Members of the House hang a party affiliation around their neck, and in the past, that was good enough to claim the majority and the spoils that go with it. But that only works with a two-party system. Otherwise, the majority of the House may require a coalition, should a minority party gain sufficient foothold to deny the majority to a single party.
Anybody notice that the Republicans, the putative majority in the House, can’t manage to elect a speaker? Maybe that’s because what we call the Republican Party is now composed of two groups, the moderate Republicans and the MAGA Republicans, and they are not in agreement. Not at all.
On the other side of the aisle, there are the Democrats, which to their credit, have managed to vote with unity for their leader, Hakeem Jeffries. Ironically, Jeffries has gotten the most votes in the last couple speaker votes, which under other circumstances might be sufficient to make him speaker, but not under House rules which require a majority vote of the members present. He’s fallen short of that because the Dems lack sufficient numbers to constitute a majority.
Then again, even if the Democrats have demonstrated greater cohesion than the Reps, they aren’t without their conflicts as well. The Squad, busy on the protest circuit at the moment to inflame hatred of Israel and bolster the “resistance” of raping, kidnapping and murdering women, children and the elderly, don’t take the same views as the rest of the Democrats on a great many issues. If they got the chance to Matt Gaetz their speaker, would they? The Magic 8-Ball says it could happen.
Assuming you’re not an anarchist, it’s critical to the functioning of our government to have a working House of Representatives. And without a Speaker, it won’t work. And if it won’t work, there can be no appropriations to fund whatever needs funding. It holds the purse strings, like it or not. Even if the Reps get themselves together enough to elect a seat filler so that bills can be voted, will the speaker be anything more than a figurehead, a place filler, for lack of an individual in whom the conference holds sufficient trust and respect to call leader?
While all the members of the House with an R after their name might still be trying to convince themselves that they are one party, they can’t fool the rest of us. The differences are clear as day. As long as the groups stick to a commitment to be themselves, they will not be able to find a speaker with staying power. They can continue to torture themselves and the country, or they can face the truth, split and take care of the divorce details necessary for ushering in a three-party system.
I say, bring on the lawyers!
Historically, our political parties have split and reinvented themselves. We have had third parties with hip names like the Know Nothings or Bull Moose, and have returned to the old names even as the nature of the parties reversed over time. So what’s the big deal about another schism happening before our eyes? Is it enough that the “Freedom Caucus” folks put an R after their name while the rest of the conference is expose to having their R called Rinos? Do moderate Republicans have far more in common with moderate Democrats than with the election deniers and insurrection apologists?
At the moment, the Republican inability to elect a speaker is a window into their ideological chaos created by the election of a handful of nutjobs and a not insignificant number of representatives who will bow to Trump until they know it’s safe to feign conservatism again. Is it time to end the charade and split the Republican Party into its components, the MAGAs, the conservatives and the weaselly cowards?
Is it time to stop pretending we have a two-party system and let the coalitions build as they may?
*Tuesday Talk rules apply.
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A viable third party may help reign in the extremes and keep them from dictating policy in exchange for votes.
Which is why it will never happen.
What would happen in the next election? Would the moderate Republicans run candidates against the MAGA republicans in each district? If the Democrats remained nominally united (one party) they would take all (or most) of the districts as the two Republican parties split the conservative vote.
In Canada we have seen splits on the right that have resulted in a centrist party being elected, once with a left wing party as the official opposition.
My preference is proportional representation. Important minority viewpoints get representation (albeit modest), and Representatives would have to learn to collaborate or become irrelevant.
Maybe the Know Nothings are back? History repeating and all that?
See further moderately relevant examples at “(I), But Caucuses With Democrats” in the Senate.
But if they split – who keeps the elephant?
Here in the flats, we have had three Republican factions for years. Democrats regularly register to vote Republican in the primaries so they can nominate the craziest Republican, with a view to subsequently defeating them in the general election. Sometimes it backfires, and we end up with a nut in state-level office.
“Is it time to stop pretending we have a two-party system and let the coalitions build as they may?”
Well, yes, that would be wonderful, but…Over the last 40 years, it has appeared that the only political goal all members of the donor class can rally around is to stop any progress on energy policy and other regulations that might reign in the negative impacts of the worst excesses of capitalism. If that perception is correct, then one can predict the dysfunction will continue. In fact, I can imagine the lack of a functioning congress is perceived as more a feature than a bug by many plutocrats.
Living in a state where over 85 percent of the land is federally owned and subject to all the regulations – from sublime to ridiculous – that implies, having a dysfunctional Congress is definitely a feature, not a bug
As if to prove your point, Emmer is the new Rep nominee and the Trumpkins (and Trump) hate him because he wasn’t an election denier. From what I’m hearing, he’s down 26 votes. There is no Republican majority. There is no one party with a majority of the House. And from all appearances, there is no one acceptable to the coalition of Republicans and MAGAs, so there will be no speaker.
Whether that’s a bug or feature is another matter, but if you don’t want to default and want to fund Ukraine and Israel, this is a problem.
[Ed. Note: Emmer bailed already.]
Does America have the feature where If a government can’t govern and a certain vote is called it goes to immediate election. I think in Australia its called a double dissolution vote.
But in my experience with NZ and Australia when a government is leading from a minority, if the minority is not letting the majority run the government things tend to fall apart quickly and If the minority fuss too much people will vote 2 party even if they dislike both parties, Governed by a party you disagree with being seen as better then the government accomplishing nothing.
Nope. We’re stuck waiting for the Ds and the Rs (in all their many flavors) to sort things out, come hell or high water. In a sense, the Trumpettes have done a bang up job stress testing our democracy. Unfortunately, it has real world consequences for everyone, including their constituents, that they seem not to care about.
As far as having third or more parties, I wouldn’t mind but so far the choices have been somewhat lackluster. Trumpettes on the right, the Green party on the left, the Libertarian party on some third axis, and Ralph Nader somewhere in outer space.
I am a Proud Member of the Gridlock Party.