Why the Battle over Electing a House Speaker
AB is about a day late on this commentary by Peter. Still a great commentary and read.
Why the Battle over Electing a House Speaker
by Peter Dorman @ Econospeak
I don’t know how this will turn out, and maybe what I’m about to say will be disproved by events, but here goes:
I think the Republicans face a difficulty in electing a Speaker that the Democrats wouldn’t have, and it will be hard to overcome. Democrats may disagree intensely, but they all have legislative agendas to pursue, and in the end they are likely to compromise in order to get at least some of what they want. Republicans have little to no agenda. In the last presidential election they didn’t even have a party platform. Thus there is no incentive to compromise. If you’re a Republican congressman eager to cement your brand as a “patriot” who won’t settle for RINO’s like Kevin McCarthy, what would motivate you to vote for him?
True, representatives, even very right wing ones, still want federal money for their districts and to win favors for friends and donors. But these things usually take the form of riders to bills for other purposes or fine print in legislative language. The whole point of the process is that it occurs out of public purview and is therefore difficult to use to break highly visible logjams like the speakership. The IRA compromise among the Dems did involve side payments to West Virginia but primarily took the form of substantial trims to programs most Democratic senators supported.
What will a compromise that assembles a working Republican majority in the House look like?
Seemed to me like a very intricate dance, to avoid electing a Dem Speaker for the GOP controlled House. Jeffries for the longest time had more votes than McCarthy, and it seemed to take them a while to realize they would simply have to have members voting for no one to bring about a reduction in the majority requirement, and do a few trial runs to get it right.
Kudos to the GOP choreographers who pulled this off. No doubt the country will be all the better for it.
As previously noted, if the GOP was not extra careful, they would have elected Hakeem Jeffries as Speaker. Close, on the 14th ballot perhaps. People did not vote as they were supposed to.
Not that there would be anything wrong with that, as many here no doubt believe, me included.
As noted elsewhere, there was a period in the early years of the USA that president and VP could be of different parties. That was the case for VP Thomas Jefferson. This did not work well and was changed by an early Constitutional amendment (#12).
Probably having a Dem House Speaker for a GOP majority House of Reps would be somewhat worse at least.
Kevin McCarthy has effectively agreed to let the far right disrupt the workings of the House
NY Times – January 6
Representative Kevin McCarthy’s historically long slog to become speaker of the House has made one thing abundantly clear: The United States should brace for the likelihood of a Congress in perpetual disarray for the next two years.
The recipe for the chaos already existed: A toxic combination of the Republicans’ slim governing majority, an unyielding hard-right flank that disdains the normal operations of government and a candidate for speaker who has repeatedly bowed to that flank in his quest for power. …
(Perhaps a most appropriate date for this vote by the GOP.)
Democratic Party slogan for 2024:
Make America Governable Again
Agreed. Their seats are safe. There is no chance they could pass legislation they would favor. They already know how the next two years will play out in the House. So with nothing to lose the “Freedom Caucus” exerted their leverage to maximize obstruction of governance.
How will the swing vote will react to two more years of a largely frozen Congress? Key variables are how does the debt ceiling nonsense end, and who are presidnetial nominees.
It seems that the GOP fears for its future viability in US politics, and is inclined to follow their worst survival instincts. It’s only going to get worse. It could happen eventually that the GOP draws in disgruntled Dems who decide their party is getting carried away with ‘progressivism’. Is that the GOP’s only real hope?
@Fred,
In what sense is the modern Democratic Party progressive. They are the center-right party in America today.
The Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC) is a congressional caucus affiliated with the Democratic Party in the United States Congress. The CPC represents the most left-leaning faction of the Democratic Party. …
As of March 22, 2022, of the 118th United States Congress, the CPC has 103 members (101 voting Representatives, 1 non-voting Delegate, and 1 Senator), making it the largest ideological caucus in the Democratic Party … (Wikipedia)
(Looks like almost half the Dem Representatives make up the Progressive Caucus. Surprisingly few senators though, probably only Bernie Sanders.)
@Fred,
I wasn’t referring to branding, I was referring to actual political behavior.
The Congressional Progressive Caucus is progressive in the sense that the Freedom Caucus stands for freedom.
The Democratic Party today is the party of Rockefeller Republicans. The Republican Party today is the party of right-wing extremism. There is no significant liberal-left party in the US today.
It is worth noting that the Dem Party is truly the one with the Big Tent.
Lots of Rockefeller Repubs in it. I am one. There is a tendency in the USA to realize that unless you are in a party, you are not really participating in the political process. And it is important to do so.
Err, I was one. By the time I had settled in MA I was an ‘independent’, and before I knew it there were no Rockefeller Repubs anymore anyway. I was from NY and it seemed to be mainly a ‘NY thing’.
Although I loooong supported Dem politics, I didn’t officially become one until Joe Biden began his run in 2020.
As of March 22, 2022 in the US Congress, the Congressiona Progressive Caucus has 103 members (101 voting Representatives, 1 non-voting Delegate, and 1 Senator), making it the largest ideological caucus in the Democratic Party … (Wikipedia)
(Looks like almost half the Dem Representatives make up the Progressive Caucus. Surprisingly few senators though, probably only Bernie Sanders.)
The Congressional Progressive Caucus Expands
The Nation – Katrina vanden Heuvel – Jan 6
Even while giving Republicans a narrow margin in the House of Representatives, voters elected a historic cohort of insurgent progressive newcomers, adding at least 11 new members to the Congressional Progressive Caucus. …
It seems that the new VT Senator, Peter Welch, long the lone VT Representative, may be something of a moderate and may not remain in the Progressive Caucus, leaving his VT colleague Bernie Sanders as the only senator in that caucus.