McCarthy's problem is America's peril

As the House of Representatives began grinding through what would be 15 roll-call votes for a speaker this week, Republican nominee Kevin McCarthy of California said he did not "have a problem" with setting a record for such votes.

  NPR

He undoubtedly didn't understand the problem - he absolutely has a big one - nor know what the record is. He is not a smart nor a curious man. Merely an ambitious one.

McCarthy could not have been serious about breaking the actual record, which remains the 133 ballots needed in 1855. He may have been thinking of the highest number needed since that record, which was a relatively modest nine rounds of votes in 1923.

[...]

His term is expected to last two years, but one of the concessions he negotiated to secure the job makes it relatively easy for even one member of the House to call for a vote to replace him.

Of course that doesn't mean the vote will be in favor of replacing him (although if the Democrats want to, they can vote with the MAGA caucus and make it happen), but it does mean he could be constantly fighting that fight and not getting anything useful done.  (As if the GOP were interested in getting anything useful done for anyone other than themselves and their backers.)

[Y]ou have to go all the way back to the dramatic confrontations over slavery in the antebellum period, when throw-downs over who would be the speaker were not infrequent. In those years, the House often had multiple parties, making it difficult for any party's leader to get a majority.

And once one got the job, he usually did not last long in it.

[...]

The holder of that 1855 record for most votes was a member from Massachusetts named Nathaniel Banks.

[...]

Banks prevailed [after a stunning 133 votes] 103-100.

[...]

Just a few months after Banks became speaker, Massachusetts Sen. Charles Sumner was beaten to the floor in the Senate chambers by a cane-wielding Rep. Preston Brooks from South Carolina.

[...]

[T]hree other speakership contests required more than a dozen rounds of voting to reach resolution in the 19th century. Each of them was also roiled by the issue of slavery.

[...]

It took 44 voting rounds [in 1859] to choose William Pennington of New Jersey, the first Republican ever elected speaker. Later in the year Pennington first took the gavel, his party would elect its first president, Abraham Lincoln.

Needless to say, the overriding concern of that 36th Congress was the threat of civil war, with abolitionists in ascendance on one side and defenders of slavery and states rights on the other.

[...]

After World War II, the contests for speaker were as predictable as clockwork. Every two years the members of both parties voted for their party nominee — without exception.

That pattern held for half a century. But it weakened late in the 1990s, giving way to a trend toward speakers holding on to just enough votes to squeak through, often by relying on some party members to vote "present" to decrease the number needed for a majority.

[...]

Even the legendary Republican Speaker Newt Gingrich, who ended 40 years of Democrats holding the big gavel, found it hard to hold onto it himself. His first re-election as speaker in 1997 occasioned a mini-rebellion of 10 GOP members voting for other people, voting present or not voting.

Having survived that, Gingrich would face down an uprising within his own leadership team that same year but then resign as speaker before the end of the next (prompted by a revolt in the full GOP caucus).

Gingrich greased the slimy slide of the GOP in Congress. Fortunately, there were a few Republicans still there with some integrity and a little backbone. There don't appear to be any left, now that Liz Cheney (backbone) and Adam Kinzinger (integrity) are gone this year.

John Boehner of Ohio cleared the bar to remain speaker in 2015 despite 25 Republicans voting for someone else. But in October of that year, in mid-session, Boehner resigned the job in frustration.

His rather reluctant successor was Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, who had nine GOP colleagues vote against him. He cut that number to just one in winning a full term in the job in 2017, but found the battle with hardliners too exhausting and retired voluntarily the next year.

The hardliners are more and harder, not to mention crazier, now. And Kevin McCarthy has neither the tenacity of Boehner or the finesse (such as it was) of Ryan.

McCarthy has been negotiating with several recalcitrant conservatives for weeks, offering concessions regarding House rules and the role of the leadership. In general, the dissenters have argued for larger roles in the legislative process — more amendments, more floor debates, more seats on certain powerful committees — for themselves and for the rank and file.

There have also been more personal recriminations about McCarthy, suggesting he could not be trusted to deliver on his concessions.

On the other hand, and very much by way of contrast, several congressional observers have suggested the greater peril from McCarthy's weakened condition is that he will stand by his concessions and that will make the House ungovernable.

Typical Republican of today: unserious and ironically challenged.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE:  Gonna be a long two years...

UPDATE: