January 6th has turned out to be a significant turning point in the days-long effort to elect a Speaker of the House. By afternoon, the number of Republicans opposing Kevin McCarthy as Speaker had shrunk considerably from 21 to only 6 holdouts. As of this writing, one more vote is scheduled for this evening, which could secure McCarthy the two remaining votes he needs to secure the Speaker’s gavel.
While it might appear that, as always, the GOP Establishment has come out on top, in reality McCarthy has made an extraordinary range of concessions that will bring about some very significant changes in the way the House does business. The full extent of these changes will not become clear until and unless McCarthy gets elected, but it is a safe bet that, should he become Speaker, business as usual — whereby dissenters get squashed and silenced, omnibus bills laden with pork are rushed through the legislative process with little to no scope for amendments or debate, and outspoken critics of leadership are denied committee seats — is a thing of the past, at least for the duration of GOP control of the body. A large number of representatives with very high Freedom Index scores have either supported McCarthy from the outset or have now agreed to support him, leading this writer to suspect that the California GOP representative has shown willingness to be held accountable and to institute much-needed changes. This is perhaps not as desirable an outcome as actually having a Jim Jordan, Tom Massie, or other high-octane champion of limited government as Speaker, but it should also be a significant improvement over the undisciplined neocon-ish antics of the Gingrichs, Boehners, and Ryans of the past.
Of course, McCarthy doesn’t have the votes yet, and most of the remaining holdouts have been adamant in their refusal to support him. But we expect that, whatever the outcome, this process, the beginning of a long-overdue and protracted campaign by Congress to clean its own house, will yield positive results once the 118th Congress actually gets down to legislative business. If that business is nothing more than a total inability to pass reckless spending bills for the next two years, it will be progress indeed!
