Incredible! Just incredible! I never would have predicted the spectacle that took place in the House of Representatives last week. It took nearly five days and 15 roll call votes to finally elect a speaker for the next two years to lead this august body. What drama! What chaos!
Even though they hold the majority of seats, though quite slim, the Republicans were unable to stop a small group of hard right party members, who call themselves the “Freedom Caucus,” from extracting concession after concession from Kevin McCarthy, that poor man whose only desire in life seems to be the possession of that great big gavel.
In case you don’t know, the House of Representatives sets new rules every two years at the start of each term. And it is the content of those rules that the far-right Republicans demanded that Kevin adopt, which, of course, he did. For starters, they wanted to create a “Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government,” which, despite how it sounds, was not about equipping all government employees with guns.
There was also the proposed rule to gut the Office of Congressional Ethics which would have, no doubt, looked into the mountain of lies told by newly elected Republican Rep. George Santos. Then there was the rule that would require cuts to programs like Social Security, Medicare, and military funding rather than raise taxes to fund any new government spending. And one of their top demands was that Kevin appoint them to prime seats on several powerful House committees.
OK, so there they were, needing just 218 votes out of their 222-member majority, that’s all! But Kevin suffered defeat in vote after vote as those fringe party members demanded ever more concessions. Would he never get to see his name attached to that word — “Speaker” — on a sign over his office door? Such a torment. And these were his coworkers, members of his very own political party!
But before the 15th vote, the most remarkable thing happened. In the back rooms and alleyways inside the Capitol building a movement began to grow. It turns out that there were a few people among the House Republicans who could not, would not take this insanity one more minute.
Yes, a few of them relocated their backbones and remembered the oath they were about to take (should a speaker ever be chosen). That oath is to uphold our Constitution and all that it stands for. And then they remembered that they owed their jobs to the people who elected them and that those jobs are to govern in the best way they can to support and protect all the people of this country.
It was a miracle; one I’ve been waiting for ever since the former president was elected to office. People would wake up, I had hoped, and realize they’d been had. They’d give their heads a good shake and finally reconnect themselves to their long-lost sense of integrity, honesty and decency.
And that’s what happened in the bowels of the House of Representatives. Enough Republicans woke up and reached out to the leadership of the House Democrats, who, I want to mention, voted in each of the first 14 roll call votes as a 212-member block for their minority leader to be speaker.
An agreement was then reached between all Democrats and just enough sane Republicans in the House to form a coalition of both parties to take control of the House of Representatives. Yes, a coalition! It was decided that on the next vote, the 15th, the Democrats and at least six Republicans would cast their votes for Hakeem Jeffries, the Democratic minority leader, to be the next speaker of the House of Representatives.
The Democrats would still have a minority of seats in the House, but they would have these newly awakened Republicans to vote with them on legislation to support our country and its people. It was clear that there would be a lot of negotiation required, but they all agreed to compromise as best they could in the interests of the people they represented.
My goodness, isn’t that how government should work? Compromise, coalition building?
In the end, it worked! Hakeem was elected the Speaker of the House, the first person of color to ever hold the office. The members of the Republican crazy caucus were denied those high committee positions and the rule changes that might have left our government ungovernable for the next two years never came to be.
Well, I can dream, can’t I?
Karen Gardner, of Haydenville, can be reached at opinion@gazettenet.com.