McCarthy Is Our First Ceremonial House Speaker
For the next two years, the House will be run by a rump caucus of the Republican conference.
by David Catron
January 10, 2023, 10:24 PM
When House clerk Cheryl Johnson declared at 12:38 a.m. Saturday morning, “The Honorable Kevin McCarthy of the state of California, having received a majority of the votes cast, is duly elected speaker of the House of Representatives,” a lot of Republicans breathed a sigh of relief. But the bargain McCarthy was forced to make with a rump caucus of the GOP conference means that his ultimate election on the 15th ballot was, at best, a pyrrhic victory.
Later that morning, a key leader of the rump caucus, Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.), tweeted this: “The juice was worth the squeeze – we fought for and secured agreement on major reforms ending the unacceptable status quo in Washington.” Sadly, they secured nothing of the sort. With some exceptions, the concessions extorted from McCarthy are meaningless while the Democrats control the Senate and the White House. Even worse, they are clearly meant to render the speaker virtually powerless. As Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) told CNN:
The construct of these rules concessions functionally turn the speakership into a ceremonial position … If my colleagues get what they want for McCarthy, the chairman of the freedom caucus will actually be more important than the speaker of the House. You will have to live the entirety of the speakership in a straitjacket, constructed by these rules that we[’]re working on now.more
https://spectator.org/mccarthy-is-our-first-ceremonial-house-speaker/
