Welcome to the Meshugenah Congress
Whether Kevin McCarthy becomes Speaker or not, the next two years in the House of Representatives will not be pretty.
I’m Michael A. Cohen, and this is Truth and Consequences: A no-holds-barred look at the absurdities, hypocrisies, and surreality of American politics. If you were sent this email or are a free subscriber and would like to subscribe, you can sign up here.
Happy New Year to all. I had a wonderful week off that revolved mainly around spending time with my kids, my family, and Baxter! Now I’m back, and it’s time to get down to business.
The Inmates Are In Charge
Today the eyes of the political world are focused on Congress and whether Kevin McCarthy will be elected Speaker of the House.
McCarthy can only afford to lose four GOP votes, and it doesn’t look good. From Politico:
There’s no way to sugarcoat this: Seven years after his last, failed bid for the speakership, KEVIN McCARTHY’s dreams of wielding the gavel are again in peril. Despite years of political contortions aimed at winning over his critics on the far right, with just over 24 hours left until the critical floor vote, the California Republican’s math problem is getting worse, not better.
The fate of Kevin McCarthy must be decided, including whether he has the votes to become the next speaker of the House. Right now, the answer is no. And the signs aren’t good for the California Republican.
There are between five to 10 House GOP lawmakers who may oppose McCarthy during Tuesday’s speaker vote on the floor. Even close allies privately worry that it’s “hard to see a path” for McCarthy to get the 218 votes he needs.
McCarthy still doesn't have the votes he needs for speaker, as a handful of GOP lawmakers remain publicly opposed. Top members of his team tell Axios they're optimistic about pulling it out. But they can't point to an exact route — always a bad sign.
Keep in mind that this doomsaying comes after McCarthy gave in to one of the extremists’ key demands — lowering the threshold for triggering a vote to remove the Speaker from half the GOP caucus to just five members. McCarthy had said repeatedly that he wouldn’t give in to this demand. Doing so means he could be facing constant no-confidence challenges (assuming he becomes Speaker). Moreover, it means that he 100 percent, definitely did not have the votes to get the job. There’s no way he makes a concession like this — and shows such undeniable weakness — if he thought he could prevail. This was the political equivalent of a Hail Mary.
And it didn’t work! The response from the handful of anti-McCarthy Republicans was that he didn’t do enough to appease them.
So what comes next? First, it’s important to remember that the anti-McCarthy contingent is tiny. According to Axios, “Five conservatives have declared themselves "no" votes, and there's another five to 10 McCarthy has to worry about.” (The five “no” votes are Andy Biggs, Matt Gaetz, Ralph Norman, Matt Rosendale, and Bob Good). So the lion’s share of Republicans are behind McCarthy. Second, no compromise candidate is waiting in the wings. The anti-McCarthy bloc has not rallied behind an alternative, and it’s hard to imagine that any Republican could unite this fractured caucus. A friend suggested Tucker Carlson since the Speaker doesn’t have to be a House member, but I don’t think the party would support such a pick, and frankly, I can’t see why Carlson would want the job. Third, Democrats have no incentive to help McCarthy. The more the GOP caucus appears to be in chaos, the better it is for Democrats. And let’s say Republicans somehow unite around a candidate who is acceptable to the far right — like Ohio’s Jim Jordan. If that happened, Democrats would dance a collective jig. They could fundraise hundreds of millions of dollars with Jordan in charge of the House.
So as weak as McCarthy is, there’s no clear alternative. Here’s how this might play out. The House will vote tomorrow, and McCarthy won’t get the necessary 218 votes to become Speaker. I’m not making a prediction, but I can’t imagine a scenario in which McCarthy wins the speakership on the first ballot. His opponents far too desperately want to embarrass him.
If the anti-McCarthy bloc gives in that easily, they will look like a bunch of weaklings who weren’t willing to stick to their guns. But once they’ve taken that pound of flesh from McCarthy — and likely wrung a few more concessions out of him — perhaps they will declare victory and give him the votes he needs. Or, and I think this is the likeliest scenario, they vote present or abstain, allowing McCarthy to win. So, if it happens for McCarthy, it will take multiple votes, but I think he eventually gets there.
For those holding out hope that somehow Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries emerges as the House leader … it ain’t going to happen. There’s a scenario in which Jeffries wins the most votes on the first ballots (in fact, I think this is likely to occur). But he will not get a majority of all House members who are voting. For example, Jeffries will get all 212 votes from House Democrats (the number was 213, but Rep. Donald McEachin died in late November, and no successor has been named), McCarthy could get 211 votes, and 11 House Republicans could vote for the reanimated corpse of Rush Limbaugh. Jeffries wouldn’t be Speaker. Now, if all 11 voted present, Jeffries would run the House… but that’s not going to happen. A Republican will definitely get the job.
A Poisoned Chalice
Still, no matter how tomorrow’s vote turns out, things will not go well for the next House Speaker.
I thought Brendan Buck (a former aide to Paul Ryan and John Boehner) put it well in the New York Times yesterday:
The House is a majoritarian institution, and a speaker’s power is ultimately derived from the ability to produce the 218 minimum votes needed to do business. If Republicans are unable to muster the votes for a speaker, it will make very clear from the outset they cannot be counted on to fulfill the body’s basic responsibilities, such as funding the government and preventing a credit default by lifting the debt ceiling, both of which will be required this year.
Should Mr. McCarthy come up short on the first ballot, it could take several more votes — and days — until we have a new speaker. But no matter who emerges as the top House Republican, the prolonged spectacle would leave the Republican majority hopelessly damaged from the start, along with the institution of the House itself.
Assuming that McCarthy eventually wins, he’s practically neutered himself by making so many concessions to far-right extremists without appearing to get anything back in return. If he loses on the first ballot tomorrow, it will highlight how ineffective he is as a party leader — and how little respect/fear he garners from his caucus. No matter how tomorrow plays out, McCarthy’s signaled that he can be held hostage by a handful of extremists. Maybe that’s not fair, and perhaps he had no other option than to try and negotiate, but the perception will undoubtedly take root. And by giving in to the lower threshold for a motion to replace him as Speaker the extremists can constantly threaten it and wring concessions out of McCarthy. That means that an already very conservative and extremist Republican caucus … will be even more conservative and extremist and less inclined to compromise. McCarthy’s speakership will almost certainly now be defined by crisis after crisis, from government shutdowns to debt limit showdowns (assuming he even wins), as he tries to pacify a small group of Republicans who don’t trust him and don’t like him.
As Buck correctly notes, if another Republican emerges to get the job, they will have the same problems. I suppose the dilemma is lessened slightly if it’s a Republican more extreme than McCarthy, but not really. The anti-McCarthy bloc will constantly be starved for attention, and the best way to get it is to be a complete pain in the ass. Moreover, as noted above, an extreme Republican Speaker like Jim Jordan will be toxic for the GOP brand (which is already radioactive). The bottom line is that a GOP-controlled House will be a complete shit show. What we’re getting today is a preview.
What’s Going On
Not all of these science and technology nuggets blew my mind … but it still makes for a compelling list.
This Elise Stefanik profile in the New York Times doesn’t tell us anything new. We already knew she was a soulless and cynical sell-out. Still, the fact that so many of her former friends were willing to tell on her makes for a pretty interesting read.
Simply extraordinary reporting from Luke Mogelson on life in the trenches in Ukraine.
A disturbing story about political correctness/cancel culture running amok at a small university in Minnesota.
Donald Trump wanted to trademark the term “rigged election.”
RIP Dark Sky
Musical Interlude
Today in Bob Dylan
Maybe something like this could never happen in D.C., BUT, what if Dem House leadership went to McCarthy and promised him Moderate Dem votes to make him Speaker. If he is willing to compromise his values for the Far Right, he might be willing to compromise them for Moderate Dems, and he could surely count more on the Moderate Dems keeping their promises than the Far Right.
Premature Evacuation? The New York Times reports that "Kevin McCarthy moved into the speaker’s office over the holiday weekend, as is customary. With it looking likely that he won’t win the speakership on the first ballot, it’s unclear how long he will be working from there."