Speaker fight: GOP has weaponized chaos – against itself

After more than two weeks in Washington without a House speaker, it increasingly looks like a penchant for brinkmanship is undermining one of America’s major political parties.

Ohio Republican Jim Jordan – the second GOP speaker nominee since former Speaker Kevin McCarthy was removed from his post – lost a third floor vote Friday. Then, in a GOP meeting behind closed doors, he lost a secret ballot 112-86 that asked if he should continue as speaker-nominee. Now, with members headed home for the weekend, the search for a speaker of the House begins anew. The conference will reportedly accept nominations by noon Sunday, with a candidate forum planned for Monday evening.

Meanwhile, President Joe Biden on Friday asked Congress for an emergency national security funding package of $105 billion for Ukraine, Israel, humanitarian aid for Gaza, and the U.S. southern border. The Senate could take up the measure as soon as next week, with Democratic Majority Leader Chuck Schumer saying Thursday his chamber will “spring into action” to pass the request which would then, of course, send the package to the House. Also on the calendar is the approaching Nov. 17 deadline, when the federal government is set to run out of money. 

But unless the House settles on a speaker, it will be unable to act on any issues, foreign or domestic.

“We’re in a very bad place right now,” former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy told reporters Friday, in what can best be described as an understatement. “This is getting chaotic.”

Today’s speakership fight has its roots in a brinkmanship mentality that’s been increasingly dominant in the Republican party for decades – a mentality that has only been strengthened by a political moment of deep partisanship and narrow margins. And with a right wing of the GOP that’s been poised to fight as much with its own party establishment as the Democratic party, this moment, in some ways, seems inevitable.

The result, however – an unprecedented speakerless House that seems irrevocably divided – may be as close to an actual constitutional crisis as anything in recent memory, say some experts. 

“It says in the Constitution that the House shall choose its speaker, and they’re not. They can’t. They won’t,” says Matthew Green, an expert on the speakership at Catholic University in Washington. “This is an inability to fulfill a core constitutional requirement. That seems like the definition of a constitutional crisis.”

Battles that hint at deeper problems

The House has struggled to choose speakers before, with the mid-19th century coming first to historians’ minds. Of the speakership races that took the most ballots, the top three took place within the span of about 10 years, between 1849 and 1859. The record, set in 1855, took 133 ballots. These battles, of course, were “indicative of deeper problems,” says Mr. Green, namely the issue of slavery that led to the Civil War. 

The difference now, say experts, is that the House’s divide is not defined by one political issue but rather the idea of governance itself.  

Former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich pioneered the GOP’s “weaponization of the legislative branch” in the 1990s, says Julian Zelizer, a congressional historian at Princeton University. This strategy has only been reiterated by the past decade’s debt ceiling crises, when sending the nation into default became a “standard threat” of politics. This speaker chaos is an extension of that.

“Government is just not a priority for the party right now,” Professor Zelizer says. “As a result, a lot of members are willing to live in this situation without a leader of a chamber of Congress as war is unfolding. That’s what makes this different. The normalization of this approach to government.”

Take Thursday on Capitol Hill, for example.

Mr. Jordan announced his support for temporarily empowering acting Speaker Pro Tempore Patrick McHenry for the next month or two, a potential off-ramp to the current impasse which would give Mr. Jordan more time to try and flip remaining holdouts. Yet shortly after, several of his strongest supporters – some of them fellow members of the hard-line Freedom Caucus – announced they were adamantly against this idea.

“Republican voters worked too hard to give us the majority for us to enter some sort of temporary speakership,” Georgia Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene told reporters Thursday. “This conference is absolutely broken,” said Rep. Taylor Greene, a former Freedom Caucus member.

But rather than opposing a temporary speakership on procedural grounds, the departure here between Mr. Jordan’s statement and the responses by “Jordaneers” proves that the Ohio Republican’s speakership fight is a useful instrument in and of itself, says Liam Donovan, a former staffer for the National Republican Senatorial Committee and now a lobbyist. 

“Jordan doesn’t want to lose, but if you are Jordan’s backers, you are fine with him losing if you get to kick and scream about the ‘DC cartel’ keeping conservatives from winning,” says Mr. Donovan. “They are setting up options that only fulfill their narrative.” 

New hats in the ring

As of Friday afternoon, at least nine Republicans have jumped into – or are considering joining – the speaker race ahead of (yet another) candidate forum on Monday. Oklahoma Republican Kevin Hern, who previously considered a speaker run last week, announced that he will run, as did Georgia Republican Austin Scott, who ran a quixotic campaign in a closed door meeting last week. Other members reportedly running include: Majority Whip Tom Emmer of Minnesota, Vice Conference Chair Mike Johnson of Louisiana, Freedom Caucus member Byron Donalds of Florida, and Texas Congressmen Jody Arrington and Pete Sessions. 

Congressman Hern used his relatively low profile as a selling point, when talking to reporters Friday afternoon. “There’s a lot of historical relationships that some [lawmakers] are not going to ever be able to work around, and I don’t have those negatives out there.”

This is the bet that some of these lower-profile candidates are making as they begin a weekend of phone calls to feel out support for their bid. Unlike House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (who was the GOP’s speaker-nominee earlier this week) or Mr. Jordan, they don’t have the same kind of relationship history with the conference that could thwart a campaign.

But the past few weeks have taken conference in-fighting to a new level. Not only has there been name-calling and social media unfollows, but some members have reported receiving death threats – both to themselves and family members – following their announcements that they would not support Mr. Jordan. 

“It’s just getting ugly,” says Mr. Green. 

What it will take for any candidate to emerge from these ashes with a winning majority remains unclear.

“Even if [the speakership] is solved in a month, it’s not as if all of this will go back to some default setting,” says Mr. Zelizer. “This is the new normal, and that’s what we have to put our minds around.”