Chaos Caucus Wins The Day
We are now officially in uncharted waters. The speaker of the House of Representatives has been deposed. The Chaos Caucus of hardline rightwing Republicans won the day, with the help of the entire Democratic Party. Kevin McCarthy is speaker no more.
This is all unprecedented and, as a result, historic. Nobody's even entirely sure what the next steps will be. From the New York Times liveblog of the vote, immediately after McCarthy lost:
"Now what?" one Republican loudly asks. This has never happened in the House of Representatives before.
Now we've got an interim speaker whose sole responsibility is to conduct the voting for a real speaker. You remember January, right? That's where we are at. Or maybe not. There's an open question as to what powers a "speaker pro tempore" actually has, since it is a fairly recent law (it was passed in reaction to 9/11 to preserve the continuity of government in a crisis), and has never been used in this fashion before. Does the speaker pro tempore have full power to move the House forward on bills? Or does he have only the limited power to oversee the process of electing a new speaker? It's an unanswered question at the moment, but it may have been answered (at least in this instance) by the time you read this. When Representative Tim Burchett, one of the eight Republicans who voted to oust McCarthy, was asked on CNN after the vote whether he thought there would be a new speaker before he goes to sleep tonight, he replied: "I have no earthly idea, brother."
As I write this, the two parties are huddling among themselves to put forward a candidate for speaker. Democrats will almost certain nominate their current leader, Hakeem Jeffries. He will get every single Democratic vote (just as he did 15 times in January).
What will the Republicans do? Who knows? They are in the midst of open civil war, and neither side seems like they're about to back down any time soon. The vote in the House was 216-210, meaning McCarthy actually had the support of 96 percent of his own caucus (eight Republicans voted against him). He may be the only Republican with a shot at winning the speakership back. It all depends on whether he decides to stay and fight or step aside.
If he does fight for his former job, McCarthy will likely have to weather multiple votes before he corrals enough votes to form a majority (just like he had to in January). None of his leadership team seems inclined to mount a campaign to become speaker, at least not until McCarthy decides to pass. And there probably isn't another Republican who could get a majority of votes (certainly none of the Chaos Caucus could even come close). So we may be in legislative Limbo for quite a while.
If McCarthy decides he's had enough and throws in the towel, then one of his deputies will likely rise to the occasion and mount a bid for the speakership. But who knows whether the Chaos Caucus will support any of them or not? Representative Matt Gaetz, who launched the "motion to vacate the chair" yesterday, had no plan forward after achieving chaos. He's not running for speaker himself, he says, and he has not been lobbying for any other candidate either. Which is entirely fitting, since the hallmark of the Chaos Caucus is that nobody can ever figure out what they actually want.
So politics-watchers (like yours truly) sit and wait, to see what happens next. Will we start with a speaker election in a few hours? It's a possibility. Will anyone win the first round of voting? Not likely, unless McCarthy does step down and anoint an heir (and even that's not assured). Will we endure roll call after roll call, vote after vote, while both McCarthy and Jeffries fall a few votes short of a majority? That seems the most likely outcome, at least for the foreseeable future.
Of course, since we are in uncharted waters, anything could happen. The longest of longshots would be a handful of swing-district Republicans deciding either to vote "Present" or actually vote for Jeffries, and the House switching to Democratic leadership. This, as I said, is the unlikeliest outcome, but it sure is fun to dream about, right?
For the moment, chaos reigns. The Chaos Caucus has won the day. They finally got what they really wanted, which was a whole bunch of attention without any clue what to do next. One Republican speaking in favor of retaining McCarthy (before the vote was held) excoriated Gaetz for fundraising off his stunt (while the events were transpiring). Gaetz shrugged it off, since there is no concept of shame in the Chaos Caucus.
Reporting from uncharted waters, the forecast for the time being is: more chaos. No end is in sight, at this point. Chaos reigns supreme.
-- Chris Weigant
Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant
Update from NYT:
McCarthy tells Republicans he will not be running for speaker again, according to lawmakers who attended the closed-door meeting underneath the Capitol.
The house has no speaker and the Orioles have the best record in the AL, we must truly have reached the end of days
CW [1],
Yes, but he lies sometimes.
Republicans have more seats, so the speaker is supposed to be a Republican. Democrats should vote for a "moderate" Republican who's willing to be somewhat bipartisan. I don't think there are any Republicans who are actually moderate, but the difference between "moderate" and the Gaetz faction is worth voting for.
Some Democrats should hold out, and demand a better deal than anything that's likely to be available. But for every value of N, at least when enough Republicans are intransigent enough to put the speakership into question at all, the Nth Democratic vote should be a better deal than the Nth Republican vote. (That's the Nth additional vote, after what's already in the bag for whoever the Republican leadership puts up for consideration. So the first hundred or so Republican votes just offset the fact that the speaker is going to be Republican, instead of counting toward deciding what N is.) This doesn't mean that the negotiation has to be done representative by representative. It could be the Democratic majority leader saying 'I think I can find you ten votes if you just agree to slightly better committee assignments than you would with no Democratic votes, twenty if you agree to such-and-such Democratic role in deciding which bills come to a vote, thirty if ...'.
Democrats shouldn't have let it go for 15 ballots without making a counter offer in the first place, back when McCarthy became speaker.
With "catch-22" back in the Friday talking points, it shouldn't have to come from the candidates. Donors, fund-raisers, volunteers, and campaign consultants should look at the candidates' campaigns and decide to give most of them the cold shoulder now, and abandon all but one or two of the rest while it's still early in the primary campaign.
Not sure any Republican speaker candidate would want votes from the Democrats to help them win the speakership. Working with the Democrats was ostensibly what got McCarthy kicked out, so I'd imagine that any speaker who earned the gavel by relying on votes from Democrats would immediately be seen in a similar way, and be looking at another motion to vacate in short order.
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As Repugs demonstrate poor negotiating skills — starting with among themselves, and working with Dems is heresy I doubt that making a counteroffer of any kind would be welcomed let alone seriously considered. I’m confident the Dems at least tried.
So are we stuck with the House rule that allows a single, deeply disturbed Representative to submit a Motion to Vacate? Until the new Congress?
I'd have voted to keep mccarthy BECAUSE his conference would hate him for it. perhaps it's mean-spirited, but i think on a realpolitik level it might be helpful.
Indeed!
I love all the talk from the semi-sane Republicans and Dems about how they'll be able to govern now. Ha!
Take a look around the world, folks! It's a chaotic US Congress in an even more chaotic world!
I say, let's have some fun! :-)
Your dramatic opening line, "The Chaos Caucus of hardline rightwing Republicans won the day, with the help of the entire Democratic Party", kind of rubs me the wrong way. Why blame the Democrats for this rumble? Why should they vote for any Republican Speaker, when they are the minority party?
Sure, I know, and dsws has already argued for it: the Dems should have supported McCarthy in return for concessions to their requests for a larger share of favors etc. from the Speaker in the House's business. That they didn't do this makes McCarthy's fall their fault.
Bull. McCarthy showed the Dems repeatedly this year that his word to them is worth nothing. They don't trust him as far as they can throw him, and that is his fault, not theirs. This fiasco is entirely a Republican Party problem, not at all a Democratic one.
The opening line should have been, "The Chaos Caucus of hardline rightwing Republicans won the day, with the help of Speaker McCarthy's own political incompetence over the past year."
Another motion to vacate wouldn't matter, if the new speaker had bipartisan support. It's not about trusting the new speaker to do what they promise to. It's about trusting them to do what they have to, to keep their gavel.