Washington – The next speaker of the United States House of Representatives will face a grueling task: maintaining near-unanimous support among a divided Republican caucus while striking deals with Democrats on government funding.
Former speaker Kevin McCarthy found out the hard way that the two jobs can be at odds with each other. When he struck a deal with Democrats to temporarily fund the government on Saturday, he sparked a Republican backlash that culminated in his removal as president.
Republicans hold a slim majority in the House, so the same small faction of conservatives — led by Congressman Matt Gaetz — that ousted McCarthy may also remove his eventual successor. This has instilled an atmosphere of uncertainty going forward.
“There is a fear that they will just continue to do this to any speaker. And obviously, that creates a really chaotic environment where the House can’t consider bills,” said Rachel Bloom, a political science professor at the University of Oklahoma.
With that threat hanging over the next speaker, experts say the House and the broader US government face the possibility of chronic dysfunction in the coming months.
The subtraction
McCarthy, a conservative from California, was removed by a 216-210 vote on Tuesday, with the entire Democratic caucus joining eight Republicans in ousting him.
Now, House Republicans are privately debating to choose the next speaker, with Patrick McHenry acting as House leader.
Jim Jordan, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee and former head of the right-wing Freedom Caucus, announced his candidacy for the role. So is Steve Scalise, the House Majority Leader.
Whoever wins will have to appease Gaetz and his colleagues who are disrupting the Republican caucus while running a functioning body.
It is with a strong sense of responsibility and purpose that I seek the nomination of the House Republican Conference for Speaker of the House.
Read my letter to my colleagues: pic.twitter.com/G6YDd2SjCD
— Steve Scalise (@SteveScalise) October 4, 2023
The government is divided: Democrats control the Senate and the White House, while Republicans lead the House. Given this separation, Congress is not expected to advance major legislation.
But the legislative branch — made up of the House and Senate — must pass a budget to fund the government. The recently passed stopgap funding bill that cost McCarthy’s hammer will expire on November 17.
If lawmakers fail to approve further funding, the government will shut down, halting some services and disrupting federal workers’ pay.
Another compromise to secure a state budget will be more difficult this time, experts say.
“I can’t see the next Republican speaker stepping into that role and learning from this McCarthy episode that he has to continue to compromise,” Bloom told Al Jazeera. “It seems that any speaker will have to struggle a little more to maintain their speech.”
Another issue at stake is aid to Ukraine — a top priority for President Joe Biden’s administration. Many right-wing Republicans are skeptical of more aid and would likely use their leverage over the speaker to derail it.
The White House is asking for billions in additional aid to Kiev. According to the Congressional Research Service, the US legislature has appropriated more than $113 billion for Ukraine since the Russian invasion of the country began last year. It is not clear when these funds will run out.
Why did the Democrats let McCarthy fall?
With so much in the balance, some observers wonder why Democrats didn’t bail out McCarthy in his hour of need.
While Gaetz is largely credited with overturning McCarthy, the overwhelming majority of votes against him came from Democrats.
All Democrats present for the vote supported Gaetz’s motion to vacate the speaker’s chair. A handful of Democratic votes would allow McCarthy to hold the speaker’s gavel.
Adam Caton, a political science professor at the University of West Florida, said that if Democrats had voted to save McCarthy, the move would have been unprecedented.
Caton explained that while McCarthy’s ouster is a first in US history, having a minority-backed speaker “would also be really unusual.” He emphasized that the Parliament operates on the basis of the majority.
“It would also be unprecedented for the minority party to support a speaker of the other party, to let him stay in office despite not having the support of the majority of parliament,” Caton told Al Jazeera.
McCarthy had angered Democrats since he began his term as speaker in January. Early on, he removed three Democratic lawmakers from their committees, including Rep. Ilhan Omar from the foreign affairs committee.
And last month, he opened an impeachment inquiry against Biden over his son Hunter’s business dealings, which the White House described as “extreme politics at its worst.”
Additionally, McCarthy ruled out negotiating with Democrats to get their votes this week. “They haven’t asked for anything. I’m not going to give anything away,” he told CNBC earlier this week.
In a statement before the vote, House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries squarely blamed Republicans for the impasse, accusing them of empowering “right-wing extremists” and urging them to resolve their “civil war.”
Jeffries also specifically invoked the impeachment push. “Instead of working with us to solve problems for everyday Americans, extremism continues to dominate the House of Representatives,” he said.
But Jennifer Nicoll Victor, a political science professor at George Mason University in Virginia, accused Democrats of turning against McCarthy. He felt the move was unjustified, particularly if their motive was to rebuke McCarthy’s competitive behavior.
“If in fact, it was kind of a knee-jerk, emotional or reactionary reaction that, to me, seems anti-democratic, against good governance, against the best practices of how democracies are supposed to work,” Victor said.
“Political parties are supposed to respect the rights of their political opponents in power in a democracy,” he explained. “To be vicious in helping some extreme faction depose your political opponents — I think that goes against the rules of democracy.”
Paths forward
Despite the bleak outlook, a deadlock in Parliament is not inevitable. There are several scenarios where the chamber can do its job despite the political realities spelled out by McCarthy’s removal.
Republican moderates and Democrats could form a bipartisan majority to pass legislation, but analysts say that would be unlikely given the country’s political polarization.
It’s also not a given that Gaetz and his allies will do it for the next speaker the way they targeted McCarthy. The University of Oklahoma’s Bloom said Gaetz and his fellow insurgents may back down once they achieve the visibility and power they desire.
“One path forward is that the speaker can at least bring the Republican group together so they can agree and get things done,” he told Al Jazeera. “Or they could end up with another speaker who has to govern with Democratic support.”
— Representative Jim Jordan (@Jim_Jordan) October 5, 2023
But for Victor, the most likely outcome is that dysfunction will prevail, with the Gaetz faction feeling emboldened. Moderates may even revolt against a future far-right speaker.
“We’re probably just going to stay that way — whether that means they can’t finish spending and we have another shutdown, or if the debt ceiling becomes another issue at some point, or no new legislation is put in place because they can” not they succeed,” he said.
“It seems like a dysfunctional situation.”
The only certainty, he added, is that the term of this Congress will expire in a little more than a year. “So there is an end point.”