As a public service to those of you who missed last week’s debacle in the House of Representatives while you spent the week meditating in your cave, I will highlight the events leading to Kevin McCarthy’s selection as Speaker on the 15th vote. First, a little background.

The Speaker of the House role is not defined by the Constitution which only states: “The House of Representatives shall chuse their “Speaker and other officers…”(Article 1, Section 2, Clause 5). That’s it. That’s all. And yes, it was spelled “chuse”.

Throughout the 1800’s the Speaker was pretty clearly the second most powerful position in Washington behind the President because the Speaker could appoint committee members and chairs, determine the order in which bills were addressed, and much more. That changed in the early 1900’s when House members forced reforms, but in the 1970’s many of those powers were restored, so the Speaker is still very, very powerful.

It is also important to know that the FIRST order of a new House of Representatives session is selecting the Speaker, and the rules for the upcoming session are not agreed upon until AFTER the speaker is chosen. Hence last week’s fanfare. McCarthy won the speakership only AFTER making significant concessions regarding the next two years’ rules. The vote on those rules should take place today, 1/9/2023 (yay!!!…I got the year right).

OK. So what did McCarthy concede and will those concessions improve the lives of American citizens? As usual, it is a mixed bag. To be clear, the right-wing holdouts kept moving the target so that it was pretty unclear what they actually wanted. At times it appeared they only wanted to embarrass McCarthy (mission accomplished!).

Here are the highlights:

LESS CONTROVERSIAL RULES:

Many of the “new” requirements actually just reinstate previous rules. For example, one very good “new” rule is holding votes on a bill no sooner than 72 hours after representatives have been given access to the document. In recent years members often had only a few hours to read bills (sometimes hundreds of pages).
Some of the new rules address the current budget deficits and the national debt. For example, votes to raise the debt ceiling (necessary to continue paying the bills) must be paired with spending cuts. Also, “discretionary” spending (spending not associated with entitlements such as Social Security) will be capped at 2020 levels. FYI: this could lead to significant reductions in the military budget, something most Republicans oppose.
The federal budget contains twelve separate spending areas such as defense, transportation, agriculture, etc. In recent years a single vote has been taken on “omnibus” bills for all twelve areas, but the new rule will require twelve separate votes.
The new rules reinstitute the Holman Rule allowing Congress to reduce salaries of federal employees to cut spending. I wonder if they will use that rule to reduce Congressional salaries?

MORE CONTROVERSIAL RULES:

A “motion to vacate” initiates a process for removing the Speaker. Under Nancy Pelosi only a party leader or a majority of one party could make such a motion, but under the new rule any single member may bring the motion at any time. Yes, if McCarthy does something a House member doesn’t like he/she may call for a vote on McCarthy’s speakership.
McCarthy agreed to appoint three members of the Freedom Caucus to the House Rules Committee, the most powerful committee in that body because no important bills may proceed without that committee’s “rule” governing debate, etc. FYI: Former Republican Speaker John Boehner referred to some members of the Freedom Caucus as “legislative terrorists”.
The most controversial new “rule” to which McCarthy agreed was creating a task force on the “Weaponization of the Federal Government”. This select committee, supported by Representative Marjorie Taylor Green(R-GA) and others, will investigate certain aspects of the Biden administration, the FBI and CIA, the U.S. response to the Covid pandemic, and more.

What new rule was not included? A couple of years ago during the height of the pandemic the House started allowing “proxy voting” and remote committee meetings; members need not be present to vote and committee members could attend meetings virtually. More than half of House members voted remotely on December’s $1.7 trillion spending bill, for example. Proxy voting does not allow for robust debate of issues on the House floor. Unless it is added as a new rule, this will not change (unless I missed it, certainly a possibility).

So there you have it. You may decide whether the proposed changes will make our lives better and whether these concessions warranted throwing the House into disarray. And I will provide updates if the rules actually passed are significantly different from those proposed.

Have a great week!

NOTE: My next post is tentatively entitled “A Man of God”, possibly my most controversial post to date.

Fiercely Independent

The Speaker of the House Debacle