Speaker McCarthy Impeached: Is GOP House Ungovernable?
In a historic vote today, a small group of hardline conservatives joined with House Democrats to oust Republican Speaker Kevin McCarthy, throwing the House of Representatives into disarray.
Although the vast majority of Republican lawmakers expressed strong support for Mr. McCarthy — and deep-seated anger at their own party’s rebels — they were unable to muster a clear majority to save the chairman, by a vote of 216 to 210 It was the first time such a vote had ever led to the forced removal of the speaker.
Why we wrote this
A small group of conservatives engineered the removal of Speaker Kevin McCarthy, essentially saying he hadn’t been tough enough. The catch: In a divided Congress, compromises are needed to get anything done.
McCarthy’s Republican opponents, led by Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz, said they were motivated by his decision to support a temporary spending measure that averted a government shutdown last weekend and had more Democratic than Republican support. They also accused him of reneging on promises he made to secure the speakership.
Still, today’s drama can be seen as the inevitable outcome of one of those promises: allowing a single member to force a vote on removing the speaker. With only a four-seat Republican House majority, McCarthy was at the mercy of a handful of individuals with outsized influence.
More broadly, some observers wondered whether the demands of divided government — which by definition requires bipartisan compromise — combined with the right wing’s insistence on an uncompromising position could prove an impossible dynamic for any Republican leader.
In a historic vote today, a small group of hardline conservatives joined with House Democrats to oust Republican Speaker Kevin McCarthy, throwing the House of Representatives into disarray.
The vast majority of Republican lawmakers expressed strong support for McCarthy and a deep-seated anger toward the rebels of their own party. But they were unable to muster a clear majority to save the chairman as the vacant vote became 216 to 210. It was the first time in more than 100 years that the House of Representatives held a “motion to evict,” and the first time ever that such a vote has led to the forced removal of the Speaker.
McCarthy’s Republican Party opponents, led by Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz, said they were motivated by his decision to support a temporary spending measure that averted a government shutdown last weekend. It had more Democratic than Republican support. They also accused him of reneging on promises he made to secure the speakership.
Why we wrote this
A small group of conservatives engineered the removal of Speaker Kevin McCarthy, essentially saying he hadn’t been tough enough. The catch: In a divided Congress, compromises are needed to get anything done.
Yet today’s drama can be seen as the inevitable consequence of one of those promises Mr McCarthy made in January – which allowed one member to force a vote on the chairman’s resignation. With only a four-seat Republican House majority, McCarthy was at the mercy of a handful of individuals with outsized influence.
More broadly, some observers wonder whether Republican House leadership is facing an impossible dynamic. A divided government by definition requires bipartisan compromise, but the right wing is pushing for an uncompromising position.
“Can you create a sustainable partisan majority? Maybe the answer is no,” said Matt Glassman, a senior fellow at Georgetown University. “There is now a faction of Republicans in the House of Representatives that is willing to use all available tools to block the agenda and undermine the policy process. If you combine that with the narrow majority, this is what you get.”
“I need a marriage counselor”
Some Republicans praised Mr. McCarthy’s ability to get everything done under the circumstances.
“With the slim majority we’ve had so far, Kevin McCarthy has been a miracle worker,” Republican Rep. Mark Alford of Missouri said on CNN ahead of today’s votes. “We actually need a marriage counselor in our conference.”
After the speakership of the House of Representatives was “hereby declared vacant” in Tuesday’s vote, the Clerk of the House declared Patrick McHenry, a key confidant of McCarthy, speaker pro tempore. The choice comes from a succession list that Mr. McCarthy submitted when he won the gavel. What comes next could be a period of confusion – an uncertain search for a new speaker who can support a majority of House members. America has never been here before.
Although a “motion to evict” has been filed three times in the history of Congress, today’s vote marks the first time a speaker has been removed through this measure. In 1910, Republican Chairman Joe Cannon introduced a motion against himself, knowing it would not pass, to show rebellious members that he still had the support of a majority of his caucus. In 2015, North Carolina Republican Mark Meadows — who would later serve as former President Donald Trump’s chief of staff — filed a motion to vacate the chairmanship of Republican John Boehner, who resigned before the motion could come to a vote.
The anger against Rep. Gaetz within the Republican caucus runs deep — much of it based on the idea that ambition must be balanced by pragmatism to get anything done in a divided Congress.
“(Mr. McCarthy) is being punished because he basically did what the speaker should do on the debt ceiling: he passed a bill to everyone’s surprise and negotiated a deal,” Tom Cole, chairman of the House Republican and Government Committee Oklahoma, told reporters Tuesday. “And he’s being punished because he did the right thing on Saturday and kept the government from shutting down, and we bought more time to continue the appropriations process.”
After Mr. Cole said in the House of Representatives that Mr. McCarthy was “putting his political neck on the line” and that opponents should “think long and hard before plunging us into chaos,” the majority of Republicans gave Mr. McCarthy a standing ovation.
Democrats refused to intervene in what they characterized as a Republican family feud, saying they had no interest in helping Mr. McCarthy save his job. Many Democrats still blame McCarthy for reviving Trump’s political career in the aftermath of Jan. 6 and for failing to refute the former president’s false claims of election fraud.
“Let them wallow in their pigsty of incompetence and inability to govern,” Rep. Pramila Jayapal of Washington, chair of the Progressive Caucus, told reporters after a Democratic caucus meeting. “They are destroying our institution.”
Hardliner goals can backfire
Ironically, the political maneuvering seemed likely to undermine one of the supposed priorities of McCarthy’s conservative opponents: reviving the traditional budget process. With the government set to run out of money on Nov. 17, Congress has no time to waste if it wants to pass 12 separate appropriations bills before the deadline, as conservatives have urged. In recent years, Congress has often relied on one last-minute “omnibus” bill, which lawmakers often don’t have time to read and are forced to simply vote up or down.
“This country doesn’t need any more drama right now,” Republican Rep. Steve Womack of Arkansas told reporters on Tuesday. “We just brought it to the brink of a shutdown. We have 45 days left to complete our work on appropriations and discuss our bills with the Senate. … Everything else beyond that is nothing but a distraction. We have to move.”
However, Mr McCarthy’s critics argued that if he remained in post, it was more likely to lead to a last-minute omnibus.
“You don’t solve any problem with protracted resolutions and omnibus bills,” Mr. Gaetz, Mr. McCarthy’s chief antagonist, said in the House of Representatives. “That creates more problems, more debt, more inflation and more pain for American families. The way to solve problems is to break the fever dream.”
Speaking in the House of Representatives in favor of Mr. Gaetz’s motion to leave, Republican Andy Biggs of Arizona said that, under Mr. McCarthy’s leadership, he does not believe the 12 separate appropriations bills “will pass.” .
To which dozens of Republicans in the House of Representatives shouted in response: “Not now.”