In light of the grave international crises in Israel and Ukraine, the Republicans in the House of Representatives must heal deep divisions within their conference if they are to elect a new speaker.
Both Majority Leader Steve Scalise and Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan have declared their candidatures, but they must prove they can rein in or co-opt the hardliners who drove Kevin McCarthy from office last week and are making the United States look like a waning superpower that cannot govern itself, let alone lead a world in turmoil.
On Wednesday, Republicans will hold secret ballot votes within the party to choose their choice for vice president. But it seems that the weight of external events isn’t doing much to shake the GOP out of its unending internal conflict, as there are still real concerns as to whether Scalise or Jordan can earn the requisite overwhelming support of the Republican conference in an eventual vote on the floor of the full House.
Time is running out to prevent another federal shutdown drama before the middle of next month, and the House GOP is looking increasingly careless. But if the House continues unable to act for much longer, the government will be hampered in its response to Hamas’s heinous attack on Israel. And if Ukraine’s next aid package doesn’t pass the House, the country’s fight for survival as a sovereign state will soon approach a critical moment.
On Tuesday night, Republican legislators heard from Jordan and Scalise in a meeting. The situation is tense because the Republican majority in the House is so small that a candidate for speaker may afford to lose as few as four GOP votes and still win the gavel. The Democrats have shown they are content to wait on the sidelines and expose GOP turmoil in front of next year’s election by refusing to save McCarthy from a revolt by eight hardliners last week and by naming their leader, Hakeem Jeffries of New York, as candidate for speaker on Tuesday.
Rep. David Valadao (R-CA) indicated it could be tough for either Scalise or Jordan to win outright. Valadao is in the midst of a heated reelection battle. Both candidates will face difficulties, in my opinion. Valadao stated, “But I don’t know where exactly their statistics are. They both appear to be in a state of frantic activity and intense effort. No one seems particularly confident just now, though.
The Republicans’ schism has new faces but the same fault line.
The fundamental rift in the party is still very visible a week after McCarthy’s rejection and less than nine months into his tenure as speaker. While conservative Republicans are demanding dramatic cuts in government spending, moderate Republicans know they will have to negotiate with the Democrats who control the Senate and the White House. Fearing that Republicans would pay a heavy political price for a shutdown that may eventually affect millions of Americans, McCarthy collapsed after utilising Democratic support to approve a stopgap package to keep the government open.
Before a full floor vote, which may happen as soon as later on Wednesday, the big question is whether Scalise or Jordan can get enough of the party behind them. To prevent a public display of disarray similar to the 15 rounds of voting McCarthy needed to win the top post in January, Republicans are doing the initial procedure behind closed doors. To prevent the drama of January, they will be debating and voting on a rule change that would require a majority of the current House, rather than just a simple majority of the conference, to approve a nominee. Reps. Jordan and Scalise indicated after Tuesday’s candidate forum that they would campaign together if they were the nominees.
After the forum, California representative Mike Garcia issued a warning that the outcome of the speakership was still uncertain. There are currently equal chances of success, he said. Even more gloomy outlooks were held by some of his coworkers. Florida Democrat Rep. Kat Cammack remarked, “No one is close to 217.” Rep. Thomas Massie (R) of Kentucky, who supports Jordan, was questioned about the likelihood of a new speaker being chosen on Wednesday and responded, “I’d put it at 2%.”
Jordan, a staunch Trump admirer who has repeated his baseless allegations of election theft in 2020, has the support of Trump’s predecessor. To prove Trump’s claims that the government has been weaponized against him as he faces four criminal trials and is also a leading figure in the impeachment probe into President Joe Biden, the Ohio Republican, a co-founder of the conservative Freedom Caucus, has devoted his chairmanship of the Judiciary Committee.
In order to prevent another government financing crisis, Jordan claimed he had a plan, but that in order to implement it, he would need to satisfy the demands of conservatives while also passing muster with the Senate and the White House. “Nobody wants a shutdown,” Jordan declared. The Judiciary Committee Chairman, according to some legislators present, proposed a long-term temporary solution that would reduce expenditure by 1% to buy time for the passage of individual spending measures.
The moderate Nebraskan congressman Don Bacon, who is moving in Scalise’s direction, seemed pleasantly pleased by Jordan’s case. We probably anticipated hearing the Freedom Caucus message from him because of his history. That wasn’t the case. Bacon described it as “very pragmatic” on Tuesday.
Rep. Scalise is a staunch Trump supporter and true conservative. (Both of these men voted no to validate Biden’s 2020 victory.) But he doesn’t have the same reputation for being a hothead like Jordan. More than a dozen districts were critical in the GOP’s tight majority in the 2018 midterms and will be crucial to the party’s prospects in 2024, and as a member of leadership with financial bona fides, he could be more appealing to moderate Republican legislators in those districts. The Louisianan left the conference on Tuesday night urging a more effective Congress. “What people have really liked about my approach is I’ve been a unifier,” he said, admitting his ability to bring people together would be put to the test to the maximum if he were to win the gavel.
If neither Scalise nor Jordan can garner enough support, a compromise candidate that both sides of the party can rally behind may emerge as a viable alternative. Some newcomers have been lobbying for McCarthy’s reinstatement. But the ex-speaker requested that he not be nominated, leaving open the possibility that he could return to his previous position.
Two people are seen dashing inside. “I’m not one of them,” the Republican from California told AWN’s Manu Raju.
The same relentless pressure from a small majority, a delicate balance of power in Washington, and a Republican Party that has violently opposed the efforts of the last three Republican speakers to unite the conference and provide long-term governance will be exerted on whoever emerges as speaker on Wednesday.
The effects of a paralysed House are felt all across the world.
The winner will have to decide quickly whether to try to change the provision that any one member can call a vote to unseat the speaker, which McCarthy had agreed to do in exchange for support from hardliners during his successful January bid for the gavel. Then, in a matter of weeks, we may see a resurgence of the crisis that ultimately led to McCarthy’s loss and the current leadership vacuum in the House. The government will shut down on November 17 unless Congress approves more funds, which could lead to a number of undesirable outcomes, such as the possibility of underpaid military and widespread disruption of public services.
To avoid this, the House will need to approve many complicated spending legislation in a month, which is highly unlikely given their magnitude and the time squandered on the speaker’s election, or they will choose another short-term spending patch, which a large number of Republicans may oppose. If the House does manage to adopt a spending plan, it is highly doubtful that the Senate or the White House will approve it since conservatives are demanding cutbacks much deeper than those agreed upon by McCarthy and Biden earlier this year.
Whether it’s Scalise, Jordan, or anyone else, the next Speaker of the House will almost definitely face the same impossible option that McCarthy did. Do they threaten a shutdown if they are unable to coerce the White House or the Senate into making concessions? Or try to put off the decision with a short-term funding plan that the Democrats will likely have to support. Democrats are unlikely to support Jordan’s proposal, which calls for only 1% in budget cutbacks, so he’ll have to win over moderate Republicans.
The president has requested over $20 billion in military aid for Ukraine as it fights off an invasion by Russia, and the House will soon have to decide whether or not to approve this amount. It’s another policy that would need Democratic votes to pass the House, and many Republicans are against it. The attack on Israel has added further complexity to the issue, with some Republicans suggesting that the United States should provide as much aid as Israel needs, while others are unwilling to continue backing up the Ukrainian war effort.
Even if Republicans manage to agree on a new speaker on Wednesday, the complexity of the unruly nature of the GOP majority guarantees that more chaos is on the horizon.
