For more than two weeks, a stalemate over electing a speaker of the House has left the U.S. government hobbled and an important seat of American democracy shut down as the country faces crises at home and abroad.
“The government has shut down, it doesn’t look good that we’re paralyzed,” Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas) told The Epoch Times. “We still have the war in Ukraine, we still have Israel, we have border security issues and while all this is going on we can’t pass any legislation at all.”
Mr. Cuellar is serving his tenth term in Congress and says in his nearly twenty years in the House of Representatives he’s never seen anything like this before.
“This is a historic moment,” he said.
It’s a perspective that’s shared by some Republicans as well.
“We’re living in a dangerous world, the world’s on fire, our adversaries are watching what we do and quite frankly, they like it,” said House Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas) at a press conference on Oct. 12. “Chairman Xi talks about how Democracy doesn’t work, and we’re proving him right, and we need to fill the chair with a speaker.”
Mr. Jordan has failed three times in his attempt for the speaker’s gavel but is still considered to be the speaker-designee and has vowed to dig in, even threatening to call for more floor votes over the weekend until someone is elected to the office.
“The American people are thirsty for change,” Mr. Jordan said at a press conference on Friday. “We need to get the House open as soon as possible.”
But after three failed votes, any further attempts by Mr. Jordan for the gavel are not expected to end any better—largely because more centrist rank-and-file Republicans are revolting over the hardball tactics being used to win their votes. They have been bombarded with harassing phone calls and even reported death threats.
“Bullying [tactics] don’t work,” said Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.), a centrist who has led the opposition to Mr. Jordan’s nomination.
Still, Mr. Bacon said the harassing text messages and phone calls have taken a toll. His wife slept with a loaded gun near her bedside one night. Other Republicans said their families have been threatened. And every lawmaker who voted against Mr. Jordan has received a barrage of angry phone calls and messages.
House Chaos Could Hurt GOP in 2024
The continued chaos in the House is painting a bad picture for Republicans with the 2024 elections looming, according to political insiders.“It is absolutely hurting us. We should be talking about Joe Biden’s failures,” Republican political strategist Brian Seitchik told The Epoch Times. “Republicans disagree on some things, but we all uniformly agree that Joe Biden has been an abject failure for this country, bad for taxpayers, bad for those who want to secure the border. He has been such a failure on so many fronts and yet we are focused on our own internal civil war.”
Mr. Seitchik, who has advised Congressional campaigns across the country, says the GOP could be facing the consequences in future elections if a speaker isn’t elected.
“It’s going to adversely impact us next year as we head into the 2024 campaign. How can we, with a straight face, make the case that Joe Biden has failed in his job when the one part of the government, the Republicans do control, we can’t even open up for business?”
Options Going Forward
As the House remains paralyzed, there have been several different plans pitched to re-open the branch of government and get legislation passed—including choosing a different candidate for speaker.“He doesn’t have the votes to be speaker,” Rep. Carlos Gimenez (R-Fla.), said after a late Thursday meeting when Mr. Jordan sought to hear detractors out and shore up support.
The holdouts want “nothing” from Mr. Jordan, Mr. Gimenez said, adding that some of the lawmakers in the meeting simply called on Mr. Jordan to drop out of the race.
An opposite move, to help elect Mr. Jordan, was proposed by Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.):
One extraordinary idea to give the interim speaker pro tempore Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.) more powers for the next several months to at least bring the House back into session and conduct crucial business was swiftly rejected by Mr. Jordan’s own ultra-conservative allies.
A “betrayal,” said Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.).
Mr. McHenry reportedly told his colleagues he would resign in his role as speaker pro tempore if he were pushed to move legislation.
Another option that has been discussed is electing a speaker with the support of Democrats.
“I do not believe that we are yet at the point where we’re gonna have a coalition government. I could be wrong but I just don’t think we’re there yet,” said Mr. Seitchik. “I still think Republicans have some options. I have been a believer that Republicans would eventually settle on a new version of Dennis Hastert. Somebody whose name was not part of the initial equation, somebody that didn’t necessarily want the job or campaigned for the job, but somebody that would be agreeable by both sides.”
The next steps are highly uncertain as frustrated lawmakers predict the House could essentially stay closed for the foreseeable future—perhaps until the mid-November deadline for Congress to approve funding or risk a federal government shutdown.
“We can come to Nov. 17, which is when the continuing resolution runs out if and we don’t have a speaker by that time, literally we could have a government shut down,” said Cuellar.
