House speaker aspirants will have to navigate tricky GOP internal politics

Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-NC) has made the short walk from the House floor to the Capitol Rotunda thousands of times over his 18-year career, usually alone or, at most, with an aide by his side. On the evening of Oct. 3, McHenry walked the familiar route surrounded by a large security detail, befitting his role assumed moments earlier as acting House speaker.

The change reflected a slow-rolling political earthquake that culminated with Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) being deposed as House speaker. Eight renegade House Republicans, led by Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), joined all Democrats in making McCarthy the first House speaker to be removed from office when they backed a “motion to vacate.”

BIDEN EXTENDS $9 BILLION MORE OF STUDENT DEBT RELIEF TO 125,000 BORROWERS

McHenry, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee and a loyal former McCarthy lieutenant, took over as speaker pro tempore and will act in that role until a new speaker is elected by a majority in the 435-member chamber. The House speaker is second in line of presidential succession, behind the vice president, a status that doesn’t confer to a caretaker House leader, leaving Senate President Pro Tempore Patty Murray (D-WA) temporarily higher in the presidential succession chain.

(AP photos)

McCarthy after his ouster quickly pledged not to run for speaker again and demurred about whether he would seek reelection in California’s 20th Congressional District, covering the eastern Central Valley from the Bakersfield to Fresno areas — a red haven in a deep blue state where in 2020 former President Donald Trump would have crushed President Joe Biden 61% to 36%.

The 216-210 motion-to-vacate vote ended McCarthy’s speakership less than nine months after it began, following 15 rounds of voting in January. Gaetz brought the motion to vacate following weeks of threats, finally doing so after he accused McCarthy of making a “backroom deal” with House Democrats on Ukraine funding days earlier to get a temporary spending bill enacted that avoided a government shutdown.

The episode followed months of intra-House Republican drama, though the slim GOP majority, about 222-213, did not in and of itself spell legislative doom. In the prior Congress, Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), as speaker, presided over an inverse five-seat majority, favoring Democrats, and helped enact into law major pieces of Biden’s agenda. But with Democrats in charge, the motion to vacate wasn’t a threat since their House rules said that deposing a speaker required a majority of the House to even be considered.

(AP photos)

When House Republicans won the majority in 2022 by a considerably smaller margin than expected, Gaetz and other dissident conservatives had the leverage to demand that a single lawmaker be able to force a vote on a motion to vacate. McCarthy, first elected to the House in 2006, agreed to it as a condition of securing the speakership he had sought for so long.

That House rules change at the start of the 118th Congress also gave to Republicans at odds with GOP leadership key positions on committees and allowed them to load up bills with poison pills that would never make it through the Democratic majority Senate, let alone Biden’s veto pen.

Gaetz and Co. opposed the deal McCarthy struck with Biden to raise the nation’s debt ceiling. Then, in a tense weekend session in the days prior to McCarthy’s ouster, and with the U.S. hours away from a government shutdown, McCarthy finally had to rely on House Democrats for help passing the stopgap spending bill, which runs to Nov. 17.

The drama leaves the House in immediate need of a new speaker. Possible successors to McCarthy, the shortest-tenured speaker since 1876, include House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA) and Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH). Rep. Kevin Hern (R-OK), chairman of the Republican Study Committee, a group of conservative Republicans in the House, may also run.

(Graeme Jennings / Washington Examiner)

House Republicans will hold a candidate forum on Tuesday, with the election for speaker scheduled for a day later. But that could be pushed back if more speaker candidates emerge or none can clearly claim most of the Republican Conference. That raises the specter of North Carolina’s McHenry, first elected to the House in 2004 to represent a district in the western Piedmont region, staying in his caretaker speakership role for a longer period.

While the contours of the House speaker race are still unfolding, it’s shaping up as an insider versus outsider contest.

Scalise would represent a certain degree of continuity since he’s already in House Republican leadership. Scalise might also draw on a reserve of sympathy and goodwill from GOP colleagues. On June 14, 2017, during practice for that year’s Congressional Baseball Game, Scalise was shot and seriously wounded by an anti-Trump domestic terrorist who was targeting Republicans. Scalise underwent treatment for several months. Then, in late August of this year, Scalise revealed that he had been diagnosed with multiple myeloma, a rare blood cancer that affects the bone marrow, and has begun treatment.

Jordan has long styled himself a conservative rebel against Republican leadership. In 2015, he helped found the House Freedom Caucus, whose members seem to revel in defying House GOP leadership from the Right. But Jordan as House Judiciary Committee chairman is now effectively part of the House GOP leadership team. So, he has a foot in each camp.

The math to claim the House speakership, 218 votes, is daunting when considering different factions needing to be appeased.

There is a segment of House Republicans who are trying to win concessions on public policy legislation, such as spending, U.S.-Mexico border security, and abortion. Others are most concerned with basic House procedures. That includes “regular order,” such as passing all 12 appropriations bills individually while making the House stick to single-subject bills and ending “continuing resolutions” to keep the government running for limited periods of time as well as “omnibus” spending measures critics contend have greatly contributed to the soaring budget deficit and national debt. This group of Republicans, led by Gaetz, believes it can use the narrowness of the GOP majority to secure these concessions.

(Graeme Jennings / Washington Examiner)

Then there is the matter of whether a new speaker will have to operate under the same constraints McCarthy did. McCarthy said after his ouster that lowering the threshold to trigger a motion-to-vacate vote was partly to blame for his political fate.

So, House rules could be a key point in the speaker’s race. Establishment types, largely former McCarthy allies, want the rules changed so the episode won’t be repeated. Vocal lawmakers on this include Rep. Kelly Armstrong (R-ND), Rep. Carlos Gimenez (FL), and Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY). But Rep. Bob Good (R-VA), first elected in 2020 to the 5th Congressional District, consisting of Charlottesville and western southside Virginia, said he won’t budge on keeping the motion-to-vacate threshold at one House member.

Whoever wins the gavel will face the same challenging math to get bills passed as McCarthy did. And the spending bill to keep the government open must still be resolved before the pre-Thanksgiving deadline. Also outstanding is legislation regarding aid to Ukraine as the beleaguered Eastern European country fights a defensive war against Russia.

All the while, sore feelings abound in the House. For his part, McCarthy blamed Democrats for not coming to his rescue on the Gaetz-led motion to vacate.

“I think today was a political decision by the Democrats,” McCarthy said, lambasting the opposition for not propping up his speakership on behalf of “the institution.”

Rank-and-file Republicans lamented intra-Republican fighting, assigning blame, along with House Democrats, to Gaetz, Good, and their allies: Reps. Andy Biggs (R-AZ), Ken Buck (R-CO), Tim Burchett (R-TN), Eli Crane (R-AZ), Nancy Mace (R-SC), and Matt Rosendale (R-MT).

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER

“Congress set a new low today,” Rep. John Curtis (R-UT) posted on X, formerly Twitter. “Republicans turning on Republicans and Democrats standing around with lighter fluid and matches. No one’s interest was served with the removal of Kevin McCarthy. Instead of working on the budget, the border, and runaway inflation, we’re reenacting our high school years. I stand ready to work with any reasonable member of Congress to put this back together again and work on the real problems of our day.”

And Rep. Bill Johnson (R-OH) spoke for many colleagues in an exasperated social media post: “With this vote, a small group of political vandals joined with partisan Democrats to remove the Republican Speaker and cause chaos at a time when America craves normalcy and mature leadership. This House may be divided against itself for now, but this will not stand. I will not turn away from the hard work and good governance this nation needs.”