With no Speaker, no legislation can progress and no new members can be sworn in. So why did so many House Republicans vote against Kevin McCarthy?
, Kevin McCarthy told his colleagues in the House Republican caucus, “I’ve earned this job.” And, in a way, he had. The Republican from Bakersfield has kissed an army of frogs, including lobbyists, donors and cranks like congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, to shore up his position, only for 20 House Republicans to turn around and accuse him of infidelity.
Choosing the Speaker of America’s House of Representatives, an important office whose holder is second-in-line for the presidency, ordinarily requires only one round of voting. The last exception to this was a century ago, when progressive Republicans held up their party’s candidate. With no Speaker, no legislation can progress and no new members can be sworn in. This leaves the people temporarily without representation. The move is therefore a drastic one for the Never Kevins to make.
Not, surely, in opposition to Mr McCarthy’s proposed agenda. Released before the midterm elections in November 2022, his “Commitment to America” would struggle to fill a postcard with policies that are within the power of Congress to enact. Nor do the Never Kevins have much of an agenda themselves. Instead, the plan seems to have been to break the toys so that nobody else can play with them. That dynamic has been present in the Republican caucus for a while.
A weakened Speaker will make it even harder for Congress to pass contentious legislation this year. One beholden to the House Republicans’ berserker caucus could find it difficult to avoid a government shutdown, to raise the debt ceiling or to provide additional support to Ukraine’s armed forces. This comes after Congress had been on a winning streak, reforming the process for certifying elections and reaffirming gay marriage as the law of the land in 2022.
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