How the plan to save the House fell apart before it even started

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Thursday morning should have been the moment that Jim Jordan, a former championship college wrestler, finally tapped out. On Wednesday evening, some of the Republicans who had voted against his bid for House speaker had reported death threats. Mr Jordan lost even more support during the second round of voting than he did in the first.

Mr Jordan was supposed to take himself out of the running for the time being in an attempt to flip votes and, in the meantime, empower Speaker Pro Tempore Patrick McHenry so that the House could continue its business. Remember, the House has to pass either 12 individual spending bills or a continuing resolution to avoid a fast-approaching government shutdown. In addition, many House Republicans want to pass an aid package to Israel as it responds to a deadly attack from Hamas in Gaza.

But almost immediately, conservatives spat out the idea.

“We shouldn’t be setting this precedent or this will be the way we elect speakers from now on,” Rep Scott Perry of Pennsylvania, the chairman of the House Freedom Caucus that Mr Jordan founded, told The Independent. Mr Perry was part of the initial group that opposed Kevin McCarthy for speaker in January before he flipped after receiving concessions.

Rep Jim Banks of Indiana also excoriated the plan and blasted the idea of giving Mr McHenry more power.

“He doesn't represent what the majority of the body is looking for in a speaker,” he told The Independent. Rep Eli Crane of Arizona, one of the eight Republicans who torpedoed Mr McCarthy, soundly rejected it.

“I don’t like it, I want to see a newly elected speaker,” he told reporters, noting how it took Mr McCarthy 15 rounds to get the gavel. There are massive differences, of course, between the beginning of this Congress and now. The previous Congress had just passed a spending bill the month before, whereas the House must pass some kind of legislation to keep the government open by 17 November.

But the radicals and hardliners have refused to take no for an answer. The moment they had a chance to boot Mr McCarthy for committing the mortal sin of collaborating with Democrats to keep the government open, they ousted him. Once the House GOP conference put forward House Majority Steve Scalise, they pitched a fit to block him before they even held a vote until they got what they wanted and Mr Scalise removed himself from the race.

Democrats seemed receptive to working with Republicans to empower Mr McHenry, with Rep Eric Swalwell of California saying he’s in the “get s*** done” party and this would be a way of doing just that. Rep Jared Moskowitz, who despite being a Democrat worked as Gov Ron DeSantis’s director of emergency management, also expressed openness.

Unlike the radicals, who often see government as an impediment to progress, Democrats have shown themselves willing to work with Republicans to avert disaster even if they don’t like all of the legislation since they see government as a net positive and allowing the government to default on its debt or close its doors would impede programs they like.

Thus, they are far less likely to obstruct Republicans (but they do reserve the right to do so occasionally, like when they vacated Mr McCarthy).

But by Thursday afternoon, the plan was ultimately scuttled and Mr Jordan was expected to hold another vote. During a meeting in the basement of the Capitol, the defenestrated Mr McCarthy and Rep Matt Gaetz (R-FL), the man who filed the motion to vacate the chair, reportedly had a heated exchange, according to friend of Inside Washington Juliegrace Brufke at Axios. Both sides played down the dispute.

Rep Thomas Massie (R-KY) told The Independent it was important to have the meeting to shut the door on the idea of empowering the speaker pro tempore.

“As long as people think having a speaker pro tem with power is an option, they're less likely to converge on any candidate, whether it's Steve Scalise, Jim Jordan, or some other candidate,” he said. “So it was important to litigate that today and put it to rest and I think it was mostly put to rest.”

Of course, Mr Gaetz, who single-handedly broke the House, did not seem bothered about the consequences of his actions.

“Everybody's making this big deal out of the fact that we've burned the equivalent of four legislative days on all of this, but I mean, we spent like seven legislative days on post offices and procedural votes, for goodness sakes,” he said. “This is what it's supposed to be and it's not clean and it's not orderly, and the lobbyists and the special interests hate it.”

And Mr Gaetz’s words give away his cynicism and that of his entire coterie of objectors. They refused to recognise the fact they did not have enough votes to actually change the GOP the way they wanted to, but they had enough to obstruct.

And they will turn any attempt to force them to acknowledge reality into an opportunity to portray themselves as the persecuted victim. So they will continue to take the entire House hostage. And the fear of threats or revolt from their base means the rest of the House GOP will go along with it.