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McCarthy’s Wrong-Headed Compromise
Kevin McCarthy has offered to reform the motion to remove the Speaker of the House to gain the votes of the recalcitrant conservatives. Nancy Pelosi had changed the House rules so that only House leadership could offer such a motion, which was obviously never going to happen under her reign. McCarthy has offered to change the rules again so that five members could offer such a motion, although it would still require a majority vote to remove the speaker.
This is a mistake. While there should be the possibility to offer a motion to remove the speaker, the bar should be high. The speaker needs to have enough authority to push hard compromises through and to discipline members who never cooperate. If five members can offer such a motion, he will always be walking on thin ice. It will exacerbate the current infighting in the Republican caucus. Requiring 25 or 50 members to offer such a motion would still make it a realistic possibility to remove him if he really screws up without making it too easy.
The compromise that he should offer is to restore regular order and to empower the committee chairmen to run their committees. Regular order in the budget process would result in more attention paid to the details of appropriations. It would show that Republicans can run the House and manage the nation’s budget.
Empowering the committee chairmen would result in legislation with tighter language and better ideas. Committees would again mark up bills, which would bring more voices into the process. It would have a chance to break up the solid Democratic bloc as those with more moderate ideas would have them considered. Moderate Democrats would no longer have to submit to the wacky progressive leadership in order to influence legislation. It would be scary because the House leadership would no longer control everything, but it would bring the more responsible voices on both sides to the fore.
The battle royal would occur if the House would produce twelve appropriations bills and the Schumer’s Senate would slap together another omnibus. But if the House Republicans would stand firm, they could contrast their responsible governance with yet another gargantuan spending blowout. They could take record of responsible governance into the 2024 elections.
Kevin McCarthy, if you want to be Speaker and be effective, restore regular order and the committees.
Published in Domestic Policy
Of course, we all understand that the media will do everything they can to make Republicans look bad no matter how calm and resolved they are.
You may welcome fractious and incapable, but the majority of voters do not, as demonstrated in the mid-terms. The Never-Keviners are diminishing the influence of the Freedom Caucus, which is the faction I support, and the Republican party as a whole by this stunt. It’s not standing on principle when you lose because you sabotage your own side.
I honestly don’t know what the mid-terms demonstrated.
Except maybe that people are just tired of politics in general and that if SMOD hit Washington DC, the majority would breathe a sign of relief.
I’m not sure there’s a takeaway about what a “majority” of voters wanted in the mid-terms, since it varies from state to state, margins and all that. Knowing that only half the people eligible vote, in the first place, and the platforms on either side have factions that are all over the map.
In other words, even if Republicans were swept in on a true wave, with a huge majority, we’ve all been witness to what that actually means in terms of legislation, change, and reduction in spending, which is mostly nothing.
It’s why I’m not sure it matters so much. Republicans have clearly trended to go along, and get along, and the rest of us get the shaft. No spines were located in the Capitol building during Jan. 6, I presume.
It’s possible that a moderate Republican will throw his hat in the ring and receive votes from both Democrats and Republicans, in order to break the deadlock.
Possible. Not likely.
What does it mean to be a “moderate” in today’s Republican party?
Democrat.
The hostess cuts you off at 6 Boulevardiers and switches you to caviar to put something in your stomach.