Washington Merry-Go-Round

IMMEDIATE RELEASE Oct 5, 2023
WASHINGTON MERRY-GO-ROUND
Today’s Events in Historical Perspective                                                                     
America’s Longest-Running Column Founded 1932
When the minority of the majority rules
By Douglas Cohn and Eleanor Clift         
 
          WASHINGTON — No one person should have the constitutional right to shut down the government or the right to singlehandedly decide what legislation our elected representatives may or may not cast votes for or against. Yet, due to a flaw in the Constitution the speaker of the House of Representatives does have such power.
          There are no rules in the Constitution governing how the House and Senate should conduct business. Quite the contrary, Article I, Section 5 reads: “Each House may determine the Rules of its Proceedings. . . . .”
          There is no mention of the Senate’s filibuster in the Constitution. Political parties are not imagined, and there is nothing that says the speaker of the House shall have the sole power to decide what bills to bring to the floor of the House for a vote – and what bills to throttle up perhaps forever, denying their sponsors a vote to affirm or deny.
          Former Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., could have shut down the government if he had not brought to the floor a legislative vehicle known as a CR (continuing resolution) that would keep the government open and funded. Every attempt he made was voted down by seven or so hardliners in the GOP conference.
          Not until McCarthy turned to the Democrats for help in passing a “clean CR” (one without ideological riders tucked on) was the impasse solved. But not for long, as it turned out, the hard right radicals turned the tables on McCarthy, forcing him to step down as speaker and leaving the post with an interim speaker who has no real power beyond assembling and adjourning the House.
          Yes, folks, it’s all in the hands of one human being, and in McCarthy’s case, he was someone who had made multiple promises to multiple people that he could not keep.
          There was no trust in McCarthy. He had managed to alienate people in both political parties. And in an institution that runs on relationships and trust, he had drained his well dry.
          If the Democrats had bailed out McCarthy by providing their votes to keep him as speaker, there would have had to be a quid pro quo. And that obvious quid would have been an agreement to bring any bill to the floor for an up or down vote if it had the support of a reasonable number of representatives – perhaps 20 or so, turning the House of Representatives into what the Founding Fathers had in mind: a bipartisan legislature.
          James Madison, the Father of the Constitution, President George Washington’s political and philosophical tutor, and himself the fourth president, urged adoption of the new Constitution in 1787 writing in Federalist Paper Number 10: “If a faction consists of less than a majority, relief is supplied by the republican principle, which enables the majority to defeat its sinister views by regular vote.” Yes, “regular vote” by the entire legislature. In this manner members of various factions such as Democrats and Republicans (which did not exist in 1787) would be free to vote as individuals.
          Several states, recognizing the Constitution’s failure to ensure such voting have altered their constitutions to remedy the flaw.
          However, in the absence of a similar U.S. Constitutional clause, factionalism rules the day, all the more so after convicted felon and former Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., initiated the infamous “Hastert Rule” mandating for his “faction” that no Republican speaker of the House will bring legislation to the floor that is not supported by a majority of the majority. In the case of the just-passed CR, Speaker McCarthy violated the rule and was ousted because a majority of Republicans were in opposition. But in his Madisonian moment, he brought the CR to the floor where a minority of Republicans joined the Democrats to fund the government.
          Compare that moment with the moment Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wisc., had the opportunity to bring to the House floor an immigration reform bill that had passed the U.S. Senate with 68 votes. But he held fast to the Hastert Rule because a majority of his majority were in opposition. In his case, the public ousted him from the speakership when Democrats prevailed in the November elections.
          So, despite McCarthy’s moment, the Ryan way remains the rule for the Republican Party, and we may expect a continuation of Hastert’s Rule where a majority of the majority of Republican House members, representing a minority of the majority of all members, rule the day.
 
          Eleanor Clift’s latest book Selecting a President, and Douglas Cohn’s latest books The President’s First Year: The Only School for Presidents Is the Presidency and World War 4: Nine Scenarios (endorsed by seven flag officers).
          Twitter:  @douglas_cohn
          © 2023 U.S. News Syndicate, Inc.
          Distributed by U.S. News Syndicate, Inc.
END WASHINGTON MERRY-GO-ROUND