Kevin McCarthy's long, winding and virtuous road

It took Kevin McCarthy fifteen votes to become Speaker of the House of Representatives in the 118th Congress. He did not reach the threshold of 218 votes, which is the prerequisite for winning more than half of the House, but the 216 yeses, with the necessary abstentions, were sufficient.

Kevin McCarthy has made it this far by refusing to negotiate. He wanted to impose his platform, with his endorsements and his plan of action. The first vote, in which he only had the support of 203 congressmen, gave a clear indication that he was not going to get very far without greater effort. He faced a group willing and gutsy enough to make him swallow his pride, but McCarthy is also a tough negotiator. He held his position until the number of ballots needed was recuced to ten.

This vote may smell to McCarthy like that napalm-flooded hill did to Lt. Col. Kilgore, but it was a hard-fought, tremulous and fragile victory. All the media emphasis was on the fact that the Chamber's leadership has little content and that control is slipping through its fingers.

It has had to compromise on three major issues. The first of these is spending control. Joe Biden is beating all the spending records. Up until October alone, the spectacular spending spree had resulted in each American incurring a debt of more than $36,000. And yet he had not been able to pass the omnibus bill to the tune of 1.7 billion dollars. The first fight McCarthy is going to have to fight, with congressional Republicans as one man, is the new debt ceiling. The Freedom Caucus, which has organized the opposition and now maintains control of McCarthy's chairmanship of the House of Representatives, has demanded that he maintain the level of spending this year to the same as that in 2022. The federal ogre only wants to grow, unless politicians are willing to stop it; and McCarthy has had to play that role.

The second is the distribution of committee positions. The representatives around the Freedom Caucus (52-strong) will have one-third of the seats. More importantly, they will control the Rules Committee, and from there they will decide which law is subject to amendments, who can submit amendments, and when. They will manage the legislative agenda, which gives them negotiating power. And they will put an end to omnibus laws, a mockery of the legislative process.

The third is McCarthy's position. Under the new rules, any member may request for him to be removed. It is the standard by which the most conservative representatives had John Boehner in a chokehold.

Nancy Pelosi changed the rules to make it harder to put her seat in play, but the political culture of Democrats is different from that of Republicans. Democrats will support their leader with a greater willingness, while the Republican political culture is more imbued with fidelity to principle, and they are often more individualistic.

Not only do we not have to regret this long and winding road that has led to the final vote, but it is the very essence of what the American political system is all about. One of McCarthy's biggest critics, Chip Roy, put it this way to Jack Tapper on CNN:

Something similar has been said by Tucker Carlson:

A divided government, inherited from the old ideal of a mixed constitution, forces the powers to negotiate among themselves. In addition, legislators are elected in single-member constituencies. An American who does not have a deep understanding of European politics cannot grasp the extent to which, when the voter cannot choose his or her constituency, but rather a list imposed by a party, political organizations monopolize much of the power that should be in the hands of the voter.

Cris Pope recalls that in the 1880s, Thomas Reed sought to limit tactics that would facilitate amendments to new laws, or their delay for the sake of more careful debate. Reed saw it this way:

With all due respect, I think the virtuous thing is just the opposite. Negotiation makes it necessary to reconcile conflicting positions and interests. This process strengthens institutions and the values of coexistence. When a party monopolizes power and does not need another party to carry out its program, it does not mind violating respect for the adversary, and even respect for the institutions. But when there is no resolution without an agreement between different parties, the opposite happens: the parties ensure that the rules that protect them when they are in the minority, are maintained.

Private negotiation and public debate are not the same things, but when institutions favor the former, the latter is difficult to avoid. All parties need to explain their reasons to the public. We all win.