No, The Battle Over House Speaker Was Not “Pointless”

AMAC Exclusive – By Shane Harris

Throughout a contentious multi-day battle over who would become the next Speaker of the House, the mainstream media and some establishment Republicans suggested that the debate was “pointless” and only served to damage Republicans’ image with voters. But as the recent rules package passed by the House and the first few votes of the 118th Congress have made clear, the delay actually delivered a number of important victories for conservatives and showed that Republicans are more than capable of pulling together despite internal differences.

With just a four-seat majority, the biggest challenge facing new Speaker Kevin McCarthy will be keeping his caucus together – a task at which the past few Republican Speakers have had at best mixed success, even with larger majorities. However, the fact that McCarthy was able to ultimately pull House Republicans together behind him should perhaps not be cause for concern, but rather optimism among Republicans. After all, Nancy Pelosi, who despite her flaws was largely successful at holding her caucus together, only earned 216 votes for Speaker in 2020 – the same number that McCarthy earned earlier this month. McCarthy also had fewer defections in the final vote than the previous two Republican Speakers, Paul Ryan and John Boehner.

McCarthy was ultimately able to overcome opposition from Freedom Caucus-type Republicans by doing what any good Speaker should – promising to remain accountable to various factions within his party and ensure all have a voice in the decision-making process.

The biggest subject of debate, and the biggest victory for Republican holdouts, came on the rules package that will govern the proceedings of the House for the 118th Congress. On Monday, the updated rules package breezed through the chamber, with just one Republican voting with every House Democrat to oppose the rules.

Some of the most important changes from a policy perspective implemented by the new rules are aimed at reigning in runaway federal spending, the first attempt by House Republicans to address the ongoing inflation crisis. These include: the return of “CUTGO,” which requires bills that call for new spending to find offsetting spending cuts elsewhere in the federal budget; ending the practice of allowing the House to automatically increase the debt ceiling through passage of a budget resolution; and the so-called “Holman Rule,” which allows lawmakers to cut agency budgets or even the salaries of specific federal employees when appropriations bills are being considered. All of these policies had been stripped out of the House rules under the prior Democrat majority.

As part of a deal with the Freedom Caucus holdouts, McCarthy also agreed to include provisions requiring that the full text of bills be available 72 hours prior to a scheduled vote so that members may read the legislation. Over the past few years, Democrats have repeatedly rammed through legislation thousands of pages long spending trillions of dollars with only a few hours for lawmakers to read the full text.

The most significant change from a procedural perspective is the revival of a rule allowing a single member to initiate a “privileged motion to vacate the chair.” In effect, this allows any lawmaker to force a snap vote to remove the Speaker – something that several Freedom Caucus members said was a necessary “insurance policy” to hold McCarthy, or any Republican Speaker, accountable should they fail to uphold their commitments to the caucus and GOP voters.

Along with a number of other provisions expanding the House’s oversight authority, raising the threshold required to pass bills increasing taxes, and ending proxy voting, these new House rules create a far more democratic legislative body that disperses power among individual members rather than concentrating it in the hands of leadership. This fundamental shift from Democrats’ consolidation of power in the hands of Pelosi and her team is largely due to changes negotiated by the McCarthy holdouts.

In addition, the speakership battle has already led to a number of votes that have crystalized the ideological divide between Republicans and Democrats – an important messaging tool for conservatives heading into 2024. This week, the House passed a bill to protect babies born alive as the result of failed abortions, a resolution condemning attacks on pro-life pregnancy centers, and a resolution establishing a select subcommittee on the weaponization of the federal government, all votes demanded by the House Freedom Caucus. While the “born alive” bill has no chance of passing the Democrat-controlled Senate, in all three cases every House Democrat voted “no,” putting them on the record as opposing stances that most Americans would likely agree with.

Republicans are also set to vote on a bill abolishing the IRS and eliminating the income tax – two more popular proposals advanced by McCarthy’s opponents that Democrats will no doubt oppose.

From a broader perspective, the debate over who would become Speaker was also a victory for the original idea of what the House of Representatives should be – a group of lawmakers defending the interests of their voters, which are not always the same as the interests of a national political party. McCarthy and his allies had to work with their opponents to reach a compromise by conceding certain points and discussing the merits of various proposals. In the Republican Party at least, independent thinking and vigorous debate is alive and well.

Shane Harris is a writer and political consultant from Southwest Ohio. You can follow him on Twitter @Shane_Harris_.