House Republicans need to deliver quickly, USF political analyst says

SARASOTA, Fla. (WWSB) – After four days of legislative paralysis in the U.S. House of Representatives, a Suncoast political expert says Republicans need some quick legislative victories to get back on track.

“Republicans have promised to hit the ground running and do one, two, three, four, five,” said USF Professor Emerita of Political Science Susan MacManus, “and instead they hit the ground scrambling to get a speaker.”

Early Saturday morning, California Republican Kevin McCarthy was sworn in as Speaker of the House speaker after 15 bruising rounds of voting.

“They could quickly help themselves by quickly passing legislation with a strong party vote,” she said. Perhaps on something like eliminating tthe thousands of new IRS agents authorized by the 117th Congress.”

MacManus, said the last time a vote for House speaker came close to this was in 1923. During that vote, it took nine rounds of voting before Frederick H. Gillett was selected.

“Anytime you point out that something hasn’t happened in over 100 years, that immediately grabs people’s attention, which is what this vote was,” said MacManus.

MacManus noted at least 20 people did not want to support McCarthy and refused to vote for him. When the Republicans won control of the House in November, their margin was narrow. In turn, McCarthy “could only afford to lose four of the Republicans, and yet he had a lot more that weren’t going to vote for him (for speaker),” stated MacManus.

Over time, she said, it was resolved by convincing the holdouts that the deadlock that was doing damage to the party. By having them to vote “present” instead of for another candidate for speaker, “that reduced the number required to get a majority,” MacManus explained.

After gaining control of the chamber in November, MacManus said it was assumed that everybody in the party was going to be on board, whether they liked the person or not. Instead, the four days of negotiations left Democrats, Republicans and the public confused.

“The public was left scratching their heads. Democrats were saying Republicans were dysfunctional. Republicans were getting annoyed with some of their members who were unbending, and no one was really happy with this,” said MacManus.

MacManus added that the past week illustrates why public support for the government and decision making has been declining.

“Over all, if politicians in Congress are honest, they have to realize that this whole struggle is just one more reason why we’re seeing a decline in the public’s support or feeling, that they’re getting the job done. So, we’re seeing a drop in people’s confidence in the ability to govern institutions to make public policy in a timely fashion,” said MacManus.

During the negotiations for House speaker, Florida U.S. Rep. Vern Buchanan said he was looking toward moving the GOP agenda forward. “With negotiations on the one-yard line, it’s important to get the speaker’s race resolved so we can move on to the business that matters – reducing inflation, securing the border and combating Biden’s reckless agenda.”

U.S. Rep. Greg Steube of Sarasota stated “my priority is to get to work for the American people.”

The House is adjourned until Monday, Jan. 9 and then a rules package for the House will have to be agreed on.

At the core of the emerging deal was the reinstatement of a House rule that would allow a single lawmaker to make a motion to “vacate the chair,” essentially calling a vote to oust the speaker. McCarthy had resisted allowing a return to the longstanding rule that former Speaker Nancy Pelosi had done away with, because it had been held over the head of former Speaker John Boehner. But it appears McCarthy had no other choice.

Other wins for the holdouts are more obscure and include provisions in the proposed deal to expand the number of seats available on the House Rules Committee; to mandate 72 hours for bills to be posted before votes; and to promise to try for a constitutional amendment that would impose federal limits on the number of terms a person could serve in the House and Senate.

— Information from The Associated Press was used in this story.

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