Since the stunning downfall of former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), the House GOP’s future has only grown murkier, with the party’s warring factions digging in for a potentially long battle to select a new leader.
One thing, however, has gotten clearer with time: Booting McCarthy hasn’t solved anything.
In fact, it may have created more problems.
ADVERTISEMENT
Last week, eight Republicans decided to remove McCarthy, led by Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), who argued the speaker had not moved quickly enough to tackle a range of issues—chief among them, the GOP’s desire to pass government funding bills well below the spending levels McCarthy agreed to with Democrats and the president earlier this year.
But now, the leadership interruption has ensured that the House is in a state of suspended animation, with the chamber unable to function until a new speaker is elected. That means Republicans can’t take up spending bills—or address any of their key issues—that conservatives castigated McCarthy for failing on.
The irony of the situation is not lost on the former speaker’s loyalists.
“We lost a lot of time, triggered partly by people that were concerned that we weren’t moving faster on [appropriations],” said Rep. Tom Cole (R-OK). “You know, they made it much more difficult.”
On Tuesday, as House Republicans gathered to hear pitches from the two leading candidates for speaker—Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA) and Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH)—the irony only deepened.
The final impetus for McCarthy’s removal was his decision to enact a short-term federal funding bill to avert a shutdown on Sept. 30. Meant to buy more time for Republicans to pass their own bills, the move gave Gaetz and his allies a chance to paint McCarthy as a sell-out.
With a shutdown threat looming yet again on Nov. 17, Scalise and Jordan acknowledged to Republicans on Tuesday that they, too, would have little choice but to pass another stopgap funding bill, given how much valuable space on the legislative calendar has been sucked up by the leadership drama.
Both men may insist that, as speaker, they would pass the most conservative stopgap funding bills possible—but that’s what McCarthy promised, too, before he failed to pass them and got the boot after he chose to keep the government open rather than embrace a shutdown.
To the many GOP critics of Gaetz and his allies, the predictable fallout of their maneuver shows that the rebels were never serious about implementing reforms, just about getting themselves attention and adulation from the MAGA base.
If they allow Scalise or Jordan a free pass where they had hammered McCarthy, it will make the exercise of the last week look even more pointless. If they don’t, the House GOP could be stuck in a cycle of paralysis and ungovernability for the indefinite future.
To Democrats, the cost of the delay is growing starker by the day.
“Every single day House Republicans spend on their extreme, partisan funding bills or waiting to select a new Speaker is a day we are not doing what we should be doing,” said Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT), the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, in a statement to The Daily Beast.
“House Republicans cannot just wake up on November 16 and decide they are ready to negotiate,” DeLauro said. “This House Republican leadership chaos all but guarantees we will need another Continuing Resolution to keep the government functioning while we finish our work on final 2024 funding bills.”
In the modern history of Congress, this moment represents uncharted territory. Before McCarthy, no speaker has ever been removed by a vote of their colleagues. There is no rule book or set of precedent to help lawmakers navigate the situation.
All the more reason, many Republicans say, to get out of it as quickly as possible.
“We have 44 days until the next government shutdown, and we're getting closer to that every single day,” said Rep. Kelly Armstrong (R-ND). “Israel's in a ground war in Gaza right now. We have to get a speaker, but we have to get a speaker with the tools to be able to succeed—otherwise, we're in the same boat we were last week.”
“It’s not ideal,” Armstrong deadpanned.
Influencing the federal budget is not the only conservative priority that is falling out of reach thanks to the turmoil of the McCarthy coup, which not only suspended floor business but also disrupted committee function; hearings were canceled last week after McCarthy was removed.
GOP hardliners are looking for commitments from the next speaker to aggressively go after President Joe Biden and to continue the impeachment inquiry that McCarthy launched in the final weeks of his speakership. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) told reporters after the Tuesday forum that both Scalise and Jordan had done so.
Until then, Republicans insist that their investigations are proceeding on pace. “The American people expect Congress to hold the Biden administration accountable and the House Oversight Committee’s important work will continue,” said a spokesman for the House Oversight Committee. “The Committee is continuing to conduct meaningful oversight and will take further action in the coming days.”
Rep. Dan Bishop (R-NC) was just as emphatic that these investigations shouldn’t be hindered.
“There's nothing about the absence of a speaker that prevents committees from doing their work,” Bishop said.
He argued the initial delay in January while Republicans struggled to elect a speaker didn’t meaningfully affect the GOP agenda.
“I don't think these kinds of proceedings end up being delays that are material,” Bishop said. “I don’t think that’s an issue, personally.”
But Democrats believe that’s clearly not the case. “Jim Jordan is spending every waking moment running for speaker and that is his baby,” said a Democratic aide. “Not realistic to suggest it’s unaffected.”
One of the few issues that unites the entire congressional GOP—unwavering support for Israel—leapt to the front of the party’s agenda after Hamas’ assault on the country over the weekend. Biden is poised to ask Congress to approve additional assistance for Israel next week, when the Senate returns. But until there is a new Speaker, the House cannot vote on any aid package, or even a resolution expressing support for Israel.
For Republicans, the best-case scenario is they proceed to a secret ballot vote on Wednesday and then, having secured a nominee who has locked up the vast majority of conference support, move quickly to a full vote on the floor.
As they filed out of Tuesday’s forum, some GOP lawmakers sounded optimistic that they could resolve the leadership crisis in short order.
Rep. Ralph Norman (R-SC) said he’d “bet on” a new speaker being selected on Wednesday.
Like other Republicans, Norman said the GOP’s sense of urgency to act in support of Israel is serving as a catalyst to get the speaker drama resolved sooner than it might have otherwise.
But publicly and privately, many Republicans believe they remain far from putting this chapter behind them. Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) told reporters he believed there was a “two percent” chance that a new speaker was chosen by Wednesday.
Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN), one of the eight who voted to oust McCarthy, did not sound perturbed by the delay, or its implications for the United States’ ability to support Israel, given that the Biden administration can provide forms of emergency assistance on its own.
“What’s Congress gonna do, send them a strong resolution?” Burchett said. “Unless we declare war… until then, I don’t see us declaring war. It’s not our war. Israel will take care of it.”
Although both Scalise and Jordan are broadly well-liked in the conference, they do not have—and maybe never will never have—enough support to survive the kind of internal opposition that doomed McCarthy.
As of Tuesday night, 48 Republicans have publicly endorsed Jordan, while 32 are backing Scalise, according to FiveThirtyEight. Six lawmakers, meanwhile, are still supporting McCarthy, though the former speaker told his colleagues not to nominate him for the coming speaker vote. The clear majority of the conference’s 221 members have not said who they’d support, leaving the race wide open.
Lawmakers are considering an internal rule change that would require a Speaker candidate to get the requisite 217 votes before they move to a vote in the full House. It could avert a lengthy public floor fight like the one McCarthy endured in January—at the cost of ensuring that the process potentially drags on even longer behind closed doors.
Members have differing opinions on that rule change, as pundits and press have gamed out whether it would benefit Scalise or Jordan.
Even though the vast majority of them never thought anything would be accomplished by getting rid of McCarthy, some Republicans view the coming days as a crucial test of whether they can accomplish much of anything going forward.
“We have, you know, to see how we can work effectively as a unit. I believe it can be done, but we’ll have to see,” said Bishop, who is supporting Jordan.
“Usually we’re better at it when we’re moving past the animosity and the anger. That sort of slows everything down. That’s what consumes time and doesn’t have a productive outcome.”
