As I write this, the U.S. House of Representatives is struggling through chaos not seen since the days of the Civil War.
Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, a California Republican, has lost 11 straight votes to become Speaker of the House, a vote that usually is a formality for the head of the majority party.
Perhaps that has changed by the time you read this, but as of now, 20-some Republican members of the Freedom Caucus refuse to vote for McCarthy.
With a very slim majority in the House, McCarthy can only afford to lose four votes. It appears that even after making all sorts of concessions to his opponents, at least five “Never Kevin” votes are holdouts that could keep him from the job he’s wanted for years.
Democrats are united under their party’s leader, U.S. Rep. Hakeem Jeffries of New York. The Democrats don’t have enough votes to win speaker, but at this point they have more than either McCarthy or the holdouts.
So where does that leave “the People’s House”?
The traditional means of running the U.S. House is broken. That old rule, or shall we call it the old back-room deal, was that party loyalty meant you would stand behind your leader, like ‘em or hate ‘em, and in return you’d (theoretically) get to help set the direction of the chamber controlled with an iron fist by your party’s leadership.
If you stuck together, your party could stick it to the opposition, shut out the other side and run the table.
That agreement has fractured. McCarthy is catering to the breakaway Republicans, hoping to eke out enough votes to take total control of the House (just as former Speaker Nancy Pelosi had total control until a few days ago, when she wielded the gavel, thanks to the discipline and unity she imposed on her sometimes often-divided party).
It doesn’t have to be this way.
Why doesn’t the center take power for once?
If reasonable and moderate members of both parties voted as a bipartisan bloc, they could defeat the fringes.
John Kasich, former Republican governor of Ohio, called for this a few days ago.
“Wouldn’t it be great for America if a block of Republicans and Democrats work together to pick a Speaker to run a coalition-style government? A coalition allows the House to create policy from the middle out rather than the extremes in,” Kasich tweeted.
Nancy Jacobson, head of a group called No Labels, calls this a “break the glass” moment for Democracy, when the broad center takes away power from the far right and far left.
“Electing a Speaker who can elicit support from the minority party could entirely transform the House of Representatives from a body dominated by the extremes, to one committed to common sense,” Jacobson wrote in The Hill.
Washington state set an example 10 years ago, when several more conservative Democrats in the state Senate joined with Republicans to form the Majority Coalition Caucus in Olympia. They distributed committee leadership to members of both parties. A moderate Democrat was elected Senate Majority Leader thanks to support from the Republican caucus.
The result was a unique bipartisan experiment in shared leadership. In our state that leans very heavily Democratic, it gave Republicans (who still make up at least four in ten Washingtonians, and are dominant in Lewis County) a say in governance for once.
The U.S. House of Representatives could do the same thing. In fact, the Ohio House of Representatives just elected moderate Republican Jason Stephens, with the help of Democrats, over the far-right leader of the GOP.
In Pennsylvania, a closely divided state House has chosen a moderate Democrat (nominated by two Republicans) to lead the chamber. Rep. Mark Rozzi has renounced his party label and pledges to lead as an independent.
A bipartisan coalition will run the Alaska state Senate. A Republican will be Senate president but a Democrat will chair the Rules Committee, which decides what bills come to the floor.
It’s possible to imagine a moderate at the head of the U.S. House or Representatives. He or she would lead a bipartisan coalition with strong committees chaired by moderate members of both parties who are in their positions to listen and allow input from both sides. This would be a marvel in our time of partisan division.
Insead of a partisan king (or queen) dominating the U.S. House, we could have actual representative democracy. The founders would be proud.
Would it be messy?
Of course.
Would it lead to loud complaints from extremes on both sides?
Sure.
Would it be a wonderful example of Americans getting along and solving problems together?
It actually might.
The far left and right fringe don’t need to run the show. The center is where most of us live, and it’s where our Congress just might go if they have the courage to be Americans first and partisans second.
After 11 deadlocked votes (and counting) in the U.S. House of Representatives, it’s worth a shot.
Brian Mittge can be reached at brianmittge@hotmail.com. (And yes, he would be saying the same thing if the far left were pulling this stunt on the leader of a thin Democratic majority.)
