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We’ve been writing a lot about Congress this week. That’s because a lot of substantial action has been taking place. So much so that history has been made, not all of it good.
For the first time ever, a sitting speaker of the House has been ousted from that position. Strangely, now-former Speaker Kevin McCarthy has lost the gavel at a time when our respect for him ticked substantially upward.
Sure, tuning out the far-right, obstruction-at-all-costs flank of his caucus and taking the bipartisan route to funding the government seemed like the obvious decision. And it should have been made sooner. But it still was not a foregone conclusion. McCarthy ultimately did the right thing last week, and as a reflection of where American politics and the Republican Party in particular stand today, he paid a price for it.
Perhaps this was always the eventual destination of McCarthy’s speakership, given the harrowing path he walked and the concessions he made just to win enough Republican support in the first place. And if that early exit was going to happen at some point, perhaps there was no better way than for him to help America avoid another unnecessary and costly shutdown, at least for now.
But the fact remains: He angered a small group of his fellow Republicans by working across the aisle to help the country, and that was enough for him to lose his job. Whether you’re a Republican, Democrat or neither, the empowerment of this band of chaos agents should give you pause.
This situation is historic, yes. But more importantly, it is chaotic. Congress just barely avoided a shutdown over the weekend, and only bought themselves 45 more days to do the real work of passing individual appropriations bills and funding critical programs and services across the federal government, as well as providing more aid to Ukraine as it continues to try to turn back a Russian invasion. That work needs to proceed quickly, collaboratively and consistently. We have no previous record of imploaded speakerships to guide or predict next steps, but we have to assume that it won’t help these important funding efforts. The House is expected to adjourn for the rest of this week, so it isn’t exactly becoming more productive.
Would we have liked to see House Democrats support McCarthy for his recent bipartisan action, and more importantly, avoid an unprecedented and unpredictable speaker election at a time when the focus should be on funding the government by mid-November? Yes. In a sense, every vote against McCarthy was a vote for the resulting chaos.
However, it is awfully rich to read in Republican campaign emails and elsewhere that this chaos is somehow the fault of House Democrats. It was McCarthy who agreed to rules relating to “vacating the chair,” it was a small group of Republicans who initiated that process, and it was McCarthy himself who made it seem like he didn’t want Democrats’ help and that there wasn’t a bipartisan deal on the table.
So when we hear from the National Republican Congressional Committee that House Democrats are “arsonists complaining about fire damage” because of this and other instances, we feel compelled to play the role of metaphor police for a moment. The true arsonists were the members of McCarthy’s own party who initiated the process to vacate and then voted against him, all for the great sin of doing a basic job for the American people. And when at least some Democrats signaled that they might be willing (with the right deal) to help McCarthy put the fire out, he basically said he didn’t want or need the water.
What we won’t quibble with, however, is the idea that the House is on fire. It’s a dumpster fire right now, no doubt about it. This is not a time for Republicans to point fingers or for Democrats to gloat: It’s a time for everyone to get to work and fund the government.
Hopefully the House Republican majority — or, although it is a longshot, perhaps a center-minded coalition of Republicans and Democrats — choose a leader as quickly and as possible, and hopefully the next Speaker of the House approaches the job with a consistent realization that bipartisanship is needed in divided government where both parties have some level of power. Like McCarthy’s action over the weekend, that would be what’s best for the American people.
