After a hard-fought 15 ballots, Kevin McCarthy has now assumed the position of Speaker of the House. In a previous post, I remarked on my initial thoughts on the fight over the speakership and expressed why I think Speaker McCarthy is both not fit and too weak for the position he has been elected to. Now that he is the speaker and the 118th Congress has officially convened, I think putting those criticisms in more context and parsing through the events of this week can shed some light on this circling debate about the GOP's willingness to be a party that seriously governs.
One of the highlights of this saga to me has to be the arguments presented and concessions won by members like Representative Chip Roy of Texas’ 21st congressional district, who went to the mat to win some very key procedural victories that will arguably change the way this Congress operates. One of the key themes of Representative Roy's arguments was the decentralization of power from the office of the speaker and the reinvigoration of lively debate among colleagues about legislation.
Roy, as many talking heads have pointed out, stood on his principles to wrangle out a deal that would tether any debt ceiling hikes to spending cuts, a commitment to a balanced federal budget within 10 years, ending the stop-gap usage of continuing resolutions or omnibus bills to fund the government, reestablishing the no-confidence vote against the speaker, and a few other key considerations such as certain committee assignments, allowing more open debate and amendments, and making it easier to bring legislation to the floor. Most of these concessions, I admit, would help foster a more active and responsive Congress by giving rank-and-file members some autonomy and the ability to contribute to the process rather than only being useful for a single vote on a package of legislation pushed through the chambers by the leadership. Nonetheless, for all the good these concessions could do for Congress and the country as a whole, I am skeptical that any of this would be used in a way that would strengthen the institution or help restore faith in the process, given the current state of the GOP.
Based on some of the events surrounding the fight over the speakership, it should be clear to everyone that the Republican Party as we know it is broken. The GOP has no vision for the country, no policy platform to speak of, and appears to be increasingly captured by people who would rather watch the system attack itself than do anything substantive. This, combined with the hardline stance taken by many lawmakers since the introduction of the tea party and the further celebrification of high office by politicians who seem to care more about their personal brands than they do their jobs, and the notion that the Republican Conference has no real desire to govern, remains a truism that continues to haunt the party.
All those who have used this seriously pointless fight over the speakership as an example of the "messy nature of democracy" seem to have ignored that this was supposed to be the easy part. Electing one of your own to lead the House was never supposed to be a fight, but the combination of Kevin McCarthy's piss-poor leadership, hardline demands from members like Roy, and the nihilistic style of grandstanding by members like Gaetz have been a recurring feature in the Republican Party since 2011, and under the influence of the 45th president and Speaker McCarthy's leadership, as evidenced by last week's showing, the bad instincts of many members and the feature many hoped was a bug have only gotten worse.
Speaker McCarthy is by all accounts going to be the weakest speaker of the house in living memory, and it will not be out of a deeply held conviction that the powers of the house shouldn’t be centralized around a single individual, which is a principle I personally hold, but was born out of his inability to corral his colleagues together to deliver him the majority vote needed on a very basic vote. It took 15 ballots and massive concessions on McCarthy's behalf in order for him to win the gavel, and out of the fight, he has virtually nothing other than a title to show for it. I really do not know what is more disturbing: his inability to control his members after 6 years of leadership or the fact that no such negotiations took place in the 2 months before the vote for the speaker was scheduled to take place. In any case, my mistrust of McCarthy and belief in his overall weakness stem from my conviction that he is not a good leader and is simply a man who will say and do anything to receive what he wants, and thanks to the live coverage by C-SPAN, we were able to witness just how empty of a shell this man really is.
Democracy is indeed messy, but the spectacle that was this speaker's fight was not an example of that.
As Speaker McCarthy said during his speech, "It’s not how you start, it’s how you finish," so to give the man some bail, I will say that I will give him the benefit of the doubt and hope that he proves my instincts about him and this Congress wrong. Of course, I'm skeptical that will happen, but I'll give Speaker McCarthy a chance. Coming off the heels of a very productive legislative session, I understand that this new majority will most likely not follow the momentum created by the 117th Congress, but I do still hope to see a GOP that wishes to govern, so I will remain optimistic until given a reason not to be, which is something I think is fair. Now let's see how they manage to get this contentious rules package through; hopefully Speaker McCarthy allows C-SPAN to continue to exercise complete control over the cameras because I’m sure it will be must-see TV.