The problem was not resolved by Kevin McCarthy’s dismissal.
It will be up to McCarthy’s successor to defuse the dangerous and self-defeating political forces inside the Republican conference that ultimately led to the shortness of McCarthy’s term as House speaker, a position he had wanted for years.
Republican Steve Scalise of Louisiana and Democratic Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan have both announced their candidatures. Oklahoma Representative Kevin Hern is polling colleagues to see if they would back his bid for leadership. A new speaker with a clean slate may be more effective at uniting the party than McCarthy, who has been worn down by years of fighting as minority leader. However, the new speaker may not have as much success as McCarthy did if they do not address the underlying problems that led to McCarthy’s demise.
Shortly after entering office, the next speaker will be put to the test in a major way when the temporary financing bill that was McCarthy’s last act as speaker expires next month and the government is once again in risk of closing down.
The next person to take control of the gavel that killed the Californian will almost certainly try to alter the Republican majority’s internal procedures. Any potential successor would be foolish to make the same concession to McCarthy’s hardliners that permitted a single House member to submit a move to unseat him after 15 rounds of voting earlier this year.
McCarthy’s greatest tormentor, Florida Representative Matt Gaetz, threatened him with a “motion to vacate” for weeks, demonstrating why past speakers, such as Democratic Representative Nancy Pelosi, had always resisted making the concession that McCarthy made.
Rep. Garret Graves (R-La.), one of McCarthy’s closest allies, told AWN’s Jake Tapper on Wednesday that it was bad for the country to have a speaker who was always in danger of being ousted by his own party.
We don’t put President Trump or Vice President Pence through that kind of nonsense. Graves argued that the United States required greater consistency than what was on display the day before.
The factor that consistently bamboozles Republican politicians
But the political storm that swept McCarthy away was not just the result of his own missteps, ill-advised concessions to hardliners, or even the riotous nature of the Republican Party in the era of Donald Trump, where there are often stronger incentives for members to perform stunt politics to catch the eye of producers on right-wing TV shows than there are to actually pursue conservative policies.
The next speaker will need to figure out how to deal with conservatives inside the Republican Party who view chaos and conflict as more important than governing. Their only real electoral threat may come from more extreme members of their party in a primary, as many of them hail from solidly conservative districts that have been gerrymandered to prevent competitive general elections.
In his goodbye news conference after his ouster on Tuesday night, the outgoing speaker tacitly pointed to his own and his party’s failure to so far persuade voters that they can properly administer the country ahead of the 2024 election. I aspire to one day lead as a Republican and a conservative. And we’ll have to figure out how to do that,” McCarthy said.
This is an opinion shared by other Republican party leaders. Former Speaker John Boehner rode to power on the Tea Party revolution, but he was finally overwhelmed by the absolute demands of the far right, which led to government shutdowns and fiscal cliffs, and he resigned. Former Wisconsin congressman Paul Ryan, the next Republican speaker, has broad support within the party. However, he was ultimately defeated by the ordeal and forced to leave politics because some of the most extreme members of his conference would not accept the compromise that is essential to the functioning of the United States’ democratic system. During Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, the Republican Party became a vehicle for his populist nationalism, and Ryan had to deal with the fact that his intellectual conservatism was being supplanted by the “America First” cultural warfare and economic profligacy of Trump.
A narrow victory that will only compound the GOP’s current woes.
Until the election in 2024, McCarthy’s successor will also have to deal with the small GOP majority that severely limits the legislative possibilities of the Republican conference and gives extreme flamethrowers enormous leverage.
Some crucial initiatives can only be enacted by gaining support from Democrats, as Republican leaders can only afford to lose four votes on a party-line whip. To prevent a shutdown of the government and a financial default this year, McCarthy was forced to take this measure. However, given the current political atmosphere, any Republican speaker who needs Democratic support is severely hampered and will likely not last long.
The failure of Republicans to achieve the “red wave” landslide McCarthy had anticipated in the 2018 midterm elections also led directly to his downfall. Even though just eight Republicans joined Democrats in voting to remove McCarthy as speaker, the numbers in the House prevented McCarthy from retaining the position. Even if he had only won ten seats, he would have survived; last year, he was hoping for thirty or forty.
The next speaker needs to keep an eye on their right flank, but they also can’t afford to ignore the more moderate members of their party who are angry over McCarthy’s removal, especially since he helped so many of them financially. In addition, if the disarray in the House incites voter ire, the reelection prospects of more than a dozen Republicans who won in swing districts in 2022 could vanish.
Republican Rep. Mike Lawler, who represents a New York district that Biden lost by 10 points in 2020 before redistricting, is now demanding that Gaetz be ejected from the Republican conference. On Wednesday, the newcomer emphasised that Americans needed to see his party go back to addressing the southern border, cutting spending, and taking on Russia and China.
Lawler told AWN’s Wolf Blitzer, “The American people expect us to govern,” while encouraging his party to rapidly come together next week in choosing a new speaker. To put it another way, “they expect us to get our big boy pants on and come to an agreement.”
And then there’s Trump, the uncontrollable wild card that has always thwarted Republican leaders and speakers. However, the ex-president’s antics, not to mention his multiple criminal indictments, threaten to alienate the same kind of swing voters that Lawler and his colleagues are counting on for their reelection because of the ex-president’s popularity among GOP grassroots voters.
No decisions have been made, but AWN’s Kristen Holmes reported Thursday that Trump could make an appearance on Capitol Hill in the coming days, adding to the chaos.
The former president made a threatening statement on Truth Social, saying he would “do whatever is necessary to help with the Speaker of the House selection process.”
House is waiting for a new speaker, delaying Ukraine help
The White House’s proposal for roughly $20 billion in extra funds for Ukraine’s struggle against Russia’s unprovoked invasion will be another issue for the new Republican speaker, who the party hopes to have in place next week. Even with McCarthy on board, it was a heavy lift. McCarthy voted in favour of the weaponry and ammunition pipeline for Kyiv, despite his worries about the spending of the money and his hardening stance as the rest of his party swung against the money.
On Wednesday, Jordan openly expressed his opposition to help for Ukraine in an interview with AWN’s Manu Raju, stating that Americans are more concerned about crime and the southern border. (During a meeting with the Texas delegation on Wednesday, Foreign Affairs Chairman Michael McCaul told Raju that Jordan had not fully ruled out aid to Ukraine, but that border security would have to be part of the talks.) In general, Scalise has supported help. Many Republicans, though, may make demands of the next speaker if they are elected. More over half of the Republican conference voted against giving aid to Ukraine in the most recent vote in late September, which was over a relatively tiny $300 million tranche.
From the Speaker’s chair, second only to the Presidency, one’s perspective on the world can change dramatically from the political trenches of the House of Representatives. However, a Republican speaker will need Democratic support in order to get aid to Ukraine. McCarthy reasoned that a $6 billion down payment on Biden’s broader aid request would only be forthcoming in a wider package that also paid enhanced protection on the southern border, so he left it out of the measure that averted a government shutdown on Saturday.
However, in order for the Republican Party to benefit from innovative ideas along these lines, different groups within the party will need to be willing to compromise their purist viewpoints. For years, this inability to adapt has been the GOP’s Achilles’ heel when it comes to their speakers.