If he could rewind the day, Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., probably would not have had his belongings moved into the U.S. Capitol’s ornate speaker’s office or had his website proclaim him speaker-elect on Monday.
At this writing, I’m guessing he’ll be confirmed as House speaker — eventually — but the optics of him physically assuming such an outcome before even the first votes were cast on Tuesday morning were damaging.
Lesson No. 1: People don’t like presumptuousness.
IT ALSO didn’t help that just minutes before the first vote, McCarthy had corralled his caucus telling them he deserved the leadership post.
This is when a sense of humility would have been the better tack.
Lesson No. 2: People who give airs of entitlement, stink.
AS OF THURSDAY evening, a gang of ultra-right Republicans remained in control of blocking McCarthy’s path to being elected speaker.
Republicans have 222 seats in the House; Democrats 212. McCarthy needs 218 votes to become speaker. His highest tally so far is 203. He has lost support with each of the successive 10 votes held over three days.
McCarthy has enabled GOP opponents to feel so emboldened because in his quest for their support he has acquiesced to many of their demands, including:
• Making it incredibly easy to oust the speaker. Current rules require a majority of representatives to force a vote for a new speaker. Early this week, McCarthy agreed to the demand of members of the far-right Freedom Caucus that as few as five could request a vote. On Thursday, McCarthy lowered the bar to a single member.
• The right-wing radicals are also insisting on assignments to key committees typically reserved for those who have proven expertise, or, sadly, are good at raising campaign donations. In November, he promised the firebrand Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., that he would restore her appointment to the powerful House Oversight committee in return for her current support. In February, Democrats stripped Greene of her committee assignments in response to her spreading conspiracy theories encouraging domestic terrorism and antisemitism.
On Wednesday, McCarthy said he will give two representatives who belong to the Freedom Caucus group seats on the influential Rules Committee.
• Other ultimatums include holding an up-or-down vote on a constitutional amendment limiting House members to three terms.
On Wednesday, Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., an orchestrator of the demands, said McCarthy is now a “sell-out,” and that no amount of concessions is going to win his support.
As these arsonists have proved, they are there to destroy democracy, not build it.
