The hotly debated House Speaker votes that have been occurring over the last few days leaves many hopeful about the actual state of our Congress. There are detractors who say that holding up the vote by not just going along to get along by voting for Kevin McCarthy (R, California) the frontrunner, is obstructionist. In reality, this debate and “hold up” is a positive sign, at least concerning the temperature of things in the House of Representatives.
Here are the potential scenarios of a McCarthy Speakership:
The Good - The tyranny of the majority is getting a strong message from pro liberty and pro freedom House members that are against McCarthy being installed as speaker. In short, these are representatives who are pro “drain the swamp”. That means more pro Second Amendment.
The Bad - McCarthy may still get voted in, if enough concessions are made and groveling occurs. It’s through whatever wheeling and dealing McCarthy is able to achieve that could make or break this for him.
The Ugly - Should McCarthy take the Speaker of the House position, there’s a chance that he’ll lash out against pro liberty representatives and show his true colors as the Californian he is.
The high point to all of this is that the resistance to establishment politics from within the GOP is an important part of discourse that has just not been occurring for decades. Having splinters of Republican Representatives stand up for actual conservative ideals is being pitched as radical, but in reality this conflict is something that’s been lacking in the partisan rubber stamping ways we’re accustomed to. In short, this friction is actually good for business. The business of protecting the American people’s best interests.
McCarthy may have conceded to some of the GOP member’s requests, but not quite enough. It seems that if he were to be Speaker, he wants as much power as possible. One of the things that he appears to be a stalwart opponent of is term limits. The sweet irony of the term limit debate is do members of Congress who are in favor of term limits stay in Congress as long as possible in their quest to see the policy implemented?
Other areas that GOP members would want to see improvement include fiscal responsibility and the stopping of lumping in of funding procurement for pet projects in bills unrelated to the topic at hand.
This splintering of the GOP could be akin to the former Tea Party. We all know what happened to the Tea Party, it got squished by establishment “conservatives”. But the essence and spirit of much of what the Tea Party stood for is very alive in the ideals of these so-called “holdouts”.
Some very important grievances were brought up by Representative Matt Gaetz (R, Florida):
“I want the country to know. The principal goal of the people who are objecting to Mr. McCarthy on the republican side is we don't believe the rules of this place unlock the potential of all of the members to be able to cast votes on individual bills and to offer amendments on appropriations acts, and we're also concerned about spending that has ballooned our debt and borrowed against the future generations of American citizens. He said ‘why do you want to be the oversight and judiciary committee and never submit your names object the rules committee or appropriations committee? Gosh, if you get a list of folks willing to come early on fly-in days for rules and folks who are willing to take on the extra burden of our appropriators who work so hard, then I’ll certainly work to do that.’ We endeavored in good faith and pure good date to create that list -- good faith to create that list. What did Mr. McCarthy do? He went out to the media and came to the members of the conference, see, they just want jobs for themselves. That is not pure. Selflessness. Selflessness is not selling shares of yourself to the lobby core and then doing their bidding at the expense of the American people. But there certainly is intent. It's an intent driven almost exclusively by personal ambition. That ambition is paralyzing the House now.
Madam Clerk, at this time there is great trust in Mr. Jordan, that's why I am nominating him. There is insufficient trust in Kevin McCarthy. There are some who have been objecting to Mr. McCarthy who are working on, perhaps changes to the rules, changes to circumstance, that would convert the speakership from the great awesome powerful position it is now to more of a ceremonial position. Almost akin to the speaker in the British House of Commons. I refer to it previously as a straitjacket that some of us were trying to construct with better rules and better personnel because we do not trust Mr. McCarthy with power. Because we know who he will use it for. We are concerned it will not be for the American people. We trust Jim Jordan. I nominate him…”
How these chips are going to ultimately fall, we still don’t know. At the time of this writing, McCarthy has had a waning and waxing amount of support, and it’s possible he’ll pull off the securing of the seat. The power structure has shifted though, and should McCarthy find himself wielding the gavel, he knows that he’ll have opposition towards pandering to the left. Should McCarthy get evicted from the Speaker’s office, as he should not have started his squat there prior to the 12+ votes for the position that already occurred, real work can get done in the conservative sphere. This means securing Second Amendment liberties and the protection of rights.
Regardless of the outcome, we can hope that this is just a small peek into what the rest of Biden’s time at the Resolute Desk might look like. House members who are willing to push back against the establishment and stall any furtherance of swamp growth. We could possibly see a renewed push to stave off law proposals that limit the Second Amendment, as well as see committees that will take our fundamental rights seriously.
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