It seems watching Rep. Kevin McCarthy go through 15 rounds of speaker votes before finally clinching the role in January wasn't embarrassing enough, so the GOP continues to outdo itself.
Earlier this month, eight members of the House Freedom Caucus spearheaded McCarthy's ouster in a no-confidence vote over a temporary stopgap measure to prevent a government shutdown. Now, after several even-more humiliating failed rounds of voting, the United States has gone more than two weeks without a Speaker of the House, with Rep. Jim Jordan refusing to accept defeat. At this point, the Speaker pro temporae doesn't have the power to move spending bills and aid packages (granting the position these powers comes with its own implications).
It's a mess, but apt for a party that can't stop choosing egotism over governing, even when we are in the middle of an extraordinarily pressing geopolitical crisis that makes the need for steady governance imperative.
If you've missed any part of this ongoing saga, here's the recap: After McCarthy's unprecedented ousting, Rep. Jordan and Rep. Steve Scalise threw their hats into the ring to replace him. Jordan is a hard-right GOP'er, cofounder of the Freedom Caucus, and helped Donald Trump try to steal the 2020 election. Throughout his legislative career he’s actively worked to curtail abortion rights, cosponsoring a bill that would require ultrasounds for people seeking abortions and others that would ban abortion nationwide. He's also been accused of ignoring sexual misconduct complaints about the Ohio State University wrestling team's doctor when he was an assistant wrestling coach in the late 1980s and early '90s. (Jordan has denied having any knowledge of the abuse while at OSU.) And Scalise is a fairly conservative Republican who once referred to himself as "David Duke without the baggage," according to a longtime Louisiana political reporter.
So both of these options are pretty bad. Middle-of-the-road Republicans prefer Scalise to Jordan, and Scalise became the nominee in the initial round of voting. But Scalise didn't get enough votes and dropped out last week. Jordan then became the nominee, winning Trump's endorsement, but received only 200 votes in the first round; in the second round, the number dropped to 199 votes. It should be noted that the Democrats have each cast a vote for Hakeem Jeffries every time.
There are a bunch of reasons we're in this Speaker of the House mess. The Republicans have only a slim majority over the Democrats in the House. Due to that slim majority, the Matt Gaetzes and Lauren Boeberts of the world have been enjoying outsize power in the party and are using it to showboat, refusing to vote for more middle-of-the-road party members and acting out when things don't go their way.
Then you have vulnerable Republicans in swing districts who could lose their seat if they vote for Jordan. Mike Lawler, who flipped a seat in New York in 2022, for instance, has been pretty vocal in being against him.
It doesn't help that everyone is angry about their various allies getting screwed or that people who voted against Jordan have reportedly been receiving death threats. The mood is not good at the Capitol, where, according to The New York Times, House Republicans spent Thursday "fighting among themselves in closed-door meetings, trading blame and insults" as they tried to figure out what to do next. (That seems like a great use of time for some of the most powerful people in the country.)
Though Jordan initially said he'd back an effort to form a coalition with Democrats and expand the scope of interim speaker Patrick McHenry's powers, hard-line Republicans pushed back, and Jordan announced on Thursday that he would run — yet again — on Friday. And yet again, the result was another loss, and the saga may keep going over the weekend. It's all incredibly embarrassing. More important, the situation is emblematic of what's happening in the entire party.
There are plenty of politicians who carry an extra-heavy dose of bravado. It's how they whip up votes and withstand brutal election campaigns and constant bad press. But this is too much. I am not naive enough to say that the Democrats are great at governing, or even very good at it, but they aren't in such shambles that warring ideologies within the party constantly bring the government to a standstill.
On November 17, without a speaker or unlikely legislative maneuvering, the government will shut down. Federal employees won't get paid. Federal services won't be funded. This is because a small group of people want the spotlight.
I haven't forgotten when McCarthy went through his humiliating 12+ rounds of votes back in January, and when Gaetz, at one point, voted “present” so he could deny McCarthy a vote at the end of the round and dole out the final bit of humiliation. While it was admittedly funny to watch McCarthy lose, considering his votes against bills protecting same-sex marriage and contraception access, I'd still prefer these people even pretend to do their jobs rather than pull stunts to build their brand.
A similar dynamic is playing out in the GOP primary right now. Vivek Ramaswamy picks fights on the debate stage and pitches himself as a radical outsider who doesn't play by the rules. Ron DeSantis is so charmed by his reputation as the "anti-woke" warrior that he's ideologically overhauled Florida's whole education system. And, of course, there's Donald Trump, whose entire persona is about acting exclusively in his own interest.
Sure, Trump endorsed Jordan for speaker, but not before making the race a little bit about himself, which makes sense given his propensity for centering his own interests — which, to everyone's detriment, he will continue to do if he's elected again. With the rest of the party in chaos, Trump has been able to sail along on his primary run, positioning himself, as ever, as the only true patriot in an increasingly disorderly swamp — though his consistent undermining of Republican leadership has left the party with no ability to control its caucus.
I don't know what's going to happen with the speaker race or in the general election next year (though I do have a pretty good idea of how the GOP primary is going to go). But as long as these people prioritize their own interests over even vaguely pretending to do their jobs, we are all in a lot of trouble.
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