To an outside observer, the events that have unfolded in the U.S. House this week would seem understandably perplexing. The leader of the Republican caucus, Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), has been blocked from election as House speaker by a group of about 20 members of his party. Over the span of 11 votes, the numbers haven’t changed much: McCarthy saw about the same level of opposition in the most recent vote as in the first. This despite regular updates on breakthroughs in negotiations putatively aimed at creating a path for McCarthy’s election by responding to the anti-McCarthy faction’s demands.
That’s the perplexing thing. If McCarthy faces the same level of opposition despite these concessions, despite multiple days of negotiations, it suggests that the negotiations aren’t addressing the actual motivation for the opposition. We’ve heard various rationalizations for this — they just need a deal in writing, etc.
But there’s another, probably more useful indicator of the problem: The words of the anti-McCarthy group themselves.
As anyone who’s tuned into C-SPAN this week knows, the process of electing a speaker follows a particular script. First, a Republican stands and nominates McCarthy. Then, a Democrat (usually Pete Aguilar (Calif.)) stands to nominate Democrat Hakeem Jeffries (N.Y.). Then a McCarthy opponent rises to nominate the non-McCarthy candidate du jour — Republicans Jim Jordan (Ohio) or Byron Donalds (Fla.) or Kevin Hern (Okla.), for example. Those nominations take the form of short speeches, in which the nominators make the case for their position.
Speeches from the House floor are not known for being revelatory, but these ones are, at least in a way. Comparing the McCarthy nominating speeches with those in support of the Republican alternatives offers a useful contrast in why each side has become entrenched.
The first person to nominate McCarthy was Republican Elise Stefanik (N.Y.), chair of the Republican conference in the prior congress. Her speech followed the expected outlines, declaring a “promise to the American people that this new Republican majority will stand up for an economy that’s strong, a nation that safe, a future that’s built upon freedom, and a government that’s accountable to the people.” And who better to lead that effort than McCarthy, who’d engaged in a number of robust efforts (as delineated by Stefanik) aimed at that outcome.
“His relentless effort,” she enthused, “has yielded an extraordinary new House Republican majority that represents our country’s greatness from all walks of life.”
McCarthy didn’t win the vote. So it was Jordan’s turn. He stated that the caucus had three goals in this congress: passing legislation to fix America’s various problems, ending a legislative process that allowed large spending bills to pass quickly and to use the majority to conduct oversight, his personal political hobbyhorse.
“We had better come together and fight for these key these three things,” Jordan said. “That’s what the people want us to do.”
McCarthy didn’t win the vote. So it was Louisiana Republican Steve Scalise’s turn.
“We all came here to get things done,” Scalise said as he began. “To get things done to solve the problems. And I hope when we get through today that all of the members on both sides of the aisle will join together with us to solve the problems’ like inflation, the border, fentanyl and energy prices.
“If the administration doesn’t want to fix these problems,” Scalise concluded, “people call on us to do that.”
McCarthy didn’t win the vote. The voting would go to day two.
The opposition, meanwhile, was making its own case, one that was focused far more on process than outcome.
The first to speak was Republican Paul Gosar (Ariz.), who nominated his colleague, Republican Andy Biggs (Ariz.).
“Washington is broken,” Gosar said in his pitch. “We’re the last ones to know.’
He then offered a revealing anecdote.
‘A wise person once told me: Good process builds good policy builds good politics,” Gosar said — that winning, in other words, depends on how the House conducts its business.
Republican Matt Gaetz (Fla.), the second nominator, similarly attacked the system. Jordan (his pick) was the best choice “because he is not beholden to the lobbyists and special interests who have corrupted this place and corrupted this nation under the leadership of both Republicans and Democrats.”
The third anti-McCarthy speaker on Tuesday was Republican Chip Roy (Tex.).
“We’re all going to give speeches, and the American people are the big losers,” he said. “That’s what happens. We know that’s what happens. The Rules Committee sits up there and passes a bill, sends it to the floor, and we have no debate on the floor of this body.”
He also nominated Jordan, who peeled away enough votes from McCarthy to prevent his election.
On Wednesday, three more pro-McCarthy speakers offered him up as a candidate: Republicans Mike Gallagher (Wis.), Warren Davidson (Ohio) and Kat Cammack (Fla.). Having heard the speeches of McCarthy’s opponents, their patter accommodated the concerns — but retained a focus less on process than outcome.
“There are things I want that I know it’s not possible to get done in this Congress,” Gallagher said. “But Mr. McCarthy has gone above and beyond in terms of listening to people with concerns and laying out a plan for how we restore the basic functioning of the House of Representatives.”
Davidson spent a big chunk of his speech detailing the ways in which the McCarthy opponents had already reached a number of their stated targets. Cammack noted that the party’s time was better spent fighting over policy than the speakership.
“They don’t sit around their kitchen tables at night saying, I wonder who’s going to be speaker,” she said. “No, they elect people to come here to do the things that matter, the issues that impact them.”
How did the anti-McCarthy crew reply? By focusing on the brokenness of the system.
“This country needs a change,” Roy (also tapped for the fourth nomination) said. “This country needs leadership that does not reflect this city, this town that is badly broken.”
“I just ask my friends on this side of the aisle,” he said at another point: “do you think that the American people support the status quo?”
Republican Lauren Boebert (Colo.), offering the fifth anti-McCarthy nomination, continued the theme. She argued that the caucus needed “the tools and the leadership to do our job correctly,’ later adding that “our job is not to coronate the biggest fundraiser or rubber-stamp the status quo or keep on going along to get along. It’s to use our votes to elect a speaker who will enable us to get our country back on track.”
Republican Scott Perry (Pa.) — who, like Gaetz, Boebert and Gosar, voted to block the valid electors submitted for Joe Biden on Jan. 6, 2021 — continued the theme.
“If you come to this town and just step right in line and keep doing the same things that everybody has done before you, it’s not going to fix it,” Perry said, “and the American people know it.”
The pattern repeated on Thursday. McCarthy’s allies talked about what they wanted to do (recognizing, at times, the limits imposed by a Democratic president and Senate). His opponents argued for upending the system.
And that, in a nutshell, is the distinction.
To a significant extent, this is expected. McCarthy and his allies hold power, so attacking their use of power makes sense as an oppositional strategy. But it also reflects the divide within the party itself, between a faction that wants to deploy electoral power as the Republican establishment has for decades and between those who simply want to wave the whole thing away as broken and corrupt and flawed.
For many on the right, particularly those most vocal in opposition to McCarthy, opposition is the core political strategy. Opposition to how things are done. To Washington. To their colleagues. To the left. That opposition speaks to a Republican base weaned on anti-government rhetoric and primed by Biden’s predecessor to view everything in the nation’s capital as a grimy swamp.
To McCarthy’s detriment and despite his obvious efforts over the past several years, he is inextricable from the Washington system by virtue of his leadership position and experience. He is an embodiment of officialdom that can serve as a point of attack for those who orient their politics around battling entrenched power. McCarthy’s opponents are happy to discuss ways in which they can get more power in the legislating process and, in fact, may even capitulate to support McCarthy (or at least not stand in his way) if it means they can have an elevated platform for lashing out in opposition in the future. But many of them would also be happy with toppling him, claiming an establishment casualty that can be discussed on Twitter and Fox News.
One of the best encapsulations of McCarthy’s problem came in Davidson’s speech nominating McCarthy.
“Can we accept incremental progress?” he asked. “Can we work for a victory one first-down at a time? Or can we only accept the high-risk trick plays?”
What makes the highlight reels on cable? What goes viral on Twitter, clips of teams marching slowly down the field to get into the red zone or huge gains or embarrassing fumbles?
If you want to be seen by as many people as possible engaged in the anti-establishment fight they’ve been primed to seek out, are you going to run a lot of grinding three-yard run plays or are you going to throw endless Hail Marys?