How Do You Solve a Problem Like the Speaker?

A path forward from the dysfunction of the House.

At 4:42 pm ET today, Tuesday October 3, the House of Representatives approved H. Res. 757, which removed Rep. Kevin McCarthy from his position as speaker. The position remains vacant – and the business of the House at a standstill – until the House elects a new speaker. 

This is the very first time this has happened. The only previous such vote, taken over 100 years ago, failed. More recently, Rep. John Boehner resigned his speakership and retired from Congress in October 2015 ahead of a likely House vote to eject him from the office. Some of the political dynamics of eight years ago are in play again now. In both cases, the speaker faced opposition from an extremist faction in the Republican Party that had insisted that the House extract budgetary and social policy concessions from a Democratic administration before giving approval to raise the debt ceiling or pass a continuing resolution to avert a government shutdown.

In the current iteration of the drama, Rep. Matt Gaetz initiated the process for McCarthy’s removal on Monday October 2 by filing a privileged motion to vacate, which required a vote within two legislative days. Eight Republican members joined all Democratic members in voting to remove McCarthy, leaving a final tally of 216-210. In addition to Gaetz, the Republicans included Reps. Andy Biggs, Ken Buck, Tim Burchett, Eli Crane, Bob Good, Nancy Mace and Matt Rosendale.

It is the long-standing tradition in House speaker elections that members of the minority party vote exclusively for the leader of their own party, leaving it to the members of the majority party to decide among themselves who the speaker will be. At the beginning of the current Congress in January, it took 15 ballots before McCarthy secured sufficient support from his own party to win the post. The voting was so difficult in part because the Republican majority in the 118th Congress is so slim – 221 members to the Democrats’ 212, with two vacancies. While the Democratic leader, Hakeem Jeffries, consistently drew about 49 percent of the vote, rivals to McCarthy kept his share below 47 percent until the 12th ballot.

In advance of today’s vote on the resolution to vacate, speculation was rife as to whether House Democrats, wary of an extreme Republican displacing McCarthy as speaker, would provide sufficient votes to defeat it. On Tuesday morning, after a series of interviews, the Washington Post presented a list of reasons why House Democrats would be disinclined to defend McCarthy’s speakership:

• McCarthy didn’t vote to certify the election on Jan. 6, 2021. The attack on the U.S. Capitol is still raw on Capitol Hill, and Democrats will never forgive McCarthy for voting against certification after the mob was cleared from the building. 

• McCarthy said former president Donald Trump was responsible for the Jan. 6 riot — and then, a few weeks later, traveled to Mar-a-Lago and took an infamous picture with Trump with their thumbs up. Democrats are still furious about the incident, which helped revive Trump politically and whitewash the severity of his role on Jan. 6. 

• McCarthy worked against the creation of the Jan. 6 select committee, which Democrats viewed as an attempt to protect Trump. 

• McCarthy gave the Jan. 6 security footage to since-fired television host Tucker Carlson without releasing it to news outlets. 

• McCarthy delivered votes for the Cares Act — a $2.2 trillion coronavirus relief bill passed in 2020 and signed by Trump — and later became highly critical of pandemic relief legislation.

• He worked with Democrats to help put together the microchips manufacturing bill last year and then whipped his party to vote against it.

• McCarthy backed out of a spending agreement he made with President Biden as part of a deal to lift the debt limit less than two weeks after Biden signed the law in an attempt to placate the furious conservatives in his conference. Democrats on the House floor on Saturday chanted, “Keep your word!”

• McCarthy said in August that he would hold a vote on the House floor to open an impeachment inquiry against Biden. In September, on the first day back from summer recess, McCarthy opened an impeachment inquiry and did not hold such a vote. 

• On Saturday morning, McCarthy didn’t give lawmakers 72 hours to read the short-term spending bill to keep the government open despite House rules. Republicans argued that it was an amendment and not a full bill so the 72-hour rule didn’t apply. But Democrats were given just minutes to read it and vote on it despite asking Republican leadership for more time. (Democrats deployed stalling tactics to get about two hours to read and discuss the bill.)

• On Sunday, McCarthy went on CBS’s “Face the Nation” and charged Democrats with wanting a shutdown. That infuriated Democrats, who voted nearly unanimously for the government spending bill when fewer than half of Republicans did. 

McCarthy having announced today that he would not run again, the race for the next speaker is wide open. The House Republicans have planned a speaker candidate forum for Tuesday October 10 and a speaker election for the following day. Will one of McCarthy’s earlier rivals – perhaps Jim Jordan, Andy Biggs, or Byron Donalds – secure sufficient all-Republican support? I believe the Democrats can and should exert their voting power to elevate someone better.

The Problem Solvers Caucus is “an independent member-driven group in Congress, comprised of representatives from across the country – equally divided between Democrats and Republicans – committed to finding common ground on many of the key issues facing the nation.” Its 64 members, led by the group’s executive council, have come together to craft and endorse numerous pieces of legislation and frameworks for bipartisan solutions. Notably, the Problem Solvers Caucus advocated energetically for compromise solutions to the standoff over the debt ceiling last spring and to avert the shutdown of the government last month.

The Problem Solvers Caucus represents the centrist balance of power in the House of Representatives. The Democratic Party, holding nearly half of the votes in the House, could bring stability to the institution and a real path forward for legislation in the 118th Congress by elevating a decent and sensible Republican colleague to the speakership. 

Given that the Republican Party holds the actual majority in the House, it would make sense for a broad coalition between the Democratic Party and the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus to elevate to the speakership the group’s Republican co-chair, Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania. Below is Rep. Fitzpatrick’s bio from the Problem Solvers Caucus webpage.

Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick

For 14 years prior to representing his hometown of Pennsylvania's First Congressional District, Brian Fitzpatrick served our nation both as an FBI Special Agent and Federal Prosecutor, fighting both domestic and international political corruption, and supporting global counterterrorism and counterintelligence efforts – including being embedded with U.S. Special Forces as part Operation Iraqi Freedom. 

Working to promote freedom and democracy at home and abroad, Brian also served as National Director for the FBI’s Campaign Finance and Election Crimes Enforcement Program and as a National Supervisor for the FBI’s Public Corruption Unit at FBI Headquarters, where he was recognized as an expert in restoring integrity to governmental institutions.

In the 118th Congress, Congressman Fitzpatrick sits on the Ways and Means Committee and House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. In addition, he co-chairs the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus and Congressional Ukraine Caucus, while also serving on the Bipartisan Addiction and Mental Health Task Force and NATO Parliamentary Assembly. 

Congressman Fitzpatrick is a licensed attorney, a Certified Public Accountant (CPA) and a Certified Emergency Medical Technician (EMT).