Shutdown Averted: More House Republican Dysfunction Ahead - Rob Horowitz

Shutdown Averted: More House Republican Dysfunction Ahead - Rob Horowitz

Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s last-minute decision to do what it took to secure the Democratic votes that were always going to be needed to avert a politically and economically damaging government shutdown calls to mind Winston Churchill’s famous observation that “Americans will always do the right thing, only after they have tried everything else."

 

Given the Speaker’s slim majority and the hardened opposition of the MAGA extremist wing, personified by Matt Gaetz, to pretty much anything he put on the floor, including proposals with the kind of draconian spending cuts that the Florida firebrand and his allies profess to support, the only path forward was to make the compromises necessary to secure a significant number of Democratic votes. The result was a short-term continuing resolution that will keep the doors open for 45 more days at the funding levels that McCarthy had previously agreed to as part of the deal earlier this year to raise the debt ceiling—a deal that also cleared the House due to bipartisan support.

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The current continuing resolution was approved by the House 335-91with the support of a majority of Republican members and nearly all the Democratic ones.   The Senate then passed it by a margin of 88 to 9.   These wide margins show that there is broad majority support in both houses of Congress for at least ensuring that the basic functions of the federal government are allowed to proceed uninterrupted. When given the opportunity by their leaders, the overwhelming majority will stand up to the relatively small number of nihilists who attempt to use debt defaults and shutdowns as leverage, willing-- even in some cases, anxious-- to bring them about, if they can advance their political goals and gain attention along the way.

 

Unfortunately, however, this will not end House Republican dysfunction. In the wake of Kevin McCarthy taking an action that is not only in the nation’s best interest but in the political interest of House Republicans, Matt Gaetz has predictably announced he will be bringing a motion this week to “vacate the chair.” In plain English, that means to end Kevin McCarthy’s speakership. Given that if Mr. McCarthy seeks to maintain his position with only Republican votes, he can only lose five members, this move has a reasonable chance of succeeding.

 

This conundrum does offer some intriguing possibilities.  If the Speaker was willing to make a deal with Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries or with a number of moderate Democratic members that included some rules changes or guarantees that gave the Democratic minority the ability to bring at least a few measures to the floor for up and down votes, beginning with additional aid for Ukraine, which was a temporary casualty of the 45-day agreement, he would likely easily withstand the challenge from Gaetz and potentially put his speakership on firmer political footing going forward.  If McCarthy doesn’t move in this direction, a different House Republican could possibly engineer a rise to the speakership in this fashion.

 

Bringing this about, in either case, would require the tepid and often too silent majority in the House to show some political backbone, risking potential primary challenges and openly opposing the bomb throwers. It is long past time, however, for moderate and more traditionally conservative members to refute the famous Yeats line from The Second Coming that now serves too often as an accurate description of what in better days was known as the People’s House: “The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.”

 

It is time for the Problem Solvers Caucus with its 64 members, as well as others that taken together, comprise the majority of House members, to step up and actually problem solve.