I opined just yesterday that a bipartisan approach to electing a Speaker of the House could have been a path forward. Given the continuing implosion of House Republicans, the idea might not be as far-fetched as I thought.
First, a quick landscape summary:
Republicans do hold a majority of seats in the U.S. House. Republicans have 221 seats; Democrats have 212 seats; 2 seats are currently vacant. Given 433 voting members, a majority is 217 votes. Thus, Republicans do have the numerical ability on paper to do anything they want with zero Democratic support – including electing a Speaker. However, given their very thin majority, Republicans alone can afford to lose the votes of only 5 of their own members. (The math can change if not everyone is present and voting, but you get the idea.)
That margin is, of course, the cause of the current dysfunction. Any five idiots can tank anything they want and demand anything they want. And, unfortunately, there are way more than five idiots in the U.S. House.
To break their hold, the still-sane members of both parties need to find a way to work together.
It won’t be easy.
One problem is that 84% of House Republicans and 70% of House Democrats were not in Congress prior to 2010. None of these newer members have any experience whatsoever with bipartisanship. (There wasn’t rampant Congressional bipartisanship prior to 2010, but it did exist.) They will need to be convinced that a bipartisan approach can actually work to everyone’s benefit. They will need to be reminded that, while this has never been formally attempted in the U.S. House, numerous state legislatures have made variations of a bipartisan structure work quite well.
Here’s my brief outline of one possible bipartisan approach in the U.S. House:
- The bipartisan Speaker would be a Republican. (See below.) As noted, Republican hold a House majority and the Speaker should be a member of their party. Democrats would just need to accept this.
- The bipartisan Speaker would need the support of 60% of House members. That’s 260 votes. This margin would force the selection of someone who is acceptable to a significant subset of both parties. It would also negate the impact of both the far-right and the far-left fringes. Finally, the possibility of another successful motion to vacate the Speakership would be greatly reduced.
- Republicans would retain a majority of seats in most House committees, perhaps even keeping the current memberships intact. Changing things too much would be disruptive and a complete reorganization would take way too long. Congress has work to do. It’s also highly unlikely that enough Republicans would back any effort that would greatly reduce their committee power. However, Democrats would need to be granted the same subpoena power as Republicans within each committee.
- Democratic would have some independent ability to force select measures directly to the House floor to be voted up or down by a cross-party majority. While there are various ways to accomplish this, Democrats could be granted the ability bring bills out of the various committees without Republican votes and bypass both the Rules committee and the Speaker to bring such bills to the House floor for debate, amendments, and votes. Some modification and streamlining of the current discharge petition might be appropriate, but that process would need to be stripped of its numerous partisan roadblocks. A majority would still rule, but it would be majority of individuals… not simply the majority party’s leadership.
- Many Democrats may want the impeachment hearings halted, but they’ll frankly be better off just letting Republicans fumble that ball.
The first test of bipartisanship in the House would be the selection of a Speaker and none of the names currently in-play would be able to get any significant Democratic support. My personal choice would be Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE).
Bacon is a retired Brigadier General, having served 30 years in the Air Force with several combat deployments. He earned the Air Force Distinguished Service Medal, two Legion of Merit awards, and two Bronze Stars. While often considered a moderate Republican, winning his seat in a competitive district, Bacon is still most definitely a conservative with “A” ratings from the Susan B. Anthony List and the NRA. However, he tends to focus mostly on national defense, veterans, and agricultural issues, serving on the Agriculture and Armed Services committees in the House. Most importantly in my book, Bacon did not support the 2020 Republican efforts to overthrow the presidential election and voted to certify the results.
Bacon is a conservative Republican and, given some of his positions, I likely wouldn’t vote for him if I lived in his Nebraska district. However, I recognize that he seems to be an American first. He’s a proven leader with a military background from a breadbasket state who has shown a willingness to work across the aisle to get things done. We could do worse for a position that is second in line for the Presidency. Much worse. Think Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH). God help us if that happens.
A bipartisan solution to the current Speaker dilemma could not only be good in the near-term, it could be an institutional savior for the U.S. House.
The status quo isn’t working. Maybe we should try something different.