‘Republicans Are Simply Not Fit to Govern’
Will Democrats save McCarthy when his job's on the line?
Congress this weekend averted a shutdown of the federal government, but that's not the end of the fireworks on Capitol Hill.
Rep Matt Gaetz (R-Fla) has said that he wants to try and strip House Speaker Kevin McCarthy of his office as soon as this week after McCarthy relied on Democrats to provide the necessary votes to fund the government.
That's set off a flurry of speculation as to whether the speaker will politically survive the challenge, and to what degree — if any — Democrats will again save the California Republican.
Gaetz intends to use a House Republican rule that allows a single member of Congress to call for a vote to “vacate the chair,” or remove the speaker.
How that vote would go is very much an open question.
“Procedurally, they'll try to table it, which basically means they're going to try to send it to committee. And I believe you would only need a few Democrats to do that. But, you know, there's a big difference between McCarthy making deals with fellow Republicans and then making deals with Democrats,” said Rachel Bade, contributing political correspondent at Politico. “And so I think this idea of Democrats bailing McCarthy out is a lot easier said than done. I mean, they’re going to face a lot of pressure.
“Any Democrat who vote to help him are going to face serious pressure back home, could face a primary challenge. This is a guy who single-handedly resurrected [Donald] Trump after January 6,” she added. “He went back on his deal with the White House. He's impeaching Joe Biden. Are Democrats really going to save this guy?”
One of the most prominent progressive Democrats in the House, Rep Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, of New York, believes McCarthy's fate is a matter for Republicans.
“Well, my vote beginning this term for speaker of the House was for Hakeem Jeffries,” she said, referring to the House minority leader, her fellow New York Democrat. “And I do not intend on voting for a Republican speaker of the House, but I believe that it's up to the Republican Conference to determine their own leadership and deal with their own problems. But it's not up to Democrats to save Republicans, from themselves, especially.”
Another Democrat, Rep Jasmine Crockett, of Texas, wondered just who would even want the speakership now, with so many on the far right not interested in serious governance.
“Listen, I have zero confidence in this Republican Party. That is my answer to that. So, yes, we live to see other day, but unfortunately, I need people to understand that we are on an absolute rollercoaster. We have been on a rollercoaster since the session started,” she said. “Everyone saw the drama that unfolded as I was attempting to be sworn in. Fifteen votes.”
Crockett was referring to the prolonged and extraordinary fight in January over the speakership when McCarthy only won after 15 rounds of balloting.
“Listen, we will go round and round and round, and I honestly don’t know who would want to step up and deal with this Republican compilation of members at this point and time. Even if someone wanted to be speaker before, I think that they would think twice after seeing all of the headache that has been caused,” she added.
Sen Chris Murphy (D-Conn) criticized the fact that Republicans want to indulge in another battle for leadership at a time when the nation needs attention on so many serious issues.
“Well, listen, this is an ongoing disaster for the American people. Republicans are simply not fit to govern. They are not serious people,” Murphy said. “And while the House of Representatives, the Republican caucus is going to go through another round of navel-gazing, deciding who is going to lead them, people out there are hurting.
“We still have crises that we need to tackle, whether it be the record number of people dying of overdoses, the continued gun violence crisis, and House Republicans are going to spend the next couple of weeks arguing amongst themselves as to who should be the next speaker,” he added.
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