We are now ten days past Kevin McCarthy’s ouster as speaker of the House, replaced by . . . well, Speaker Nobody, really, although Patrick McHenry of North Carolina is in the role of speaker pro tempore.
Now, there are ten-day stretches when the country could operate without a speaker of the House and few would even notice; the House often has two-week “district-work periods,” when the chamber is adjourned and members are supposed to be doing work like holding town halls in their districts. Alas, the horrific attacks in Israel ensured that this week is not one of those times when the legislature can remain dormant.
In addition to all of the issues mentioned in Thursday’s Morning Jolt — Israel assistance, Taiwan, Ukraine, border and immigration enforcement, and the looming government shutdown — the National Defense Authorization Act needs to get passed, and the authorization for the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief expired at the end of September. Nothing can get passed until the House has a speaker. President Biden and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer can legitimately argue that it’s difficult to reach a bipartisan agreement on anything until they know who speaks on behalf of House Republicans.
But, instead of pulling together in a crisis, Republicans remain split apart; some House Republicans are talking about working with Democrats to find a new speaker.
Find the needed 217 votes to make Jim Jordan the next speaker, quickly unify around some other potential speaker, or formally give speaker pro tempore McHenry the power to run the House while the Republicans sort out who the next long-term speaker will be. (The rule covering McHenry’s authority says, “The member acting as Speaker pro tempore may exercise such authorities of the Office of Speaker as may be necessary and appropriate to that end,” but there’s no clear definition of what “necessary and appropriate” means in this context.)
I had doubted that enough House Republicans would vote to depose McCarthy, in part because I believed you couldn’t beat something with nothing: that no one would vote to get rid of a speaker of the House without having a credible replacement lined up. What kind of idiot would get rid of the leader without any plan to bring in a better replacement?
Well, now we know: these kinds of idiots.