The contested Speaker vote made for compelling television for a certain kind of political junkie. The hours of coverage, camera work that showed members of the House milling around, cajoling, joking and chatting with each other, speeches in support of the various candidates, roll call votes that allowed viewers to see closeups of almost all members and, of course, the periodic shots of a hapless and lost looking George Santos, were all fascinating for those with a deep interest in congress. The only thing that could have made it better would have been if the members were wearing team jerseys-red for the Republicans and blue for the Democrats, perhaps with their name and district on the back.

The tension, sometimes coming close to physical altercations, negotiations behind closed doors and the need go to fifteen ballots before Kevin McCarthy secured the Speaker’s gavel was the kind of thing we rarely see on the floor on the House of Representatives. For these reasons, it is tempting to see this vote as something of seminal importance, but in fact it was the opposite. What some have described as a Civil War in the GOP is essentially a Seinfeld Civil War-because it is about nothing.

Any legislation that passes in the House must make it through the Democratic controlled Senate and be signed into law by the Democratic president. This means that if House Republicans are at all serious about addressing what they perceive to be the problems facing the country, they must come up with solutions that can garner at least some bipartisan support. There is nothing unusual about this as the Democratic controlled House faced a similar situation in 2019 and 2020.

During, and since, the midterm election, Republican leaders made it unmistakably clear that they are not interested in crafting compromise based legislation that could be turned into law. Instead, their focus will be on investigations. Among the likely targets of these investigations are Hunter Biden, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, the US withdrawal from Afghanistan, the January 6th Committee and possibly even impeachments of President Biden and Vice-President Harris for somewhat unspecified reasons. They will also pass bills that are almost purely performative, such as the massive cut to the IRS budget the House approved on Monday.

The question of whether or not the best use of the Republican majority is to engage in endless investigations based on far right conspiracy theories was not disputed between the initial opponents and supporters of Kevin McCarthy. Similarly, neither faction advocated for a policy of passing legislation that could make it through the senate and be signed into law by the President.

The spectacle of the hard-fought battle for the Speakership was so unusual and dramatic that it is easy to overlook just how low the stakes were. In order to become Speaker, Kevin McCarthy had to make a series of agreements that substantially reduced the formal powers of that office and will make it harder for him to assert control over the House or even of his GOP caucus, but that was going to be the case regardless of who became Speaker or how many votes it took to get there.

Given the very slim majority the Republicans won in the midterm election and their failure to develop anything approaching a cohesive legislative agenda, passing meaningful legislation in the House, even if was not going to get through the senate anyway, was going to be a very difficult task regardless of the rules around who can call for a vote on a piece of legislation or propose an amendment to that legislation.

Kevin McCarthy’s inability to easily become Speaker, as recent precedent suggests should have happened, is not due to a major rift in the GOP or an attempt by hardline MAGA supporters to wrest control from more moderate forces-after all Trump himself was actively supporting McCarthy. The resistance to McCarthy’s bid to become speaker had two major sources. First, many members of the House, from both parties, simply do not like McCarthy who has not made a lot of friends in his decade in Congress. Second, the Republican’s disappointing showing in the midterm elections did not enamor McCarthy to his Republican colleagues. When the long-promised red wave turned out to be more like a pink ripple, Republicans naturally sought somewhere to lay the blame. Blaming McCarthy was easier than recognizing that overturning Roe v. Wade and lingering loyalty to Donald Trump were not great electoral strategies.

The Speaker’s vote was personal, pitting one not very popular right-wing Trump apologizing congressman against a series of even less popular right-wing Trump apologizing congressman. The stakes were low enough that opponents of McCarthy could drag the process out and keep demanding more because they had so little to lose. McCarthy ultimately won and when it comes to legislation, will use his Speakership to do, well, nothing.

Photo: cc/Trong Khiem Nguyen

Lincoln Mitchell