Francis Chung/POLITICO via AP Images
Former Speaker of the House Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) talks with reporters during a press conference at the Capitol, October 9, 2023.
Tomorrow, allegedly, Republicans will choose a new House Speaker. Whether or not this happens can probably be divined by whether or not there’s an actual vote. House Republicans are embarrassed enough at their own dysfunction that they want to keep any other hiccups behind closed doors. If the vote is postponed, it’s because there’s no consensus yet. If it’s held, it’s because there’s a preordained winner.
That’s the theory, anyway. But the GOP has not demonstrated the kind of discipline that would enable this. After all, just a week ago Kevin McCarthy was ousted from his Speaker position in full view. A Monday caucus meeting appears to have done nothing to resolve the situation.
Things are so up in the air that, rather than walk away quietly, McCarthy has sort of hung around, like the guy not chosen for a pickup basketball game who’s hoping for an injury to sub in. At a Monday press conference—and yes, I share your curiosity as to why some backbencher member of Congress is holding a press conference and why the congressional press is attending it—McCarthy sounded completely ready to be thrust back into the job, a reminder of the fact that he has essentially no impulse other than acquiring power.
To the extent anything may concentrate minds and end the internal strife, it’s the war that has broken out in Israel and Gaza. The lack of a Speaker led to a delay in briefing members of Congress; Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) had to step in at one point. While Foreign Affairs Committee leaders are collaborating on a bipartisan resolution with the usual reaffirmation of support for Israel, even that probably can’t happen without a Speaker. That’s also true of any funding requests, on top of the existing $3 billion a year Israel already receives. Some resources can flow without congressional approval, but that support is finite.
The next couple of months was already going to be impossible for a new Speaker, given the rapidly approaching deadline on government funding, a Ukraine supplemental, and border money. Does a war in the Middle East make things easier or harder? There’s a case for both options.
On the easier side: It often feels like the prime directive in Washington is to never get in between defense contractors and a sale. Soaring stock prices for weapons manufacturers signals the obvious: There’s a lot of money to be made in war, and nobody wants a protracted Speaker fight to get in the way. The far right is also taking a beating for creating the vacancy and subsequently delaying any movement on the Israel issue. Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), who led the McCarthy putsch, said on Meet the Press Sunday that he would support whoever got the most votes from inside the House GOP, which seems like a tactical retreat.
In the aftermath, a new Speaker could be hemmed in by the fact that military aid for Israel, which most members wouldn’t dare vote against, could serve as a magic bullet to unclog funding for other contested measures. A bill that lumps in Ukraine and Israel aid would be difficult for a new Speaker to block. House Foreign Affairs Committee chair Mike McCaul (R-TX) has already floated that as an option, with sweeteners on Taiwan and border security to boot.
Israel’s needs could force Republicans to set their differences aside, but nothing has successfully enabled that to date in this Congress.
On the harder side: The right is already desperate to portray Hamas’s sneak attack and incursion into Israel as somehow Joe Biden’s fault (inside Israel, the blame is being placed pretty squarely on Benjamin Netanyahu). They would be all too ready to condemn Democrats for risking the “loss” of Israel (regardless of the veracity of that claim) by trying to stuff Ukraine or government funding into a package. Israel becomes one more variable, no matter how must-have. It could just amp up the polarization and harden positions.
The mythical Speaker will have a say in this, of course. Right now, it’s a fight between Jim Jordan and Steve Scalise, with everyone else (including McCarthy) waiting in the wings in case of a lack of consensus.
Jordan, armed with Donald Trump’s endorsement (as well as some McCarthy allies who are wary of Scalise), has said that Israel would be his top priority, implicitly vowing to separate that from government or Ukraine funding. Scalise has also expressed Israel support, without explicitly saying that a resolution would top his list of priorities. Jordan seems more likely to leverage the Israel issue to partisan advantage. Scalise, given his position in the leadership and the fundraising that goes along with that, probably has a significant degree of support.
But if Scalise can’t corral Jordan’s allies, Jordan can’t pick up the moderates, and nobody can figure out how to deal with the motion to vacate—a large segment of Republicans want it gone, and the handful who used it successfully on McCarthy want it to stay—threading the needle for 217 votes (the majority, given that there are a couple of vacancies) might not be possible. Israel’s needs could force Republicans to set their differences aside, but nothing has successfully enabled that to date in this Congress.
The prospect of an accommodation with Democrats for some moderate Speaker sounds as much of a West Wing/D.C. journalist fever dream as a brokered party convention. McCarthy’s return seems also very unlikely.
After a Speaker—somehow—is chosen, the other variable in the various funding fights is a trigger put in during the debt limit deal. If the 12 annual appropriations bills are not passed by December 31, a sequester automatically kicks in that would cut spending across the board by 1 percent. That’s actually much harsher on the defense side, almost a 10 percent real cut, at a time when the military is trying to support other efforts abroad. While this was seen as a nudge to get Republicans to buckle down and pass spending bills, Jordan at least has raised it as a way to get the Biden administration serious about negotiating on border security issues.
On balance, I think adding a new addition to what is already a mess on Capitol Hill makes things more and not less difficult. There’s a narrow path to the Israel situation taking everything off the table, but it doesn’t fit with what we know about this Congress and this Republican Party.
One final thought: A week ago, 20 Democratic senators wrote to the Biden administration, which was brokering a diplomatic agreement between Saudi Arabia and Israel, to urge that the final terms include an end to settlement-building in the West Bank and other concessions to the Palestinians. It was a rare moment of recognition of the existence of the Palestinian occupation, a divergence from the diplomatic trajectory going back to the Abraham Accords. Writing Palestinians out of the story did not erase the central tension amplifying so much death and destruction in the Middle East over the past 70 years.
Congress will at some point get its act together just enough to ship more weapons into the region. Most of the 20 senators who were unsuccessful in forcing the Palestinian question back into diplomatic hands will be among those approving the shipments, I’d imagine. For a second, however, they showed how an engaged Congress can have more of an impact than just passing laws. Unfortunately, their viewpoint was not heeded. And Congress will shrink back into chaos and irrelevancy.
