The House In Chaos

In 1994, Republicans, led by Rep. Newt Gingrich, won control of the House for the first time in 40 years.

Republicans have had five Speakers in the nearly three decades since. Four of the five left their positions prematurely. The Tea Party movement and the House Freedom Caucus became major factors in an ongoing disruption that has increasingly become the norm for House Republicans.

Gingrich in 1998 and John Boehner in 2015 resigned as Speakers under pressure from their fractured Republican colleagues. In 2018, Speaker Paul Ryan left Congress in frustration with his inability to work with the right wing of House Republicans and with an out-of-control Republican President, Donald Trump.

This week, Kevin McCarthy became the first Speaker ever removed from his position by a House vote. It was triggered by a handful of the most extreme members of his own party, led by Rep. Matt Gaetz.

It took McCarthy a grueling 15 votes to win the Speaker’s job in January. In the process he made the fatal mistake of agreeing to a change in House rules that would allow a single Member to force a floor vote to remove a House Speaker.

That agreement, made with some extremist Members of his party, is both what helped get him elected in January and why he is no longer Speaker today.

Giving some disgruntled extremists the power to control and disrupt a narrowly divided House is, as we have seen, a recipe for disaster – not only for House Republicans, but for our country and the proper working of our government.

If they do not change this House rule now, it will haunt the next Speaker and it will lead to continued dysfunction.

We now face a contested race for Speaker that could take time, a House that cannot function until a new Speaker is elected, a looming deadline of November 17 to fund the government and avoid a  government shutdown, a question of continued funding for Ukraine, and the need to pass 12 appropriations bills.

If the appropriations bills are not all passed by January 1, a one percent across-the-board cut in spending goes into effect, courtesy of the debt ceiling extension deal that was reached in June.

All of this sits in the shadow of a deeply fractured House Republican party and an extremist House Freedom Caucus with exorbitant legislative demands that they must know would never be accepted by the Senate or the President.

One of the major objections the extremist House Republicans had with McCarthy was his willingness to reach agreements with Democrats to address the debt ceiling and the funding of the government.

But, with a narrowly Republican House and a narrowly Democratic Senate, the only way to avoid legislative chaos is through bipartisan agreements. And when the next Speaker faces this reality – and he or she will – the extremists will likely challenge that Speaker, too.

If all that chaos wasn’t enough, former President Trump, who sat on the sidelines during the battle to remove McCarthy, is now reportedly open to pitching himself as the next House Speaker.

Although it has never happened, the House Speaker does not need to be a Member of Congress. However – unfortunately for Trump and good for the country – House Republican Conference rules provide: “A member of the Republican Leadership shall step aside if indicted for a felony for which a sentence of two or more years’ imprisonment may be imposed.”  Trump currently has 91 criminal counts in indictments pending.

And, those indictments aren’t the only pressures facing Trump these days.

His business empire is under serious threat in the New York civil fraud case, with a possible $250 million fine and a ban on his doing future business in New York. The four Trump criminal indictments are at different stages, but trials are scheduled later this month for some of his co-defendants in the Georgia case and the Washington DC election interference case appears to be moving forward with a March 2024 trial start date.

Trump has been in attack mode swinging viciously in recent days to the point where Judge Engoron in the New York civil fraud case issued a gag order after Trump attacked the Judge’s clerk in social media posts.

While Trump’s pitch to be the next Speaker is probably little more than one of his trademark attention grabs, that such an outlandish proposal is even under consideration underscores the turmoil in our democracy today.

The next few months in Congress may be unlike any we have seen in some time.

House Republicans must overcome their chaos and dysfunction. They must show the American people that they can govern – for their own benefit and for the benefit of the nation.

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Fred’s Weekly Note appears on Thursdays in Wertheimer’s Political Report, a Democracy 21 newsletter. Read this week’s and other recent newsletters here. And, subscribe for free here and receive your copy each week via email.