Dem
51
GOP
49
Some people have bandied around the name of former Republican representative Fred Upton of Michigan as a possible speaker. Now the potential speaker has spoken. He is definitely interested in the job. He served in the House for 36 years until his retirement on Jan. 3, 2023, so he has a pretty good idea of how things work there. He wants the House to become functional again.
The model by which he becomes speaker is that eventually the sane Republicans realize that the Freedom Caucus will not give in unless they get everything they want and then some. This will be unacceptable to them. Then Plan B—or more likely, plan K—will be to work with the Democrats to elect a moderate, experienced Republican, such as Upton, as speaker. The Democrats would certainly demand concessions for working with the Republicans. What the concessions would be would have to be negotiated with great care. Once possibility is that all committees would have equal numbers of Democrats and Republicans and all decisions must be made by majority vote of the committee. That could include issuing subpoenas. Such an arrangement would infuriate the Freedom Caucus, which was planning on spending 2 years investigating Hunter Biden's laptop. Since no Democrat on any committee would ever vote for that, it wouldn't happen.
As a strategic move for the Republicans, something like this would probably be a winner. Having them focus on legislating rather than preening would no doubt go over better with the voters in 2024. There are probably a number of issues that sane Republicans and Democrats could agree on if each side was willing to compromise. Just as one example, imagine a an immigration bill with two parts. Part I gave Dreamers who were brought to the U.S. as children a path to citizenship if they lived in the U.S. for, say, 8 years, got at least a high school diploma, had a job or were enrolled in further education, and had no criminal record. Part II would really beef up border security. Building a wall would take too long and be too expensive, but rolls of military-grade razor wire along parts of the border coupled with a large increase in the number of border patrol agents and better equipment for them (e;g., drones equipped with night-vision cameras) would undoubtedly reduce illegal immigration quite a bit. Each side would get something important to it. There are certainly other areas (e.g., health care) where Democrats and sane Republicans could find compromises. It is an intriguing possibility, but a Speaker Upton will happen only if and when most Republicans are convinced that neither Kevin McCarthy nor any members of his team have the votes. (V)