How to break the impasse for Speaker of the House
Washington Examiner
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With Americans hostage in Gaza, the Middle East aflame, and time running out on government funding, the House has a duty to get back to work. Some people may need to compromise, but there is a good way to do it.
First, the necessary background: Kevin McCarthy of California would still be Speaker if only four more Republicans (or four patriotic Democrats) had kept him in power. Option one should be to poll the eight holdouts to see if four will change their minds and support him or if six will at least decline to vote at all so that he could win a majority with just 215 votes. (Or, if just four Democrats decide not to vote in order to end the chaos, that also would work.)
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It doesn’t look, however, as if anybody will budge for McCarthy. This leads to option two: Under traditional practice, the next in line for Speaker after the House Majority Leader would be Majority Whip Tom Emmer of Minnesota. Let him run for the GOP Speaker nomination unopposed and see if he can garner the requisite 217 Republican votes to win on the House floor. If he can, make him Speaker.
If that doesn’t work, here’s where the House should adopt what should be capitalized as The Grand Bargain.
The Grand Bargain should entail a ticker of the two prior top contenders, Steve Scalise of Louisiana and Jim Jordan of Ohio. Scalise should be on top. After all, he won a head-to-head vote against Jordan. And indications were that only between 18 and 26 of his fellow Republicans were balking at voting for him on the floor. But when Jordan won the nomination after Scalise withdrew, a formal poll of the Conference showed a whopping 55 Members unwilling to vote for him for Speaker. Clearly, Scalise, not Jordan, is the Conference’s preference.
If they run as a “unity ticket,” though, perhaps, just perhaps, 217 or more of the House Republicans could be mollified enough to go along. If Scalise moves up to Speaker and Jordan moves up to Majority Leader, that should be enough for everybody to compromise and get the House working again. The excellent Emmer would remain as Whip.
A sweetener would involve McCarthy. Scalise has said he wants to establish a special commission to propose a path to controlling the national debt (and perhaps extend the life of Social Security and Medicare). It’s a good idea. The last time a similar commission was tried was in the 1990s, when a commission to reform and save Medicare seemed poised to reach a landmark agreement, only to have it fall apart when then-President Clinton’s scandal with intern Monica Lewinsky hardened the political divide so that bipartisan cooperation on Medicare died.
That commission was co-chaired by House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Bill Thomas of California. And one of Thomas’ top aides was, yes, McCarthy. McCarthy understands how bipartisan commissions work. Scalise, Jordan, and Emmer should deputize him, with extra staffing assistance, to do two things: first, cobble together legislation to create a debt commission and a bipartisan coalition to pass it. Then, to chair the commission.
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If it succeeds, it could be the signal achievement of McCarthy’s career and a massive benefit for the nation’s long-term economic health. And hard-line House conservatives worried about the debt would see a good plan of action to control it.
So there you have it: A Scalise-Jordan-Emmer-McCarthy accord. Do it, House Republicans, and do it soon. These perilous times demand it.