[ A huge number of his members have no idea what they’re doing.
Legislating is a skill—maybe even an art — for which it’s useful
for members to have experience with something beyond mouthing off and
posing for cheesy photos with their favorite firearms]
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SPEAKER MCCARTHY IS FEELING THE HEAT  
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Michelle Cottle
April 17, 2023
New York Times
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_ A huge number of his members have no idea what they’re doing.
Legislating is a skill—maybe even an art — for which it’s useful
for members to have experience with something beyond mouthing off and
posing for cheesy photos with their favorite firearms _

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, Kenny Holston/The New York Times

 

Pity poor Kevin McCarthy. Having sold his soul and torched his dignity
to win his dream gig, the fledgling speaker of the House is struggling
to find his groove.

Even as the House gears back up after recess, Mr. McCarthy is
having relationship
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key members of his own team. These notably include Steve Scalise, the
majority leader, and Jodey Arrington, who, as chairman of the Budget
Committee, is in charge of putting together Republicans’ hotly
anticipated spending proposal
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(Or, more accurately, their proposal for slashing spending.) The
speaker is said to have lost confidence in — and been privately
dumping on — both men, The Times reported
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(Mr. McCarthy has rejected that family fissures exist.)

Some Capitol Hill denizens suspect Mr. McCarthy remains disgruntled
about his messy speaker’s race, during which, The Times noted, Mr.
Arrington reportedly floated Mr. Scalise’s name for the top job.
Whatever their origins, such tensions risk exacerbating Republican
leaders’ struggles
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rally their fractious, scrawny majority around legislative
initiatives.

Indeed, the early report cards for this Congress have
been underwhelming
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prompting an unflattering
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of Mr. McCarthy’s tenure compared with those of past Republican
speakers such as Newt Gingrich and John Boehner. This conference has
managed to pass its top legislative priority, a sprawling energy
package that has a snowball’s chance of advancing through the
Senate. But, thanks to internecine squabbling, Republicans have had
to delay
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major measures they had aimed to address early on, including a border
security bill and a budget plan. Likewise, their orgy of
investigations into all things Biden has had trouble gaining traction.
Some Republicans have begun voicing concerns
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the conference’s overall focus.

These are high-stakes times not only for Mr. McCarthy but for many of
his team leaders as well. To which one can only say: Welcome to the
majority, fellas.

Being in charge is hard. Sure, life in the House majority means you
get to set the rules and shape the agenda for the chamber. But you
also are expected to occasionally get stuff done, which is way harder
than most folks realize.

Back in 2009, the minority leader at the time, Mr. Boehner — who by
then had endured a couple of spins through the majority-minority cycle
— stressed to me the burden of running things. “One of the great
shocks of 1994 was — we had won the majority, and no one in our
caucus had ever been in the majority — _no one_ realized how much
more work it is,” he recalled
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football off to a fullback, and he’s gotta _run _with it.”

And as most politicians can attest, it is easier to rally disparate
factions around saying “no” than to figure out something they will
all say “yes” to — especially when it comes to complex
legislation.

Mr. McCarthy is laboring under especially adverse conditions. It’s
tough enough that his majority is thinner than Fox News’s
journalistic credibility. Complicating matters, a huge number of his
members have never served in the majority before and have no idea what
they’re doing. Legislating is a skill — maybe even an art — for
which it’s useful for members to have experience with something
beyond mouthing off and posing
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their favorite
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Strictly speaking, it isn’t entirely Mr. McCarthy’s fault that his
conference is chock-full of MAGA chaos monkeys with zero interest in
legislating. But it is on him that, in scrounging up the votes last
winter to become speaker, he made all kinds of concessions to a cadre
of those wing nuts. He promised to give priority to their issues, like
refusing to raise the debt ceiling without forcing commensurate
spending cuts. And he gave them seats on influential committees that
increased their negotiating leverage and ability to make mischief. It
was as though Mr. McCarthy were trying to engineer the most
dysfunctional conference imaginable. Mission accomplished.

Further killing the conference’s vibe: Investigation-palooza has
been a bit of a flop so far. It’s not that the grand inquisitors on
the Oversight Committee and other panels aren’t working hard.
They’re issuing subpoenas, conducting interviews, scheduling
hearings and all the usual rigmarole. They just don’t yet have
anything much to show for all that effort.

The Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal
Government, helmed by the chronically belligerent Jim Jordan, has
drawn particular criticism
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especially after its first hearing
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in February. This, predictably, has made Mr. Jordan only more
determined than ever to find _someone_ in the anti-MAGA Deep State
to blame for _something_. He requested more funding for his work. He
pledged to send out a slew of new subpoenas. In recent weeks, he has
even begun meddling
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the Manhattan district attorney’s investigation into Donald
Trump’s porn-star payoff imbroglio. So much fury. So little
progress.

Some observers posit that the investigators are suffering from a lack
of focus
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say they just need time to adjust
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being in the majority. Still others have blamed staffing issues, turf
battles and even Mr. Jordan’s leadership style.

But clearly part of the problem is that Republican lawmakers
overinflated the expectations of their voters. During last year’s
midterms, the G.O.P. faithful were promised that a Republican-run
House would deliver smoking guns and White House officials in cuffs
— maybe even the president’s son
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The base wants those things right now, and it is in no mood to be
patient.

“All of us hear from constituents that they’re very anxious for
results,” Mike Johnson, a member of the Republican leadership, told
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recently. Last month, Fox News’s Jesse Watters channeled this
boiling anxiety into a glorious on-air meltdown
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“Make me feel better, guys. Tell me this is going somewhere. Can I
throw someone in prison? Can someone go to jail? Can someone get
fined?”

In Republicans’ defense, Mr. McCarthy’s predecessor, Nancy Pelosi,
made running the House look deceptively easy, even when dealing with
her own narrow majority. But Ms. Pelosi was a once-in-a-generation
leader with a rare gift for herding the cats. Mr. McCarthy and his
crew, by contrast, look more like the dog that caught the car.

This does not bode well for looming debates over crucial issues such
as raising the debt ceiling. The things House Republicans have shown
themselves adept at — stunts, standoffs and shutdowns — aren’t
all that useful for hammering out deals. McCarthy & Company appear to
be rolling into important negotiations with no clear direction beyond
thwarting the Democrats. This might delight the warriors in the
party’s base, but it would serve the American people poorly.

_[MICHELLE COTTLE is a member of the Times editorial board
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focusing on U.S. politics. She has covered Washington and politics
since the Clinton administration. @mcottle
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* Kevin McCarthy
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* GOP
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* MAGA
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* House GOP
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* Congress
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* House Loony Bin
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* Republican Party
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* Donald Trump
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* Legislating
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* legislation
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* Debt Ceiling
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* 2024 Elections
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