I’ve never had so many readers ask me to weigh in on any one issue. Interesting.
I’ve been reluctant to post about the on-going House drama since (a) I’m not sure how useful it is for yet another voice to narrate this circus and (b) I’m still unsure how and when the clowns go home. It might all be over by the time you read this; it might not. However, since the House now stands in recess until 10pm Eastern Time, I’ll quickly offer my two cents.
Here’s where things stand. On the anniversary of the failed insurrection occurring in the very same chamber, the House failed this afternoon on their 13th attempt to elect a Speaker. That’s the most failed attempts since the Civil War.
Democrats have been united in all rounds casting all of their 212 votes for Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries. GOP Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s support has ranged from a low of 200 votes to a total of 214 in the latest round. 222 Republicans were recently elected to the House and, if everyone actually votes, someone would need 218 votes to become Speaker. That target, however, is fluid since the winner needs only a majority of the votes actually cast for any named person. Many in Congress appear to be bad at math, since reporters were being given different numbers in hallway interviews. For the record, in this latest round, McCarthy would have needed 4 of the 6 other votes that were cast.
I suspect that, one way or another, McCarthy will eventually be elected Speaker. Some of the remaining holdouts could flip, some of them might be convinced to vote Present (thus reducing the total votes needed to win), the GOP could change the rules to allow a plurality to win (since McCarthy now at least has more votes than Jeffries), or whatever.
In the meantime, though, we have no House of Representatives. That’s a bad look, but it’s by no means catastrophic. The reality is that legislation needs to pass both chambers of Congress and the Senate isn’t going to be functional until January 23. And, while there’s no House oversight currently being done, I suspect the world won’t end if the Hunter Biden Laptop Crusade gets delayed for a bit.
The real issue is what all of this means for the country going forward.
In addition to being a living antonym for charisma, McCarthy has demonstrated once again that he has no leadership skills, no negotiating skills, and no oratorical skills. He so wants the title of Speaker of the House that he is apathetic to fact that he is rendering the office meaningless.
The current GOP holdouts and, indeed, all of the GOP members who didn’t vote for McCarthy on the first round, are all part of the crazy-right wing of the Republican Party. To win their votes, McCarthy has apparently been conceding to castrating demands that are likely to make the House just about as functional as the Keystone Kops. The details are being quite tightly held – likely in an attempt minimize the irritation of other GOP members. Those who have stood by McCarthy since the beginning are undoubtedly being thrown under the bus in order to appease the holdouts.
Several agreements have, of course, leaked out. A few actually seem reasonable (e.g. a rule that members be given 72-hours to review bills before voting and a requirement for a floor vote on term limits), a few are on GOP-specific policies (e.g. border security and oversight committees), and a few are on procedural issues and promised committee assignments (which will be internally troublesome for McCarthy).
Two agreements, however, stand out to me as very problematic:
- Motion to Vacate: McCarthy has apparently agreed to let any single member of the House majority call for a new Speaker vote. We could thus be back where we started the first time McCarthy doesn’t genuflect to a member of Freedom Caucus. This is the rule that doomed John Boehner’s tenure as Speaker – and Boehner had a larger majority and was a MUCH better politician than McCarthy.
- Debt Ceiling Restrictions: McCarthy has also apparently agreed to block any clean bill to raise the debt ceiling.
That second one is the most worrisome of all. As I’ve noted before, the debt ceiling shouldn’t be a political football for either party. In fact, we shouldn’t even have a debt ceiling. While we should have loud debates about spending bills and deficit spending, we shouldn’t have any debates AT ALL about whether we pay for the things we’ve already bought. The concept itself is sheer insanity.
Nevertheless, the crazy-right wing of the Republican party wants to tack all sorts of unrelated crap onto any legislation that lets us pay our bills. If Democrats agree to be held hostage to a debt ceiling increase, the GOP demands will never end. (And, of course, the same would be equally true if party positions were reversed.)
I fully believe that the crazy-right wing would let the U.S. default on its debt rather than pass a clean debt ceiling increase. Despite the stated opinions of some on the right, a default is not some obscure economic concept. It is the abandonment of the full faith and credit of the United States. While the fallout of such a default at least deserves a post of its own, the short version includes a recession, a tanked stock market, a tanked bond market, increased interest rates, the downgrade of the U.S. credit rating, the devaluation of the dollar, international trade disruption, and the probable displacement of the dollar as the world’s reserve currency. It would take decades for our economy to recover.
But, yeah, all we can do for now is continue to watch Cirque du So-Lame and hope that not all of the D.C. clowns are Pennywise.
[ And my apologies for the mixed cultural metaphors. ]