Last week, to widespread public ridicule and criticism, the House of Representatives took multiple ballots to elect Kevin McCarthy its Speaker after he made significant concessions which weaken his office. Was what we saw on television the democratization of the House, or simply a Republican “clown show” which made the GOP and McCarthy figures of deserved ridicule? It’s a matter of judgment.
Since Congress began operating on March 4, 1789, each chamber has had its own separate organizing principle. Senate rules and procedures have always emphasized the right of the individual senator to use parliamentary tactics—filibusters, holds, etc.—to block the passage of legislation unless overridden by a supermajority of the Senate—two-thirds, or 60%, depending on the issue.
House rules and procedures, while initially allowing more individualism than currently exists, always put a greater premium on majoritarianism—the right of simple majorities of the House to pass legislation over the objection of individual representatives. Over the first century of its existence, the House’s rules promoting majoritarianism were strengthened and those allowing individualism were practically eliminated. There were several reasons for this.
First, the Constitution says that the House is to elect its Speaker, but does NOT require the Speaker to be a member of the House itself. Nonetheless, by custom and tradition, the Speaker has always been the representative leading the majority faction. Organizations which can elect their own members to leadership positions will usually be willing to allow them more power.
Second, with the rapid growth both of America’s population and the number of states admitted to the union in the 1800s, the size of the House grew radically, from 65 in 1789 to 330 a century later. In 1913 its membership was capped at 435. The sheer size of the House led it Speakers to demand, and its members agree to, vast powers to appoint legislative committees and their chairmen, to schedule the House’s work by determining which committees would handle which bills and when, and to extinguish the last traces of individualism—no more filibusters. Individualism was a luxury for the smaller Senate, not the gigantic House of Representatives, as run by its “czars.”
The twentieth century saw fluctuations in the power of the Speakers. The House Revolt of 1910 reduced much of the Speaker’s power and granted more power to semiautonomous legislative committees. But in the 1970s, liberal Democrats insisted on stripping power from the Southern conservative committee chairs and restoring, at least partially, to the Speaker at least some of the powers of which the office had been stripped in the earlier Revolt. Newt Gingrich’s followers in the 1990s, and those of Nancy Pelosi this century, continued to support the restoration of the Speaker’s powers. It’s safe to say that Nancy Pelosi has been the most powerful Speaker since Uncle Joe Cannon was overthrown in 1910.
And that’s what the 20-odd members of the Freedom Caucus were rebelling against last week.
In essence, the Freedom Caucus and its allies were saying that the House Speakership had become too powerful, and the House had to become more democratic, with junior members able to exercise more power in the legislative process—at least as long as those members were conservative Republicans. To those ends, the Republicans who were refusing to rubberstamp Kevin McCarthy’s coronation demanded, and apparently got:
- Restoration of the rule, abolished by Speaker Pelosi, that a single member of the House be able to move that the Speaker be replaced by a majority vote;
- Procedures that will require separate votes on each of the 12 great spending bills the House must pass and which will prevent their merger into one “omnibus” bill, such as the $1.7 trillion bill rammed through the House last month (many Republicans still resent Pelosi’s forced passage of the Obamacare bill in 2010 which, she said, had to be passed before anyone could learn what was in it, and want shorter bills which can be more easily read and studied, and more time to consider them);
- More attention given to trying to bring federal spending under control (the $31 trillion dollar deficit is currently a monument to the breathtaking dishonesty and stupidity of our Congress);
- The appointment of more conservative House members to various committees, especially Rules, which determines when and under what conditions bills may be voted on;
- Investigations into the Biden family finances, as well as into the “weaponization” of the government, especially the FBI, against citizens, especially Republicans (of course any fair investigation must guarantee due process for those investigated, and must be neither whitewashes nor witch hunts).
So what are we to make of these ideas? Many commentators claimed last week’s balloting was a “clown show” showing the GOP couldn’t govern itself and therefore couldn’t be trusted to govern the country. But that assessment ignores other questions:
Should it be easier or harder for a legislative body to remove a leader it has lost faith in?
Is it appropriate that one official—the House Speaker—should have the power to limit the House’s democratically elected representatives to the point where they are deprived of the opportunity to read and study legislation before they vote on it? Or should representatives have more time to study smaller and simpler bills? Under what circumstances can more intelligent decisions be made?
Should it become easier—it will never be easy—to try to control federal spending and at least begin the process of undoing the effects of bipartisan stupidity and dishonesty?
Are the concessions leading to the placement of more conservative members on strategic committees bad, even though should the Democrats regain the House the concessions will help liberals acquire more power too?
And, above all: Isn’t the GOP’s clown show, in all its messiness, actually superior to the hyper-efficiency with which the puppet legislatures of Russia, China, North Korea, Cuba, and Iran operate, with their provisions for defenestration, firing squads, etc. for those who don’t get with the program, whatever that may be? Everyone is, or should be, entitled to his or her own opinion. But on balance, a strong case can be made that maybe somewhat more individualism, somewhat more time for the reading and analysis of legislation before voting, and a somewhat easier way to get rid of undesired leaders are superior to winning the opportunity to have Mad Vlad show you to an open window. But these are all matters of judgment.
Malcolm L. Cross has lived in Stephenville and taught politics and government at Tarleton since 1987. His political and civic activities include service on the Stephenville City Council (2000-2014) and on the Erath County Republican Executive Committee (1990 to the present). He was Mayor Pro Tem of Stephenville from 2008 to 2014. He is a member of St. Luke’s Episcopal Church and the Stephenville Rotary Club and does volunteer work for the Boy Scouts of America. Views expressed in this column are his and do not reflect those of The Flash as a whole.
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