-shifting, accusations, and name-calling—seem very much to characterize congressional politics in the near term.
Fasten your seat belts, it’s going to be a bumpy ride.