An Urgent Opportunity for Bipartisanship

The Democratic caucus and Republican Problem Solvers can restore the damaged House of Representatives.

On Tuesday October 3, all 208 House Democrats who were present (four were absent) joined eight House Republicans in approving H. Res. 757, which removed Kevin McCarthy from the speakership. Today we find ourselves on the eve of an election for McCarthy’s successor.

In an essay that same night one week ago, I proposed that in the forthcoming speaker election, House Democrats make common cause with decent and sensible House Republicans to elect someone who would be vastly superior to whomever the Republican conference, relying solely upon Republican votes, might choose. I return to this topic here.

The partisan makeup of the House of Representatives in the current 118th Congress is 221 Republicans to 212 Democrats, with two vacancies. Holding the majority in the House of Representatives is not merely an honorary formality. It is not only a matter of being able to elect a party member as speaker or even to hold majorities in the committees that write legislation and conduct investigations and hearings. As William Galston of the Brookings Institution noted in an essay that the organization published on its website on October 4, “Republicans have a numerical majority but not a governing majority. With a wafer-thin edge, a small fringe of the party can stall legislation it doesn’t like, force the rest of the party to accept poison-pill amendments as the price for their support, and — as we have seen — depose a Speaker who dares to cross them.”

The source of leverage for that extremist fringe was the reliable assumption that Democrats would not vote to retain McCarthy in office were the faction to move to take the speakership from him. The leader of the tiny most extreme fringe, Rep. Matt Gaetz, wielded this leverage again and again to manipulate McCarthy. Notably, after having said that an impeachment inquiry against President Biden ought not and would not go forward without a full authorizing vote of the House, McCarthy, deferring to the fringe, went ahead and launched one unilaterally. 

Similarly, after having reached a budget agreement with President Biden in the spring to avert a default on the national debt, McCarthy reneged on the deal and opened up the possibility of a government shutdown unless the Democratic Party agreed to extreme demands in exchange for a continuing resolution to fund the government past the start of the new fiscal year on October 1. At the last moment on September 30, McCarthy brought forth a continuing resolution that would fund the government through November 17. However, as a sop to the extremist faction, the otherwise “clean” temporary funding bill pointedly excluded support for Ukraine in its war with Russia. Unsatisfied with that concession and frustrated that McCarthy had not complied with other of the tiny faction’s demands, Gaetz initiated – and House Democrats supported – McCarthy’s removal.

Galston continued:

Under these circumstances, the better outcome is a coalition Speaker who would be a Republican elected pursuant to a formal bargain between Republicans and Democrats who are prepared to support such an arrangement. The bargain could include rules changes, shifts toward partisan parity in the composition of committees, and even a substantive agreement on a framework within which the appropriations process would proceed.

While there is precedent for such an arrangement at the state level, it would be a departure for the U.S. House of Representatives. But desperate times require innovation and may make it possible. The alternative is the continuation of a status quo that prevents the House from discharging its basic constitutional duties.

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Hakeem Jeffries is the Democratic leader in the House. At the time of the initial speaker election in January, in keeping with the consistent practice of minority parties, all Democratic members voted for him, all the while knowing that he would not win. On October 6, following McCarthy’s ejection, the Washington Post published an essay in which Jeffries spoke of a proposal similar to Galston’s, beginning as follows:

In recent days, Democrats have tried to show our colleagues in the Republican majority a way out of the dysfunction and rancor they have allowed to engulf the House. That path to a better place is still there for the taking.

Over the past several weeks, when it appeared likely that a motion to vacate the office of speaker was forthcoming, House Democrats repeatedly raised the issue of entering into a bipartisan governing coalition with our Republican counterparts, publicly as well as privately.

It was my sincere hope that House Democrats and more traditional Republicans would be able to reach an enlightened arrangement to end the chaos in the House, allowing us to work together to make life better for everyday Americans while protecting national security.

Regrettably, at every turn, House Republicans have categorically rejected making changes to the rules designed to accomplish two objectives: encourage bipartisan governance and undermine the ability of extremists to hold Congress hostage. Indeed, Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) publicly declared more than five hours before the motion to vacate was brought up for a vote that he would not work with House Democrats as a bipartisan coalition partner. That declaration mirrored the posture taken by House Republicans in the weeks leading up to the motion-to-vacate vote. It also ended the possibility of changing the House rules to facilitate a bipartisan governance structure.

With these opening words, Jeffries suggested that McCarthy might have kept his speakership – the Democratic caucus would have supported him – had he agreed to changes in the House rules that would have lent to the Democrats at least a measure of power in the operation of the House. 

Jeffries continued:

But what if [the House Republicans] pursued a different path and confronted the extremism that has spread unchecked on the Republican side of the aisle? When that step has been taken in good faith, we can proceed together to reform the rules of the House in a manner that permits us to govern in a pragmatic fashion.

The details would be subject to negotiation, though the principles are no secret: The House should be restructured to promote governance by consensus and facilitate up-or-down votes on bills that have strong bipartisan support. Under the current procedural landscape, a small handful of extreme members on the Rules Committee or in the House Republican conference can prevent common-sense legislation from ever seeing the light of day. That must change — perhaps in a manner consistent with bipartisan recommendations from the House Select Committee on the Modernization of Congress.

In short, the rules of the House should reflect the inescapable reality that Republicans are reliant on Democratic support to do the basic work of governing. A small band of extremists should not be capable of obstructing that cooperation.

I have no expectation that the Republican conference would take upon itself the task of confronting its extremist wing. It seems to me that this has to be a cooperative effort that decent and sensible members undertake together. The best way to launch coalition governance is to engage in coalition governance. And the very first step toward that would be to join together in elevating a decent and sensible Republican to the speakership.

In my essay one week ago I spoke of the Problem Solvers Caucus, a 64-member grouping of House members equally divided between Democrats and Republicans. I proposed that the Democratic caucus join with the Republican members of the Problem Solvers Caucus to elect the Republican co-chair, Brian Fitzpatrick. As I subsequently learned, Fitzpatrick and other Republican members were very angry that the Democrats declined to rescue McCarthy’s speakership. Indeed, on October 6, Politico reported that Republican members of the Problem Solvers Caucus complained that they offered to the Democrats a power-sharing arrangement in exchange for retaining McCarthy in power and that the Democrats rebuffed them:

In the hours and days before former Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s fall, members of the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus feverishly argued over how to prevent the first-ever successful vote to boot a House leader. The debate came to a head at a contentious sit-down Tuesday, just hours before the fateful vote.

At issue were potential changes to the House rules — including making it more difficult to oust a sitting speaker and putting an equal number of Democrats on the powerful Rules Committee — which would be granted in return for Democratic votes to bail out McCarthy. The negotiations were described by three people involved, who were granted anonymity to discuss private deliberations.

Sticking points: Ultimately, things didn’t work out: The roughly 30 Democrats in the Problem Solvers stuck with Jeffries Tuesday and voted to oust McCarthy.

To some members, it wasn’t clear how serious the discussions were. McCarthy and Jeffries never had a direct conversation about the proposal, according to one person familiar with the talks.

Yet others point out that the bipartisan group’s two chairs, Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.) and Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.), are each tight with their party's respective leaders and could implicitly negotiate a workable deal.

The Democrats in the group wanted McCarthy to postpone the voting for a day to allow for further negotiations, as well as a clearer promise that he would be willing to actually work across the aisle.

Republicans, meanwhile, believed Democrats were not negotiating in good faith and had already decided to oust the House GOP’s most prolific fundraiser and watch the party descend into chaos in the hopes that it would help them reclaim the majority next year.

Fitzpatrick said on Fox & Friends Friday morning that he had asked the group’s Democrats to vote present on a procedural vote, allowing Republicans to temporarily kill Rep. Matt Gaetz’s move against McCarthy. Gaetz (R-Fla.) would surely have tried again, he noted.

“That's all we were asking for, was time,” he said. “That's why so many Republicans in our group are very, very upset — and add me to that list.”

It is impossible for anyone at a distance to know who is recounting the events more accurately, Jeffries or Fitzpatrick. It really should not matter, though. The McCarthy speakership is over. The question now is how to proceed. 

The commonality of interest among the Democratic caucus and the Republicans in the Problem Solvers Caucus is absolutely clear. Whether it is the group's Republican co-chair Brian Fitzpatrick, Republican vice chair Dusty Johnson, Republican whip Don Bacon, or someone else, there is abundant opportunity through this election to advance the cause of decency and sense in the House by agreeing upon a principled Republican to take over as speaker. If only these potential coalition partners would seize it.