Former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) may very well have made promises to certain members behind closed doors that he later broke. At the very least, enough of his colleagues felt that way and voted to oust him from leadership Tuesday afternoon.
That said, objectively, McCarthy ran a more open and egalitarian House than any of his predecessors. For conservatives or Democrats who complain about their lack of ability to bring bills to the floor, or often amendments to bills brought to the floor by leadership, McCarthy’s defeat only assures it will be harder for them to take those legislative actions in the future.
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“As the only still serving and co-author and co-sponsor of the motion to vacate Speaker Boehner, I can tell you this motion to vacate is a terrible idea,” Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) said on the House floor before Tuesday’s vote. “As the only member who’s serving here who took every chance to vote against Speaker Boehner and to vote against Speaker Ryan, I can tell you that this chamber has been run better, more conservatively, and more transparently under Mr. McCarthy than any other speaker that I have served under.”
“Regular order is at odds with predetermined outcomes,” Massie continued. “Yet the speaker is being accused of not holding to regular order and predetermined outcomes at the same time. It is not possible. You cannot be for both at the same time.”
“We’ve had over 500 amendments,” Massie concluded. “Listen, this is a referendum on this institution. We have tried regular order. Speaker McCarthy has tried regular order. If regular order fails today, if you vacate the speaker, nobody is going to try that again. This institution will fail.”
Before McCarthy, speakers from both parties — Nancy Pelosi, John Boehner, and Paul Ryan — ruled with an iron fist, locking in deals behind closed doors and cementing those deals by banning all amendments on the House floor.
McCarthy changed all that, letting members from both parties bring bills to the floor and offer amendments.
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Whatever one thinks of McCarthy’s other liabilities, including his gratuitous swipes at Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL), he at least ran an open floor.
Now that he has been defeated by a self-serving rump of his party who is more concerned with television hits than governing, it is highly unlikely future speakers will ever return to regular order.