I think Kevin McCarthy would be an imperfect but fine selection to be the next speaker of the House. Whatever you or I think of McCarthy, House Republicans who don’t want him to be speaker have yet to put forth a viable alternative. Back in November, former chairman of the House Freedom Caucus, Andy Biggs of Arizona, launched a protest challenge; McCarthy won, 188 to 31. A bit more than 85 percent of House Republicans are unified behind the man who’s been House deputy whip, majority whip, then majority leader, and then minority leader. McCarthy is the ultimate known quantity, a figure almost every House Republican has worked with over the past decade.
I get why today’s vote matters so much to McCarthy, and why it matters so much to a potential (currently reluctant) alternative like Steve Scalise. It’s a little tougher to get a sense of why this fight matters so much to the average conservative or Republican. It’s not like there is an intense ideological division between McCarthy and the alternative options. (Scalise’s lifetime ACU rating is 92 out of 100; McCarthy’s is 84 out of 100.) At least for now, and at least publicly, Scalise doesn’t want to be speaker, he wants to be House majority leader. And no, House Republicans are not going to make Elise Stefanik or Jim Jordan the next speaker, and no, they’re not going to pick a nonmember to be speaker.
It’s very hard to beat something with nothing. Until a House Republican who is popular with his or her colleagues expresses a desire to be speaker, this infighting is just going in circles, with McCarthy falling just short of 218 votes.
McCarthy’s agenda, laid out in the “Commitment to America” unveiled during the 2022 midterm election, is fine and brims with mainstream conservative proposals and messaging bills that will likely die in the Democratic Senate or face a Biden veto. Any alternative to McCarthy would pursue a similar agenda. The sooner Republicans resolve who the next speaker will be, the sooner they can turn their focus to getting rules changed and bills passed.
This feels like a lot of horse-trading over rank and ego, with little consequences for what actually gets done in the House this cycle.