By Lance Simmens
Six months ago, Congressman Kevin McCarthy was unceremoniously relieved of his position as Speaker of the House. Now Speaker Mike Johnson is in the sights of angry Republicans who are similarly flirting with relieving him of his duties as well. There is an intra-party divide within the GOP that threatens to open a pathway to relinquishing either practical or de facto political control to Democrats.
At present there is about to be a one-vote margin of error that threatens either relinquishing power or total legislative paralysis. Either capitulation is unacceptable and compromise is the order of the day, especially in matters of grave international consequence, i.e., Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan, or the southern border.
Chief among critics of compromise is Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene from Georgia, who has filed a resolution with the House clerk known as a motion to vacate, which was so successfully engineered to oust former speaker McCarthy. Assuming that all 213 Democrats in the House will vote and they pick up either two or more votes from the Republican side the GOP could lose effective control of the policy agenda, or even loss of control of the House.
While Greene did not force the resolution to be taken up immediately and Congress is currently on a two-week recess she has let it be known “we’ve started the clock to start the process to elect a new speaker.”
The mere mention that potentially such chaotic maneuvering could result in loss of the House is enough to send shivers into the spines of House veterans, but it reflects the degree to which our democratic functions of governing have been practically eviscerated by the obstinance with which the divisions among the party in power have opened the door for a historical reorganization of policy and process.
The potential for ousting two Speakers within the six months would be something that Capitol Hill veterans would shudder to think of. The degree to which adherence to bipartisanship in the formulation and implementation of important legislation is a time-honored practice that allows for, if not speedy change, then at least steady progress.
Not only have we veered away from decorum and adherence to respect for differences and the need to work across the aisle in order to make even the most minimal progress but we have seemingly lost respect and insight into the huge role that compromise plays in our democratic structure. I worked on and with the Hill for over two decades and learned to appreciate the debate and give-and-take that was required in order to reach consensus.
My Capitol Hill experience allowed me to witness both the difficulty of negotiating difficult decisions and the need to allow room for realizing when to exercise creativity that allows for reaching consensus that is not optimal but acceptable. There is always time to fight another day.
I would like to offer two instances where I have found courage to prevail on potentially critical policy making and even though I am writing from the left, both examples involved key Republican senators.
On March 25, 1986, an amendment to the Constitution calling for a mandatory balanced federal budget was being debated on the Senate floor under the guise of Senate Joint Resolution 225. The proposed resolution would require passage by two-thirds of the Senate. Oregon Senator Mark Hatfield, chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, cast a vote in opposition to the legislation, the only Republican to do so and the legislation failed 66-34, falling one vote short of the two-thirds needed.
At the time, I was budget counsel to Senator Jim Sasser (D-Tenn.) on the Senate Budget Committee, and I had not been able to persuade my boss to vote against the legislation. However, as I sat on the floor and watched the vote fall short by one vote, I was overtaken by pride that took this important act of courage. As the senator was leaving the floor, I introduced myself, shook his hand, and told him while a Democrat I was awed by the courage he exercised that day. He looked me in the eyes and said “Thank you very much, that means a lot to me.”
The other instance I watched from afar, and it involved Arizona Senator John McCain, who cast the deciding vote against legislation that would have effectively repealed Obamacare. McCain explained that it was a matter of principle, and he objected to the process by which the bill made its way to the floor.
“We must now return to the correct way of legislating and send the bill back to committee, hold hearings, receive input from both sides of the aisle, heed the recommendations of nation’s governors, and produce a bill that finally delivers affordable health care for the American people,” he said. “We must do the hard work our citizens expect of us and deserve.”
Two profiles in courage where politics took a backseat to principle and process, the benchmarks for sound policy making. We need more examples of bipartisanship, compromise, and consensus rather than political saber rattling. The need for profiles in courage is needed now more than ever.