https://thespectator.com/topic/matt-gaetz-fire-alarm-kevin-mccarthy-congress/
Matt Gaetz pulled the alarm but, unlike the stunt by fellow House member Jamaal Bowman, there really was a fire. Gaetz set it himself, with help from seven other Republicans on the party’s populist right. Now the whole party has to deal with the smoking ruins.
Because the majority party has only a slim edge, any small, cohesive group among them can wield huge leverage. They can threaten to sink legislation or oust the Speaker by voting “no,” knowing their party doesn’t have enough votes to carry the day without them (or help from Democrats).
That’s exactly what this “veto coalition,” led by Florida’s Matt Gaetz, did. When they issued the threat to close the government a few days ago, the tactic failed, but only because Democrats voted with most of the Republicans to keep it open. Why did Democrats help? Because the White House told them to, knowing the president would pay a political price if the government shut down, even temporarily. That’s why Biden’s White House wanted the Continuing Resolution (CR) passed.
When Speaker Kevin McCarthy called a floor vote on the CR, the right wing of his caucus was outraged, partly because McCarthy called their bluff, partly because they didn’t get the concessions they wanted.
The vote Tuesday to remove McCarthy as speaker was the populist right’s revenge. They secured only eight Republican votes against McCarthy, but that was enough. It is also a backhanded compliment to McCarthy’s Democratic predecessor, Nancy Pelosi, that she managed her caucus successfully with an equally narrow majority.
Make no mistake: the entire Republican Party will pay an enormous price for this maneuver. It’s one thing to remove a speaker; it’s another to remove him without no obvious way to resolve the resulting impasse. Each day it lasts tells American voters, “Republicans don’t know how to govern.” They know how to use a bullhorn. They know how to stop legislation. They know how to jettison a speaker. But they don’t know how to pass legislation or find a new speaker. That’s a disastrous message to send voters.
As the Republican House majority confronts this mess, they have only two conceivable paths to end it by selecting a speaker. Given their narrow majority, they need first, a candidate who wins virtually the votes in the Republican caucus and could be elected without any Democratic votes, and second, a candidate who wins a large plurality of votes in the caucus and becomes speaker because enough Democrats help them in the floor vote, either by voting with the Republicans or remaining absent.
