Representative Matt Gaetz’s (R., Fla.) challenge to House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s (R., Calif.) position is said to be an effort to remove the impediment to moving conservative policy. That’s not true. The identity of the speaker is not the real barrier to conservative policy: The difference of opinion over what it means to be conservative within the Republican membership itself is.
The current collection of GOP representatives is consistently conservative and has been for decades. The American Conservative Union has rated representatives and senators on their conservative bona fides since 1971. It gave House Republicans a score of 80 out of 100 in 2022, not appreciably different from their scores since the 2010 landslide. It last gave the House GOP a rating over 90 in 2010 — when the party had sunk to its smallest number of members since 1978.
Comments