Republican Kevin McCarthy finally won enough votes to become Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives early yesterday, on the 15th roll call.
The last time it took more than the first roll call to elect a Speaker was before the American Civil War when it took 44 roll calls.
His last concessions turned 15 votes, and then enough of the last holdouts voted “present” to give him a majority. The price of victory has been high—both in lost authority for the new Speaker and perhaps in the ability of the new Republican majority to get anything done.
According to the Wall Street Journal this was not a healthy display of deliberative democracy, but a power play. A group of backbenchers saw an opportunity to exploit the narrow Republican margin of five seats to put themselves in positions of power that they hadn’t earned through seniority or influence.
The rebel demands included gaining seats of power for themselves. They won two seats on the Rules Committee that sets the terms for floor debate and amendments. This could narrow McCarthy’s room to manoeuvre as he tries to put together majorities for legislation.
The biggest potential problem for McCarthy is his agreement to let any single Member of the majority party move to ‘vacate the chair’; essentially a no-confidence vote on his Speakership. The claim is that this was merely the status quo before Nancy Pelosi had Democrats vote to change the rule.
However, this makes McCarthy hostage to anyone who wants to cause trouble, or grandstand to fund-raise. It is less likely actually to be used than as a threat to extort policy or other concessions on legislation.
This will complicate the ability of the Republicans to govern, with a Democratic White House and Senate. The “gang of 20” last week has demonstrated that the tail of one House faction can wag the majority.