Dem
51
GOP
49
Boy, that escalated quickly. Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) is now a historic figure—or, at very least, the answer to a Jeopardy! question—as yesterday he became the first Speaker of the House in U.S. history to be ejected from the position. It's also the third-shortest term as speaker, following the 1 day served by Theodore M. Pomeroy (who bridged the gap created when VP-elect Schuyler Colfax resigned at the end of a term in order to prepare for his new posting) and the 257 days served by Michael Crawford Kerr (who died suddenly shortly after taking office).
The vote to vacate the chair was 216-210, as all of the Democrats present joined with eight Republicans to fire McCarthy. The eight are Andy Biggs (AZ), Ken Buck (CO), Tim Burchett (TN), Eli Crane (AZ), Matt Gaetz (FL), Bob Good (VA), Nancy Mace (SC) and Matt Rosendale (MT). You know you're a special kind of person when you're more unhinged, and less interested in governance, than Lauren Boebert (R-CO), Paul Gosar (R-AZ) and Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), all of whom voted to keep McCarthy.
In the short term, the House will continue to function... sorta. It turns out—and this particular piece of information was kept secret until yesterday, since it's never come up before—that a newly elected Speaker of the House chooses someone to serve as acting speaker in the event the job comes vacant. The acting speaker is Patrick McHenry (R-NC), who was (secretly) chosen for the "honor" back in January. McHenry has only the power to preside over the election of a new speaker and is not in the line of succession. So, if something happens to Joe Biden in the near future, the U.S. will have its first woman president. And if something happens to Biden AND Kamala Harris, then the U.S. will still have its first woman president in President Pro Tempore of the Senate Patty Murray (D-WA). Normally the pro tempore job goes to the oldest senator from the majority; if it had this time, then that office would also be vacant due to the death of Dianne Feinstein. So, the country was very close to having a cabinet member be third in the line of succession for the first time since the adoption of the Presidential Succession Act of 1947.
You will note that we wrote that the House will "sorta" be functional. What we mean by that is that the majority's #1 item of business is to find a new speaker. So, the lower chamber has already adjourned for the week, and wannabe speakers will spend the next few days trying to see if they have the votes. Then, the Republicans will hold a candidates' forum to discuss potential replacements for McCarthy early next week. So, for at least the next 7-8 days, if not longer, the House won't be doing anything except trying to clean up the mess made by Matt Gaetz & Co.
As to the identity of the next speaker, your guess is as good as anyone else's (and see below to make your guess). McHenry is a potential candidate, presumably, though as a McCarthy ally he probably can't get the votes, even if he wants the job. House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA) is a possibility, as are House Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-MN) and Republican Conference Chair Elise Stefanik (R-NY). Kevin Hern (R-OK), chair of the a-bit-less-extreme-than-the-FC Republican Study Committee is taking a look. So is Jim Jordan (R-OH). That said, recall that McCarthy himself took 15 votes to be elected, and that he was considered the only viable candidate at the time. This time, one of the following things will necessarily have to come to pass:
Everyone knows that the real budget fight is right around the corner. If merely keeping the government open (which, by the way, means McCarthy sacrificed himself for the greater PR good of the Republican Party) was enough to vacate the chair, then what will the next speaker commit to on that subject? If McCarthy's would-be replacement promises to slash government funding by 8%, the way the FCers want, that person will never get all 218 Republican votes. If the would-be replacement says they will work to find a budget that can pass the Senate, that person will never get the FCers' votes.
So, maybe the solution to the problem will end up being 1, 2 or 3 from the list above, but it's hard to see how that can be made to work. That leads us to option #4. Before we got to the point of writing this paragraph, we heard from reader J.G. in San Diego, who asks a couple of very good questions:
Are there really not five centrist, sane Republicans who wouldn't prefer to switch parties, become the most important members of the House, and hand control back to the grown-ups?
Wouldn't you rather be the most powerful centrist in a Democratic House, where every Democratic bill had to be written to get your vote, rather than being the least powerful Republican in the crazy House?
To us, it makes all the sense in the world that half a dozen of the Biden 18 could transform themselves into the kingmakers of the House by allying with the Democrats. They could insist on the Speakership for one of their own, or could insist on a mountain of pork, or both. We don't even think they would have to change parties, per se. They could brand themselves the Commonsense Republican Caucus, and announce that until the Republican Party is no longer in the thrall of people like Gaetz, they are going to pursue the only available path to actual governance.
That said, Sens. Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ) had a version of this opportunity available to them during the last Congress and didn't take it. And the Biden 18 had this opportunity available back in January and didn't take it, either. So, don't hold your breath waiting for a group of Liz Cheneys and Adam Kinzingers to announce themselves.
Whoever the next speaker is, it apparently will not be McCarthy, who said already that he's not going to try to reclaim his gavel, and who is uncertain he'll even remain in the House. It's at least possible that he's not being truthful, and that he's going to linger in the background to be available as a (very) white knight to ride to the rescue and to resume the speakership under more favorable conditions. But we doubt it. Consider the five Republican Speakers of the House who have served in the last half-century:
In short, this is a deeply dysfunctional political faction, and has been for decades. Fully 80% of the Republican speakers of the last 50 years have ended up in some version of a state of war with their own conference. Compare that with the Democrats, where there is occasional dissension, but where every speaker since at least the 1970s has left on their own terms, enjoying broad support among their colleagues. Leading the House Republicans these days is clearly a miserable job, more so than the members of the general public can possibly know. It's entirely believable that McCarthy would willingly step down, having learned to be careful what he wished for, because he got it and look where it got him.
Incidentally, for those keeping score at home, McCarthy lasted 270 days. You may recall that when he was first elected, we asked readers to guess how long before a motion to vacate would be filed. The mean guess (average) was 165.21 days. The median guess (halfway point) was 105 days. The mode (most common guess) was 725 days (in other words, no motion will be filed and he'll make it to the end). Roughly 6% of readers thought McCarthy would survive his full term, while at the other end of the spectrum, 3% of readers made a guess of 10 days or fewer, with four guessing McCarthy would only make it one day. Roughly 1% of readers hit it on the nose, and guessed 270 days. Unfortunately, we did not ask for initials and cities, so we can't give those folks credit for hitting the bullseye. Sorry.
It is also a little surprising that McCarthy made no effort to save himself by reaching out to the Democrats. Maybe that's just another sign of how sick he is of the job. Maybe he knows that if he tried it, all the other Republicans would turn against him. Or maybe he knows that the Democrats just weren't open to this sort of cooperation. On that point, the Democrats' votes to eject McCarthy are being slurred by some as selfish and a sign that the blue team is, like the red team, unable to put the good of the country ahead of the needs of the party. We think those criticisms are off the mark. The moment McCarthy allowed his colleagues to commence a phony impeachment inquiry, he was guilty of a gross abuse of power and an offense against the Constitution. The Democrats were entirely justified in booting him, just for that. Had he shown some contrition, and called off the investigation, then maybe they could have shown some mercy. But as it is, his termination as Speaker was richly deserved as penance for his undemocratic behavior. He also made a spending deal with Joe Biden in May and then reneged on it. Oh, and last weekend he went on "Face the Nation" and blamed the Democrats for the House's malfunction. Is it surprising that the Democrats had enough of him?
At the moment, House Republicans are promising to vote on a new speaker in a week. Maybe the party will be scared straight, will find a way to coalesce around some non-McCarthy candidate, and will be operating normally by this time next Thursday. On the other hand, there's not a lot of benefit in having a vote if no candidate has the votes, so don't carve "we're voting in a week" in stone. There could also be a repeat of the McCarthy fiasco, where 5, or 10, or 15 rounds of voting or more are needed to figure things out.
If the Republicans do manage to come up with an actual speaker in the next week or so, then the budget process could be nigh-on impossible to manage. To start, everyone may hate Matt Gaetz, but clearly he and his cadre are more powerful today than they were yesterday. Meanwhile, the moderate Republicans in the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus are reportedly furious with their Democratic colleagues for not saving McCarthy. So, the House's most prominent "let's find a way to work together" group may collapse. How any speaker could cobble together 218 votes out of this, we don't quite know. And 218 votes for bills that can actually pass the Senate and get a White House signature? Monumentally difficult, it would appear.
The U.S. is gradually moving to a system that has all the disadvantages of a parliamentary system without any of the advantages. In the House, there are sort of four parties:
The first two are close enough together that with some arm twisting and the right leader, they can form a stable government when together they have a majority. The last two are barely on speaking terms and cannot form a stable government. In countries with a formal multiparty parliamentary system, governments fall all the time when one small party balks at something. Italy and Israel are the poster children here. In principle, the advantage of a parliamentary system is that if one party or a coalition of parties has 50% + 1 of the seats, they can carry out their program, with no checks and balances to stop them. There is rarely or never minority rule. The U.S. now has a system with the worst of both worlds: instability and the inability of the majority (in the House) to actually govern.
In view of this, things are going to be very... interesting in the House for the foreseeable future. If we said we had any idea what is going to happen, however, we would be lying. (Z)