It’s emasculating for a Republican Speaker of the House to depend on Democrats, but that’s the situation in Congress right now, and it’s not going to change. Even though the GOP has a 219-213 majority, they can’t muster enough votes to pass spending bills on their own. They can’t pay our nation’s bills on time on their own. So, that means the Speaker has to go in search of Democratic votes.
This is what cost Kevin McCarthy his gavel late last year. Far right Republicans made a motion to vacate the chair because they were displeased with McCarthy for striking a deal with the Biden administration to avoid a national credit default, and then for passing a continuing resolution to keep the government operational. No Democrats came to McCarthy’s rescue and so he lost his leadership position.
His replacement, Mike Johnson of Louisiana, faces the same problems. The debt issue has been addressed for now, but Johnson still needs to avoid a government shutdown. And since he cannot do that without Democratic votes, he also is quite limited in what kind of concessions he can get from the Democrats. This makes the far right loonies steaming mad.
But what really grinds the gears of the far right is military and economic aid for Ukraine. Huge majorities in the House and Senate are in favor of it, but Johnson is worried that if he allows a vote on it he will get chucked out like McCarthy. That’s why we’re seeing this:
Representative Hakeem Jeffries, the Democratic [House] leader, said on Wednesday that he believed “a reasonable number” of lawmakers in his party would protect Speaker Mike Johnson from removal from his post if he allowed a vote on a foreign aid bill that includes money for Ukraine and faced a Republican mutiny as a result.
In other words, Johnson can rest assured that he won’t lose his job. But what about his dignity? What about his autonomy? He’s already the leader of a mostly Democratic bipartisan caucus that pays our debts and makes our spending decisions, but now he would literally be Speaker only by virtue of Democratic support. And that support could be withdrawn at any time.
In that case, Johnson could continue to act like the leader of the House Republicans, but that would no longer be an accurate job description. Which is okay, because the job description of the Speaker of the House is different from the leader of a political party. That’s why all members vote to elect a Speaker.
Normally, I’d ask for some power sharing and committee chairs in exchange for saving Mike Johnson, but the Ukraine aid is pretty important and time-critical. Getting the aid while simultaneously neutering the Republican Speaker seems like an acceptable short-term deal.
If there were a day when, because of absences, Democrats were a majority in the House, would it be possible to make the motion to vacate the chair, depose Mike Johnson, elect Hakeem Jeffries Speaker, and pass a bill for Ukraine aid, all in the same day? I don’t know if House rules allow things to move that quickly, before Republicans could get their majority back in the chamber. If it could work, I could live with whatever vengeance they came up with afterwards.
Although we’d have to live with their incompetence as well. The following day would be devoted to removing Jeffries from the Speakership, and who knows how long it would be before we had a Speaker again. The government would shut down in the meantime.
I don’t know the logistics either, but I definitely share your sentiment. If doable, everything would have to align just right. Would there be blowback? Oh yeah. But it would be so worth it just to get the Ukrainian aid passed and on the way to Biden’s desk.
Of course he could do the right thing and the Democrats could see he kept his speakership….until he’s primaried out of office….