The House GOP has struggled to unite behind a speaker after Kevin McCarthy’s historic ouster. There are several reasons for this.
House Republicans tried and failed to elect a speaker after a tumultuous two weeks that saw the previous leader ousted by his own party, the House of Representatives all but shuttered, and the Republican conference in “chaos,” as one member put it.
Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), the second GOP speaker nominee in two weeks, fell short of election in a first-round floor vote on Oct. 17 as 20 fellow Republicans refused to back his nomination.
Speaker elections are normally a matter of routine. Why has it taken House Republicans so much time and so much anxiety to accomplish the very first task of the majority?
The answer has to do with the numbers game that is the U.S. Congress, the temperament of the Republican Party, and the most basic element in any form of leadership: trust.
Razor-Thin Majority
Republicans have a nine-seat advantage in the House. It’s not the smallest lead in history, but it means just five Republicans can block anything the majority tries to do. And that’s happened several times.
Historically, Congress has had wild swings of momentum from one election cycle to the next, flipping dozens of seats from red to blue and vice versa. Because of that, the advantage enjoyed by the majority party has typically been a bit larger.
The last six times the GOP controlled the House, the average margin was 40 seats. For Democrats, the average lead was 45 seats over a similar period of time. With that many votes to spare, it’s easier to isolate the most liberal or most conservative members. With a small majority, it’s nearly impossible.
“The problem is they need 20 more Republican votes,” former speaker Newt Gingrich, a contributor of the publication, told The Epoch Times. “With 20 more Republican votes, you can afford to have eight or nine people act crazy. But when you’re down to four or five, it’s really difficult.”
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