In an August op-ed, the Wall Street Journal labeled Democrats the evil Party and Republicans the stupid Party. As the circus continues in Capitol Hill leaving the People’s House without a Speaker, one can only hope that cooler heads will prevail before the Grand Old Party commits electoral suicide.
Chaos in the House
House Republicans won the November 2022 mid-term election with a slim margin, 221-212, giving any four members outsized influence over the speakership, committee assignments and policy priorities. McCarthy's nine months at the helm started in turmoil. To control the gavel, he made several concessions, including a rule allowing any one member to call for a vote to remove the speaker.
The U.S. Constitution grants Congress the power to appropriate federal funds for each fiscal year ending on September 30. As of September 29, 2023, a day before the deadline, only four of the 12 regular appropriations bills passed the House. To avoid a forced government shutdown, McCarthy proposed a continuing resolution to sustain the government operations for 45 days so the rest of the bills could be debated.
His package would not have cut the Defense budgets, but would have slashed almost all other agencies by up to 30%. It also added provisions for strict new border security and a bipartisan debt commission to address the nation’s mounting debt. The strategy provided a strong and effective message to the American people, while forcing Democrats to make tough choices: vote for the conservative stopgap spending bill, or take the blame for leaving 2 million troops without pay or families without food.
Unfortunately, 21 Republicans rejected McCarthy’s temporary measure as they pursued their own legislative agenda. All Democrats voted against the bill, calling the cuts too extreme. In the meanwhile, the Senate was hashing out its own plan with bipartisan support to keep the government open. Rep. Ralph Norman (R – SC CD5) lamented on the failed House vote: “We control the purse strings. We just ceded them to the Senate.”
That left House Republicans stuck. On September 30, without a clear path for a conservative stopgap bill to avoid a shutdown, McCarthy went ahead with a short-term deal with disaster relief but no contentious policy provisions. It passed overwhelmingly, 335-91. The Senate passed the House bill 88-9.
On October 3, angry with McCarthy for striking a bipartisan compromise, Matt Gaetz made the motion to vacate the speakership without a viable plan for replacement. Despite having the support of 96% House Republicans, McCarthy was ousted in a 216-210 vote, with eight Republicans joining 208 Democrats, and the House was without a Speaker.
The Carnage
On September 29, Matt Gaetz celebrated the collapse of McCarthy’s continuing resolution, which was supported by more than 90% of his own party, by telling reporters that the bill “went down in flames.” The absurdity reminded me of my favorite quote from the movie Conair: “Define irony. Irony is a bunch of idiots singing a song on a plane made famous by a band that died in a plane crash.”
Matt Gaetz and crew have been obstructing the Republicans’ ability to govern from the beginning. A newly-elected GOP majority remained in paralysis, unable to elect committee chairmen, hire staff or make plans through November and December. The same rebels dragged out the process even after Congress convened in January, piling up demands and ultimately requiring 15 ballots to elect a speaker. Now, they had the gumption to crucify McCarthy for not quickly passing the appropriations bills they had held hostage for months.
Gaetz’s stunt destroyed what little bargaining power congressional Republicans had going into budget negotiations. Biden can now deal with a weakened and divided GOP House caucus. Schumer will play hardball with the new Republican speaker, whose position will be precarious. The more time the House wastes in another round of voting for a speaker, the more likely the public will blame Republicans for the government shutdown or another omnibus bill. To paraphrase the three-term House Speaker Sam Rayburn, any jackass can kick down a barn, but it takes a good carpenter to build one. Matt Gaetz has shown he’s worse than a jackass.
Implications for the 2024 Election
Any surgical cuts of federal spending and significant curtailments of our administrative state are feasible only if Republicans control both Congress and the White House, not when power in Washington is shared between a hostile Democratic president and Senate and a divided GOP House.
Ironically, under the guise of “not surrendering” to Democrats, the short-sighted anarchists not only allied with House Democrats to betray McCarthy, but also gave Democrats new opportunities going into the 2024 elections by making Republicans look like dysfunctional losers. A divided Republican House will certainly depress the electorate nationwide, when many voters are already frustrated with the rudderless Republican Party and its tendency for self-destruction.
McCarthy might not be the purest conservative or the most likable politician, but the speakership is not a contest of personality or ideological purity. It’s about the ability to seek, recruit and help fund strong Republican candidates to win elections, and to lead 221 House Republicans representing constituents in Ruby Red and Deep Blue states. During the 2022 election cycle, McCarthy raised $485 million to secure Republican control of the House, including winning 18 districts carried by Biden. Now with McCarthy hobbled as a fundraiser, Democrats will almost certainly have a huge financial advantage in the 2024 races.
More importantly, for the last 10 months, McCarthy coordinated the Judiciary and the Oversight committees in a sophisticated investigation into the Biden family, leading to the latest impeachment inquiry. He wanted Republicans to methodically develop the case to counter the narrative from the mainstream media and Democrats, so the American people would come to understand how deeply corrupt the Bidens are, and how the Obama/Biden justice system has obstructed equal applications of law every step of the way – he was laying a path for a Republican candidate to take the White House in 2024.
Unfortunately, without the speakership at this crucial moment, Biden subpoenas can’t be enforced and precious time is being wasted. The chaos Gaetz and cohorts created has overshadowed the Democrats’ growing political liabilities, widespread dissatisfaction with Bidenomics, and a growing sentiment that Biden is unfit to be the Commander in Chief in a time of war (or at any time).
The obstructionists claim to be the only Republicans with principles, but their strategies centered on blowing everything up so they could be on TV touting their conservative credentials or raising money for their political ambitions. It’s all about them. Not the team or the country. That’s not conservativism, it’s self-serving.
The Way Forward
According to an October 3 Gallup poll, Americans favored congressional Republicans to deal with the economy and national security by double digit margins, the widest advantage since mid-1991. However, Gallup’s trends also show that party advantages often change in the span of a year. We can’t continue to shoot ourselves in the foot or allow a few numbnuts to sabotage our mission to Save America by winning the House, the Senate and the White House in 2024.
The House needs to pass another stopgap bill before November 18, which would then trigger a 1% across the board budget cut next year, as required under this year’s debt deal with Democrats, known as the Fiscal Responsibility Act. The goal is to keep Republicans focused on passing all 12 fiscal 2023 appropriations bills so they don’t have to settle for an alternative.
It requires leadership at the top – we need the holdouts to cast aside their differences and elect a Speaker so Jim Jordan can focus on the critical impeachment inquiries. Although not a fan of Karl Rove, I have to concur with him that “conservative progress in Congress requires team effort and the perfect can’t be the enemy of the good.”
It requires unity at the base – the infighting between Never-Trumpers and Anti-RINO factions provides oxygen to the fire that has engulfed the House and produced midterm losses in GA, AZ, MI and PA in 2022.
It also requires that we send Nance Mace packing in 2024. Mace is not a conservative, has never been and will never be. She justified her vote to oust McCarthy by faulting the speaker for not keeping his promise to advance her legislation on increased access to birth control. That’s rich coming from someone who relied on $3 millions of McCarthy’s super PAC to win her primary last year.
The sad truth is that Washington has always been a town divided between those who put in the work for the people, and those who preen. South Carolina CD-1 deserves a serious lawmaker who truly represents the conservative principles and values of the Lowcountry.
Best,
Xiaodan Li
Friends of Liberty
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