
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">It took 15 ballots for House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy to achieve his life’s ambition – to become Speaker of the House of Representatives. ; If media reports are accurate, it is the second-highest number of ballots in American history – second only to the two-month-long 133 ballots in 1856.</p>



<p class="wp-block-paragraph">The predominant media narrative was that it was “chaotic.” ; Others used words like “disaster,” … “dysfunctional,” … “embarrassing.” ; Democrats on the other side of the aisle used the occasion to malign the GOP as a party in “disarray.” ; They predicted that nothing could get done because Republicans were incapable of governing. ; ;</p>



<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Because of the difficulty in securing the Speaker’s chair, many predicted that McCarthy would be a weak Speaker – some even saying the weakest in American history. (Is that necessarily bad?)</p>



<p class="wp-block-paragraph">In the broadest of brush strokes, Democrats and their media cronies described the prolonged process as a failure of democracy. They lamented that a relatively small group of legislators could prevent a first-round victory for McCarthy. ; They called it hostage taking … and even another insurrection.</p>



<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Despite all the hyperbolic Draconian warnings, I not only believe that the prolonged process to elect a speaker will NOT have any impact on the conduct of the legislative process going forward. ; For sure, the late-night voting was dramatic – and movie-style cliffhanger. ; When folks talk about the elections of House Speakers, this one will be notable – but how often do we speak about past House Speaker elections? ; That is about how often we will speak about this one. ; It is one of those tempests in a teapot.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>The Face of Autocracy</strong></h2>



<p class="wp-block-paragraph">The person who best personified the idea that the 20 holdout Republicans were anti-democratic was “Morning Joe” professor/panelist Eddie Glaude. ; He found it inconceivable that a small group of legislators could hold up the work of Congress by not giving their votes to the establishment’s anointed one. ; They are operating as authoritarians, he proclaimed.</p>



<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Glaude argued that what we witnessed was an assault on the American democracy. ; Of course, Glaude is a left-wing autocrat – as are most hardcore left-wingers. ; He favors consolidating power in a federal government run by and elite (left-wing) establishment. ; He admires the “strong leadership” of former Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the lockstep dogmatic votes of the Democrat House Caucus. ; That is what he calls “democracy”.</p>



<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Glaude is not alone in his view. ; That was the narrative all over the left-wing media echo chamber. ; Submission to powerful leadership is democracy and expression of opposition is autocracy. If you find Glaude’s ass-backwards logic compelling, your DNA is missing its democracy gene. ;</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>The Face of Democracy</strong></h2>



<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Every American should be thankful for whatever concessions the 20 holdouts gained. ; America will be better for it. ; Weakening the Speaker’s power is a good thing. ; The reforms they got are mostly good democratic principles – such as allowing amendments to bills on the floor … preventing the Speaker from unilaterally preventing legislation from being voted on … diversity of political opinions on the most important committees … having the budget voted on by category instead of one humongous so-called “omnibus” bill … and that bills cannot be voted in less than 72 hours after they are given to the members, allowing time to read them … congressional oversight of intelligence and law enforcement functions (and other agencies).</p>



<p class="wp-block-paragraph">One issue that the left claims will cripple McCarthy’s leadership is the provision that one member can move to “vacate the chair” – and if passed, the Speaker can be removed. ; It would still require a vote of the entire House to remove the speaker &#8212; and it only changes the number from 3 to 1 member compelling a vote.</p>



<p class="wp-block-paragraph">What the holdouts were asking for was a return to “regular order—for the house to operate in a more democratic fashion as it was intended to do by the Founders. ; That was the way it worked for most of American history – until the political left (Democrats and Republicans) eroded the democratic features in favor of a concentration of power in fewer and fewer hands.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>McCarthy Deserves the Job 90 percent of Republican Members Support Him</strong></h2>



<p class="wp-block-paragraph">By way of disclosure, those who have read my past commentaries know that I was opposed to Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s elevation to speaker. ; I opined that he lacked charisma and strategic skills to be effective in that role. ; Any doubt of his ineffectiveness should be dismissed by the situation in which he found himself – need 15 ballots. ; But that is a moot point now. ; He is the Speaker.</p>



<p class="wp-block-paragraph">And as far as the claim that he had 90 percent of the vote needed to be elected Speaker, the truth is that ALL members vote – and McCarthy had only 46 percent of the necessary vote in the initial ballots. ; ;</p>



<p class="wp-block-paragraph">And that raises an interesting point. ; We all heard the hyperbolic claims that the lack of an operating Congress is a disaster. ; It undermines our nation&#8217;s security. ; It fails to serve the critical needs of the people. Oh &#8230; the calamity of it all. ; If it was the disaster and eminent danger for the nation, why didn’t democrats end it – save the nation from their alarm? ; Just one Democrat – fearing for the fate of the Republic – could have crossed over and ended the problem. ; But noooo. ; They preferred to let their described threat to America continue unabated – because they either put party ahead of the nation or they knew their clams were nothing by bovine byproduct.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-a-more-chaotic-house"><strong>A More Chaotic House</strong></h2>



<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Democrats maybe be correct that things may not operate as smoothly as they have in the past when all the power rested in the dear leader. ; We see examples of well-oiled legislative machinery in other nations. ; There is no disruption or chaos in the legislatures of … Russia … China … North Korea …Iran. … Cuba. ; Those are the models the American left seems to prefer – strong leadership and compliant members. ; That is not the model small-d democrats (conservatives) prefer. ; ; ; ; ;</p>



<p class="wp-block-paragraph">The prolonged election of the Speaker was not a crisis. ; It was not a disaster.  ; And if it was chaos … it was good chaos (to paraphrase the late Congressman John Lewis).</p>



<p class="wp-block-paragraph">So, there ‘tis.</p>

A Few Observations on the Speaker Vote
