There are few things Congress loves more than a short-term solution to a long-term problem — something to help it forestall difficult decisions and paper over divisions in hopes that, at some later date, these problems will magically disappear.
House Republicans can’t even agree upon trying that right now.
Thursday brought one of the most embarrassing episodes yet in the GOP’s arduous 16-day quest to find someone — anyone — who can get the votes to be House speaker. With the realization that that might not be possible at this juncture apparently setting in, Republicans set about forging a temporary fix that seemed potentially agreeable to much of the House: giving acting speaker pro tempore Patrick T. McHenry (R-N.C.) more power to conduct vital business while everyone figured out a longer-term solution.
GOP speaker-nominee Jim Jordan even endorsed the plan, apparently believing that time could heal the wounds suffered by his sputtering speaker bid and give him another shot later on.
Then the party summarily rejected Jordan’s leadership — again.
Jordan announced Thursday afternoon that the plan was no longer in the works.
“We made the pitch to members on the resolution, as a way to lower the temperature and get back to work,” Jordan said. “We decided that wasn’t where we’re going to go.”
If you watch the video, you can catch a glimpse of a rare moment of apparent befuddlement and exasperation from a man who exemplifies cocksureness. It’s a moment somewhat reminiscent of when Jordan struggled to explain his conversations with then-President Donald Trump on Jan. 6, 2021. As then, there didn’t seem to be a good answer Jordan felt he could provide or a way to explain any of this.
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If there’s a moment that crystallizes this whole chaotic drama, it’s surely that one: the party’s would-be leader just asking for some time by calling an audible, only to have his own conference blitz and leave him under a pile of bodies.
That Jordan would even attempt something so haphazard and immediately doomed speaks to the fact that he’s running out of ideas. And he’s surely not alone in that distinction.
To be sure, there are very understandable reasons this wasn’t workable, personal feelings about McHenry aside. Some opposed the idea of a temporary speaker on constitutional grounds. Some Jordan opponents probably feared this could keep his bid alive, by giving him a couple months of McHenry potentially working with the Democrats (whose votes would help install him) to run against. And you can bet more than a few Republicans viewed this, correctly, as the capitulation to Democrats that it would be.
After all, this would have been Republicans effectively surrendering their ability to govern themselves, however temporarily. There is very little precedent for a bipartisan coalition electing a speaker for a reason. And while this arrangement probably wouldn’t have involved the kind of concessions that are often given to the minority party in coalition governments, it would set the House on an unpredictable course.
Suddenly, the bipartisan fantasy in which the House wouldn’t rely solely upon one party to guide it could have an actual trial run, allowing Americans to compare whatever it produces to what the intransigent GOP-led House provided. It might never have actually worked, but it risked allowing a side-by-side comparison and casting an even harsher spotlight on the GOP’s inability to wield the one lever of lawmaking power it controls.
Apparently the old, unworkable dynamics were preferable to that potential new dynamic. The problem is that the old ones are going nowhere and probably just became more unworkable.
Trying to kick the can down the road was already a sure sign of weakness, and then Jordan missed on that, too.
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October 20, 2023 at 05:31AM
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Analysis | Jordan and the GOP find a new low point in speaker mess - The Washington Post
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