House Republicans Are Still Trying to Pick a Speaker

If You're a Republican, Everything Is Terrible

Well, if you follow politics and were hoping that 2023 would begin with some measure of normalcy, you were undoubtedly let down when the House of Representatives was thrown into chaos nearly two dozen members forced multiple ballots to determine the Speaker of the House. At the same time, anyone who pays attention to politics saw this coming because it had been telegraphed by far-right conservatives for months.

There were five who had publicly opposed Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) ahead of the first vote on January 3. Those members were Reps. Andy Biggs (R-AZ), Matt Gaetz (R-FL), Bob Good (R-VA), Ralph Norman (R-SC), and Matt Rosendale (R-MT). Because Republicans have a majority of only 222 seats, these five members alone would’ve been enough to deny McCarthy the office, but everyone knew there were more members who were prepared to vote against him.

It has been 100 years since the last time it took multiple rounds for the House to elect a Speaker. Frederick Gillett was reelected as Speaker after nine rounds of voting. However, that pales in comparison to the 133 rounds (and two months!) it took to elect Nathaniel Banks in February 1856. If McCarthy were elected in the next round (he won’t be), which is the seventh overall, he would rank ninth on the most rounds of voting to elect a Speaker.

The thing is, with everything we know right now, McCarthy is unlikely to win the next vote. Negotiations between the far-right conservatives who’ve opposed McCarthy and McCarthy’s allies are ongoing. However, it does seem like some progress has been made. Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) has been talking about process concerns and spending issues, which is why he has voted for other names over McCarthy. Those concerns, it’s worth noting, are real. Others, like Gaetz and Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO), are merely agitating because they know they can. I’ve tracked the votes with the dissenters through the sixth round.  

The deal that Roy appears to have gotten, which would include potentially more open rules on appropriations bills and more conservatives on key committees, may improve the House overall, but the votes to elect a Speaker also highlight how difficult it’s going to be for Republicans to do much of anything.

Consider that there are “must-pass” bills that are considered every year. These include the 12 annual appropriations bills, which haven’t been passed on time since FY 1997. (These bills have been passed on time only four times since the Budget Act of 1974.) We call this “regular order.” Sometimes there’s an omnibus, in which some or all of the bills that haven’t passed are consolidated into one bill and passed, or a continuing resolution to keep the government open until a specified date. Conservatives are going to try to get policy riders related to abortion, immigration, and a range of other issues and spending cuts. The policy riders are going to be a non-starter for Senate Democrats and the White House. And don’t get me wrong here; I support the notion of cutting spending, but they’d rather have a continuing resolution.

There’s also the debt limit, the current statutory limit for which is expected to be reached at some point this year, extraordinary measures notwithstanding. Conservatives are undoubtedly going to try to get concessions on spending for any debt limit deal. This is similar to 2011 when Congress passed the Budget Control Act, which included a debt limit suspension, automatic spending cuts, and a vote on a balanced budget amendment. The Budget Control Act ended up being tossed aside by Republicans because of the cuts to defense spending.

So, there’s problem one. Republicans just don’t have credibility on spending. Problem two is that Democrats have moved further to the left, and there’s no appetite for spending cuts. Problem three is that all of this relates to the debt limit, and markets aren’t going to react well to the possibility of Congress not raising the debt limit.

What happens if Congress doesn’t increase the debt limit? I don’t know, but it could mean a downgrade of the nation’s credit rating (meaning increased borrowing costs). That’s on the low end of bad possibilities. The worst case is that it causes a severe recession.

The next two years are going to be really interesting, to say the least. The votes to determine who will be Speaker aren’t a good sign of things to come. I say that as someone who doesn’t particularly care for McCarthy.