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Choosing the Majority Speaker from outside the House is legal. Should we try to do it? [1]
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Date: 2023-01-03
The authors recommend choosing a Majority Speaker who is respected as much as George Washington was.
In today’s NYT, there is a guest essay on this topic, by William Cohen, a former secretary of defense, who served in both the House and the Senate as a Republican, and Alton Frye, a former congressional staff director, who is the presidential senior fellow emeritus at the Council on Foreign Relations.
The point of the piece is that the Constitution doesn’t require House membership for someone to serve as Speaker. They explain that the reason why is because it was seen as a non-partisan job that was important for the “entire” House and the nation.
They suggest that the reason it would be important to install an outsider now is that this Congress is so partisan that it will be impossible to find someone from within who can “genuinely serve the interest of the nation,” which was the goal of our founding fathers. “The Constitution anticipated a leader respected across the broadest possible spectrum of the American people, much as George Washington had presided over the convention that drafted our governing charter in 1787.”
While I find it horrifying to even mention Kevin McCarthy’s name in the same diary as George Washington’s, the reality is that neither McCarthy nor any other Republican in the 118th Congress has the gravitas, integrity, respect, or intelligence of George Orwell, who wrote about people like them in his book Nineteen Eighty-four. (“Thematically, the book centers on the consequences of totalitarianism, mass surveillance and repressive regimentation of people and behaviors within society.”)
But, as Cohen and Frye point out, even if McCarthy wins, “he will be captive to a GOP fringe similar to the one that hampered the speakerships of Paul Ryan and John Boehner. Moreover, Mr. McCarthy’s animus and hostility to cooperating with Democrats doom the prospect of meaningful bipartisanship.”
I’ve got to admit that when I read a few of the preceding paragraphs, I smiled broadly because it represents a kind of naiveté that I find oddly appealing, and quixotic. While both Cohen and Frye have extraordinary credentials, they don’t seem to realize, or won’t admit to themselves, that the Republicans’ goal isn’t to serve the nation. It is to seek revenge, and stop Biden from accomplishing anything. The fringe right is not interested in governing, only in destroying. Ever since TFG was elected, it’s not just Party over Nation, but Trump over Party over Nation.
What Cohen and Frye are recommending isn’t that Republicans would introduce the option of choosing a speaker from outside the House, but that Minority Speaker Hakeem Jeffries should. Since we don’t have the votes to elect our own speaker, “the Democrats could, however, offer motions to open the possibility of selecting a speaker capable of working across the aisle. Nominating an experienced, respected Republican from outside the House could trigger a contested ballot leading to a speaker in the mold of the original constitutional conception.”
They suggest that the reason to go outside is because the most likely alternate candidate to Kevin McCarthy is Steve Scalise, whom they suggest would have the same problems as McCarthy because of his ties to Trump. Again, I am stunned that they aren’t willing to admit that it is McCarthy’s and Scalise’s ties to Trump, which the majority of Republicans will seek...if there is a public vote rather than a secret ballot vote.
Cohen and Frye recognize that Republicans don’t have a moderate candidate within the House whom they will support. “The sad fact is that the Republican caucus is dominated by campaigns and commitments that gravely encumber efforts to define common ground in the political center.”
And, there is a part of me—the more thoughtful side—that enjoys the refined language they use. However, the way I would write it, after having undergone six years of furor at Republican abuses, lies, violence, chaos and destruction is quite different.
My take is this: “The tragedy is that the effing Republican caucus is composed of Fascists and cowards whose goal is authoritarianism, and will continue working to destroy our democracy through their lies and disinformation campaigns, lawlessness, gerrymandering, desecration of voting rights and women’s rights legislation, racism, religious fanaticism, and so much more. And, they either owe their allegiance to a traitorous former president or to billionaire donors. They care nothing about our nation or the American people. They have proven themselves to anarchic, felonious, cruel, unlawful, and cruel as they seek money and power to the exclusion of everything else.”
But, back to Mr. Cohen and Frye...what they recommend is that the only way that choosing an outsider will work depends upon two variables:
“First, House members must nominate a plausible candidate to whom disaffected moderates in the Republican caucus can rally and whom Democrats recognize as a promising partner in building cross-party coalitions.
“Second, there must be a secret ballot for speaker that would free individual members — primarily Republicans, but also some Democrats — to vote for such a candidate without fearing reprisal in a future party primary.”
And, they recommend that Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries would be the right person to make this happen. He could identify people who would work across the aisle, and effectively allow for coalition building. “Doing so would fortify those Republicans who seek to move the party beyond the corrosive Trump era.”
Their list includes “John Kasich (a former House Budget Committee chairman who demonstrated a capacity to shape common ground in his service as governor of Ohio); retiring congressman Fred Upton of Michigan enjoys respect in both parties, as does the departing governor of Maryland, Larry Hogan.”
But, they believe Minority Leader Jeffries would have other recommendations in trying to “reinforce the American political center,” which, of course, isn’t our goal. And, that President Biden would agree because otherwise he won’t be able to accomplish anything for the next two years.
I must admit that choosing an outside candidate is an interesting theory. I had heard it mentioned weeks ago, but the person who was recommended was Newt Gingrich, who satisfies none of the requirements Mr. Coen and Frye discuss. But, it is an interesting thesis, and I wonder if there truly would be a value of going through with this exercise if the Republicans fail.
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