On January 7th republican Kevin McCarthy was elected speaker of the house. This vote came after former speaker of the house democrat Nancy Pelosi stepped down in November of last year. Mccarthy hails from Bakersfield California, and was first elected to congress in 2006. He has served as both minority and majority leader through the years.
He was declared the speaker after the 15th round of voting. Now newly elected as speaker of the house there is controversy over how he secured the last remaining votes. He is thought to have struck deals with the last withholding votes coming from the far right.
After the 14th round of voting concluded and he was still not installed as speaker the house did not adjourn but voted again. Entering the 15th round of voting far right senators from Virginia and Arizona voted present. This action moved the threshold of needed support securing his win.
This vote marks the longests election for a house speaker in a century. According to an NPR article on Mccarthy’s election “The longest vote in U.S. history took place in 1855, lasting 133 rounds over two months.”
https://kevinmccarthy.house.gov/about
https://www.npr.org/2023/01/06/1147470516/kevin-mccarthy-speaker-of-the-house-vote
https://pressgallery.house.gov/member-data/party-breakdown
10 comments:
I think this situation really highlights how democracy can be a really long and tedious process. Speakers of the house require a majority, and when Congress remains divided, getting that majority can take a excruciatingly long time. Additionally, Congress cannot carry out any of its duties until a Speaker is elected; that means that time is being wasted, and with such a long agenda, Congress cannot afford to waste time.
There's also the interesting underlying comment made in the article about how the candidate was able to secure the remaining votes. Although it may seem corrupt, as the deciding final votes were not actual due to genuine belief of qualification, but underhand deals, this is unavoidable. Not everyone is going to agree on one subject, and if a compromise that would usually seem bad ends up breaking through the gridlock in Congress, these methods will continue to be used. Overall, I think that Congress voting has really become something that no one could really predict, but it does work to a degree, and considering that Congress has so many varying interests, it's assuring to know they can somewhat get along.
I think it's interesting how chaotic this election was. Because McCarthy struck the deals with the far right senators, he has now limited more of his power. According to the New York Times he, "agreed to allow the ultraconservative wing of the party approval power over a third of the Republican members of the panel." I really wonder how future legislation will be passed effectively after seeing how long it took to just elect a new house speaker.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/07/us/politics/mccarthy-speaker-rules-house.html
What I'm most worried about in McCarthy's concessions is the three places he promised on the House Rules Committee to the Freedom Caucus. By doing so, he's essentially given those few far right members of the House the power to decide what will make it to the House floor or not. The members of the Caucus used their negotiations over the 15 votes to give them far more power in Congress than they would have had, or even should have. The slim majority the Republicans earned in the 2022 midterms may not be the blessing they were counting on after all. Instead, it has the potential to let the far right of the country, a minority of the party, control the House for the foreseeable future.
This is my personal opinion, but I think that this failure (a failure of the Republican party to smoothly take a win despite having two months to coordinate) is indicative of the harm that the fragmentation within the party will continue to cause. The more extreme right wing members of government are unafraid to cause disruption and a media circus over their opinions. Within McCarthy's many concessions, he agreed to the presence of a one person vote to oust a speaker at any time. It'll be interesting to see how the voting body functions when this power is omnipresent, considering how many people had to be convinced to support him in what is traditionally more of a ceremonial vote than anything. Additionally, the whole debacle was an interesting exercise in how politics have become very...reality television-esque. C-SPAN's access to the House floor produced genuine drama; I watched a Congressman have to be physically restrained from attacking Matt Gaetz 4 days in, and Katie Porter was photographed reading a fun selection of literature. So many pictures and video clips circled the internet, and I don't think it's a stretch to say that more people were aware of what was happening because everything was so easily packaged into digital updates and recaps. Because the election stretched on for so long, we were given more of an insight into the democratic process, which apparently includes many more heated conversations and laughable asides than our textbook may account for.
If you take a read at the post by Mr. Silton just before this post, the reason why it's been such a trouble electing Kevin McCarthy for House Speaker becomes clear. The 20 far-right Republicans (many associated with the House Freedom Caucus) are dissatisfied with the party leadership because they believe that McCarthy is not actively advocating and working for their agenda. This deep division revealed that the Republican Party is consumed with its own ego and ideology, and this will possibly damage the Republicans in the House. CNN says: "Either way, all of this GOP angst is a pretty decent consolation prize for Democrats after losing the House majority. If nothing else, they’re watching a Republican Party that can’t seem to get its act together after a historically bad midterm for an opposition party."
https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/01/politics/house-speaker-vote-mccarthy-history-polling/index.html
https://www.npr.org/2023/01/08/1147626390/mccarthy-republican-party-congress
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-01-04/mccarthy-flails-republicans-bicker-explaining-congress-s-chaos
I find it really interesting how the election for the Speaker of the House can be such a opportune time for representatives to get their share of media spotlight and their demands met by some standard. This was seen with Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz who infamously voted Donald Trump for Speaker. According to CNN, "Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz strode into House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy’s office on Monday night with a list of demands."
https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/07/politics/kevin-mccarthy-path-to-speakership/index.html
While some of McCarthy's concessions were less consequential (such as reducing the low 5-representative threshold required to vote on removing the Speaker of the House to just 1), others such as the Holman rule are more concerning. The Holman rule allows for the funding of a federal program or the salary of a specific federal worker to be reduced to just $1. This makes it an extremely powerful political weapon, as it could be used by the majority party to defund to extinction whatever program they dislike, or reduce the salary of whomever the party wants to. While this power is highly unlikely to be exercised under a divided Congress (as it would need majority votes from both chambers to pass), if a party is to gain a majority in both chambers of Congress, it could be used to greatly undermine both federal programs supported by the opposing party and coerce government workers who are critical of the majority party into silence. Alternatively, it could (and likely will) be used as a bargaining chip for various pieces of legislation which will will often require either a few of the more radical Republican reps in the house to approve, or would require more moderate Democrats to vote on.
McCarthy granting far-right members of the Freedom Caucus some procedural concessions gives them a green-light to push their agenda with some more ease. Also, as Peyton mentioned, those 3 seats given on the House Rules Committee could effectively change what the House chooses to hear. This drastically increases the power of the conservative agenda. The power of McCarthy's promises to other politicians to get what he wants reminds me of when Obama gave money to Bob Nelson in order to secure his vote for Obamacare. It's interesting to see what types of negotiations go on behind the scenes of major political decisions and that it's truly the "favors" politicians can give that get them to where they are.
https://www.brookings.edu/blog/fixgov/2023/01/10/mccarthy-paid-a-steep-price-for-his-speakership-now-what/
I think this whole thing really demonstrated how Trump's influence has split the Republican party. At first, he seemed to have complete control over the party but now, as his presence in politics is reduced and his actions become more criticized, from both sides, he is losing his control. This has resulted in some people from the far right remaining die-hard supporters of him and others not. In a way, there are not two parties within the Republican party. The fact that McCarthey struck deals with the far-right Republicans means that they will now have a greater say in coming policy decisions which is scary, considering those views are not the views of the Congress, much less the general population.
I find that the situation with McCarthy was quite interesting and representative of party divide present after the recent midterms. With the republican party claiming the majority in the house, it would have been expected for McCarthy to quickly rise to as the speaker of the house. Yet, as seen by the 15 rounds that it took, he still needed to win votes. This situation highlights the divisions within the republican party, as McCarthy represents a more moderate republican view, and still needed to win over the more conservative republicans.
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