Of the many takes I’ve read and heard about the inability of House Republicans to select a Speaker right out of the gate, this one by David Harsanyi makes the most sense to me. He considers the story “meaningless.”
That’s not far off. In all likelihood, the Republicans will select a leader before too long. It might be Kevin McCarthy; more likely (I think) it won’t be. Either way, the House will proceed in basically the same fashion.
As Harsanyi puts it:
Of course, somewhere in the vicinity of zero voters will change their worldview or political affiliation because the GOP is taking a few extra days to grind out their leadership vote. . . .
However the vote ends up. . .it won’t matter much because neither side in this battle has anything special or particularly consequential to offer.
The best argument I’ve seen for denying McCarthy the Speakership is that the House needs to change fundamentally the way it does business. Under McCarthy, it will be business as usual.
True. But I doubt that anyone with the faintest chance of becoming Speaker is likely to change fundamentally the way the House does business. Nor is it clear to me that those leading the charge against McCarthy would change it for the better.
The need-for-change argument would carry more weight if this particular House had the ability to make a difference through legislation. It doesn’t. The Dems control the Senate and the White House.
The two roles of the Republican House for the next two years are (1) to prevent the Democrats from enacting bad legislation (they rarely offer any other kind) and (2) to hold hearings. The first of these roles can be carried out under McCarthy, but also under any other member with a chance of becoming Speaker — or so it seems to me.
Ideally, the second role would be influenced by a Speaker capable of exercising good judgment about what to pursue and what not to. However, in the real world I suspect that whoever squeaks his way to the Speakership will have to leave decisions about hearings entirely up to the various committee chairs and/or members.
There is, though, one scenario in which McCarthy’s quest to be Speaker could be consequential. There’s talk that McCarthy will try to make a deal with the Democratic leader Hakim Jeffries whereby, in exchange for concessions, the latter would direct a significant number of his caucus to not show up for a quorum call. In this scenario, which Ed Morrissey discusses here, the amount of votes needed for a majority of those present would shrink to a number McCarthy perhaps could obtain.
For what it’s worth, I doubt this ploy will come to fruition. But if it does, then given the concessions McCarthy probably would have to make, the consequences could be significant.
Otherwise, the current drama signifies little other than score settling and posturing.
I think we've learned a lot in the last three days to see that there is more than posturing going on here.
1. We've learned that McCarthy's opposition to the Omnibus was nothing more than public posturing after he had lent his support to the sordid enterprise. He is a purely transactional politician and his word on issues mean nothing. That's true of a lot of politicians, but McCarthy personifies the type.
2. We know the key refuseniks (Price, Good, Norman among them) are very serious about spending and think that a return to committee-based budgeting (regular order) and an end to omnibus bills delivered at the 11th hour is key to getting spending under control.
3. Regular order would also help prioritize spending by creating a focused debate on spending within each agency of the government.
2-3 are more than a process matter.s It goes to the heart of the role of the legislator in the House, and how the power of the purse is exercised.
Right now, the power of the purse is exercised by two individuals in consultation with the President. They then use their whips to cram down budget bills on the reps elected by the us. Reps aren't offered the ability to propose amendments and the committees that used to vet spending bills department by department haven't really done that job since Obama and Pelosi took over Washington in 2009. The current process has more in common with the old Soviet politburo than it does with a republic.
Now we see that of all the concessions that McCarthy has made to the refuseniks, regular order is one concession he won't make. What does that tell us?
Defenders of the centralized process say that it's faster and easier, but when you have $30T of debt and double-digit inflation, faster and easier is exactly the problem.
The fed can increase interest rates all it wants; those of us who remember the last inflationary period know from experience that nothing will change until spending, or at least the growth of spending, is reduced.
That's not going to happen until a House Speaker is willing to use the power of the purse.
I think if any of the 20 refuseniks believed that McCarthy would do that, it would end this standoff.
If McCarthy won't, then what's the point of voting for a party that is full of sound and fury, signifying nothing?
Morrissey seems to think that Jefferies would settle for a deal that leaves Pelosi’s MTV in place. Why? Wouldn’t that make an MTV more difficult, and wouldn’t that in turn make it more easy for McCarthy to appease the Freedom Caucus at Democrats’ expense? If so, it won’t happen because in making any deal with the Democrats, McCarthy will confirm the Freedom Caucus’ judgment, at least in their minds, making a betrayal of Democrats all the more neccessary. Democrats will see this.