Watching the current state of play in the race for House speaker, it has struck me that the passage of the atrocious $1.7 trillion omnibus just before the last Congress adjourned likely made life a lot harder for Representative Kevin McCarthy — and may ultimately prove fatal to his candidacy.
As far as I see it, passage of the $1.7 trillion package — which I described as a scandal — did two things:
1) It galvanized opposition against the current way of doing things in Washington in which leaders bypass committees, shove all business into a massive bill at the end of the year, and force everybody to vote for it — or risk a government shutdown. Even though McCarthy himself opposed the package, it likely drove more members to want to change the status quo which probably led more people to oppose him. Many of the current demands are essentially ways to try and prevent a repeat of the omnibus fiasco (separate votes on appropriations bills, more power over the Rules Committee, etc.).
2) The passage of the bill relieved any pressure on Democrats to bail out McCarthy to reopen the House. Had the omnibus gone down, it would have meant either that we’d currently have a government shutdown, or that the government would be funded under a short-term CR that would soon expire. In this case, some Democrats might feel more compelled to bail out McCarthy by voting “present,” because as long as no speaker is chosen and nobody is sworn in, there could be no deal to reopen the government. But now that the government is funded, there’s no real pressure for Democrats to open up the House. They are much more inclined to just pass around the popcorn and keep casting votes for Representative Hakeem Jeffries.