Farce Gives House a Big Opportunity
May 26, 2024
The funniest thing happened on the way to the farce.
The ultra-right wingers got laughed out of their position of power in the U.S House of Representatives, and they have no one to blame but themselves.
Last year at this time the House was paralyzed. The Republicans had only a paper-thin majority, and with a tiny band of extremists objecting to necessary decisions at every turn, nothing was getting done.
Under pressure from everyone else, then-Speaker Kevin McCarthy finally took it upon himself to negotiate a bipartisan accord to raise the debt ceiling. It was the right thing to do, the responsible thing to do. But he paid for it dearly.
The ultra-right retaliated by blocking any measures from coming to the House floor and ultimately handed McCarthy his head. The hardliners then proceeded to make a mockery of the process to select his successor, eventually settling on Mike Johnson. Since then, they have objected and obstructed at every turn.
In so doing, they totally overplayed their hand. While they stymied their colleagues and huffed and puffed for the media, other members of Congress chafed at the farce of it. The hardliners managed not only to outrage Democrats but to alienate the more moderate minds within their own caucus. It didn’t take long for their antics to backfire.
The outsized power they briefly held was completely undone thanks to an accommodation reached by frustrated members of the Congress — Democrats and Republicans alike — who tacitly agreed they were going to have to work together if anything was to get done. The hardliners broke the mold, alright, but not at all in the way they intended. The extreme partisanship in the House gave way – in a complete turnabout – to bipartisanship.
Step #1 was Johnson moving forward with funding for Ukraine, everyone knowing this would outrage the ultraconservatives and the only recourse would be if Democrats broke with tradition and went along with the rules to bring it to the House floor.
Step #2 was Democrats again joining with Republicans to toss aside the grandstanding attempt by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, the Georgia flamethrower, to oust Johnson. Democrats carried through on the guarded assurances they had been making that they would jump in to protect the Speaker for “doing the right thing” on Ukraine. Notably, they hadn’t done the same for McCarthy last summer.
Step #3 came a week ago when a group of mainstream Republicans, again with necessary help from many Democrats, maneuvered around the Speaker to bring a disaster relief bill to the House floor. It was the first time the maneuver, known as a discharge petition, has been used since 2015.
None of the above fits with the rules and expectations by which the House normally operates. In fact, that is the tradeoff that has emerged. In order to get rid of the “dys” in its dysfunction, the House has had to put aside hidebound traditions that allowed a small minority to block the wishes of the majority.
The excesses of the ultraconservatives have forced the House, and given cover to its members, to adopt a “better way” of operating that was advocated in this space last August. It boils down simply to lawmakers with a common-sense approach putting aside partisanship to do what needs to be done. The arrangement is dominated neither by Democrats or Republicans wildly swinging policy to one side or the other, but of necessity finding consensus.
Freed up from being forced to vote along party lines, a large majority of the House is ready to go along. The debt ceiling compromise passed last summer, 314-117. Aid for Ukraine passed 311-112. Aid for Israel, 366-58. Aid for Taiwan, 385-34. The roll call to block the motion to remove Johnson, 359-43.
The House is showing it can be a lot less divided than otherwise it seemed. The extremists from both sides can revert at any moment to making outlandish statements and proposing partisan legislation. But when it comes to must-pass legislation, the House has found the strength of conviction and the methods to do what is needed.
The suddenly powerless ultraconservatives like to deride the cooperation as the work of the imaginary Uniparty, a sinister-sounding “Liberal World Order” they claim has co-opted both parties into doing its bidding.
The many legislators who are doing the right thing don’t identify with such aspersions. They refer to what they’re doing as the “two-party solution.” And that’s exactly what America needs.
Where do we go from here? It would be nice to predict that this novel condition is the wave of the future. The ultra-right took us to the brink, the House has seen the light and reformed its ways.
Maybe this is what Rep. Patrick T. McHenry, the North Carolina Republican who was McCarthy’s chosen representative last summer in the bipartisan negotiations on debt ceiling relief and then went on to serve as interim speaker after McCarthy was ousted, had in mind when he said the House “is on the verge of the next great turn.”
However, McHenry won’t be around to see it. He’s not seeking re-election. Neither is Ann Kuster, the New Hampshire representative who as chair of the centrist New Democrat Coalition became one of the foremost champions of bipartisan legislation, nor five other members of that coalition.
Kuster and McHenry take the high road in explaining why they are stepping down, saying it is time for them to go. But it is hard to dispute that the last two years have taken a toll.
Even though a number of strong bipartisan leaders will remain, the reality is that the 119th Congress to be elected this fall will not be the same as the current iteration. Yet to be determined is which party will have control and by how much, and the lengths it will need to go to pass critical legislation. Depending on how all that works out, we could go right back to the way things were.
We may end up laughing, or crying, all over again.