After speaker fight, will McCarthy’s House be more democratic?

GOP Rep. Kevin McCarthy of California became Speaker of the House last week, in large part by agreeing to new rules that will give more power to the rank and file, while weakening his own position. 

The wrangling, which put internal GOP divisions on full display, contrasts starkly with the tight ship run by former Democratic Speaker Nancy Pelosi. For many, the disorder has fueled concerns that the House is headed for two years of dysfunction – including a possible government shutdown and a debt ceiling standoff that could potentially damage the U.S. economy. Democratic Rep. Jake Auchincloss of Massachusetts quipped to ABC’s Boston affiliate that Mr. McCarthy “put the inmates in charge of the asylum and he’s put himself in a straitjacket.”

But a number of Republicans contend that the impassioned negotiations have in fact opened the way for the House to be run more democratically. That may look messy at times, but ultimately it will allow more members to shape the laws that come out of Congress – and that’s a win for the American people, they argue. 

“What all of us have been witnessing in Pelosi’s House has been one person dictating everything. ... Those days are over, and that’s a good thing,” says Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, a Florida Republican on the powerful Appropriations Committee. “Dictatorships are more efficient,” he continues, but with democracy, “you get much better results.”

Whether Speaker McCarthy is indeed able to get better results remains to be seen. The first test will be a vote tonight on the rules package that will outline how the GOP will run the House. Amid rising polarization in recent years, previous speakers – both Democrats and Republicans – have also promised a more democratic style of governance only to backpedal quickly when some members took advantage of the opportunity to throw sand in the gears. 

The House, designed to reflect the passions of the people through 435 representatives, is a much more unwieldy chamber to govern than the 100-member Senate. It’s a fine balance between making the process more democratic and bringing everything to a standstill with round-the-clock deliberations on endless amendments. Keeping a party’s factions together is particularly tough for speakers when they have such a narrow majority.

“Pelosi did that masterfully,” says Norman Ornstein, emeritus scholar at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington. 

It’s harder for Mr. McCarthy, he adds, because many on the far right “don’t care much for the institution,” and will be much harder to keep under control. Plus, the Senate and White House are controlled by Democrats, with whom Mr. McCarthy will also need to work to get anything done.

“It would be difficult for anyone,” Mr. Ornstein says, but he adds that he’s never seen a “weaker” leader than Mr. McCarthy. 

Institutional change?

For the past century, the House has elected every one of its speakers on the first ballot. It took Mr. McCarthy 15 rounds of voting to get the gavel, despite weeks of negotiations leading up to the opening day of Congress last week. 

About 20 right-wing members blocked his bid for days, arguing that he had little vision and would be beholden to the status quo, marginalizing conservative priorities. As Mr. McCarthy’s bid flailed and other names were floated to lead the raucous GOP caucus, McCarthy supporters grew increasingly angry with the holdouts. 

GOP Rep. Dan Crenshaw of Texas said he refused to vote for anyone else on the principle that Freedom Caucus members shouldn’t be able to dictate the agenda. “We cannot let the terrorists win,” Mr. Crenshaw, a Navy SEAL, told Fox News – a comment for which he later apologized.

In the end, Mr. McCarthy made a series of concessions to persuade the holdouts to either vote for him or to simply vote “present,” as a few did. 

The new rules package, as posted by the Rules Committee at press time, lowers the threshold for introducing a vote on removing the speaker to just one member. In addition, it ensures the debt limit cannot be raised without an explicit vote in the House, applies a “cut as you go” budget approach rather than “pay as you go,” sets caps on spending, and requires a three-fifths majority in the House to approve any tax increases. It also establishes a select subcommittee to investigate COVID-19 origins and the impact of various pandemic policies including vaccine development, and establishes another subcommittee to look at what House GOP leadership characterizes as the “weaponization” of the federal government for political purposes.

Conservatives hailed other concessions as well, which do not appear to be in the rules package. Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, a freshman Republican from Florida who was among the holdouts, provided some highlights in a memo, arguing that they opened the way for “the start of a transformative shift in our country.”

“These changes are not just for us. It really is about institutional change,” Congresswoman Luna told reporters. “Had we not had these discussions, this wouldn’t be possible.”

A key institutional change touted by Republicans is shifting some of the power from the speaker back to committees, which historically proposed and refined bills before bringing them to the floor. “Let’s make committees meaningful again,” says Rep. Mark Amodei of Nevada, another member of the Appropriations Committee.

“Ultimately I believe it’s going to lead to a better, a more committee-driven legislative process,” agrees Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers of Washington state, who is likely to become chair of the Energy and Commerce Committee. “One that is actually restoring more power and decision-making to the members.”

As for last week’s drama? “There were underlying issues that needed to be addressed,” she says. “I’ll leave it at that.”

Fast approaching debt limit threshold 

Exhibit A for many of the Republicans pushing for a more open legislative process and a commitment to spending limits was the rushed passage of a $1.7 trillion bill last month that was 4,155 pages long. One of their demands was to require 72 hours for members to read any bill before voting on it – a provision that’s included in the new rules package. 

A key test for Mr. McCarthy is likely to come when U.S. spending is poised to exceed the currently authorized debt limit of $31 trillion, a threshold expected to be crossed sometime after July 1. Conservatives have said any raising of the debt limit must be accompanied by spending cuts. If they get into another protracted standoff, it could weaken America’s credit rating or potentially plunge the U.S. government into default.   

And this time, thanks to the concessions they extracted, the holdouts will have the ability to call a vote on ousting Mr. McCarthy as speaker should they feel he reneged on any promises. To achieve that, however, they would need a majority of the House’s 435 votes, meaning nearly all 222 Republicans would need to back it – or Democrats would need to join in. 

“We firmly believe that overspending is the cause of the inflation and it’s hurting the American people. And frankly, we’re spending money from Americans yet to be born to fund our spending habits today,” GOP Rep. Byron Donalds of Florida, one of the alternative nominees for speaker last week who eventually backed Mr. McCarthy, told reporters. “So we are committed to getting to a balanced budget.”

That process, he said, would be transparent “so that the American people can clearly see the necessary priorities.”

“It’s good for a body that needs to open up its processes to make sure that average members actually get to participate,” said Rep. Patrick McHenry, a key McCarthy ally tapped to chair the House Financial Services Committee. “I think that that is a healthy sign for the tough work that is to come.”