House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., announced to his staff Wednesday morning that he would not stay on as the Republican leader in the upcoming Democrat-controlled House, but his successor cannot be an establishment leadership lackey whom party power brokers believe is “next in line.”
“This is the right move. Decent and humble resignation. John Thune should follow suit, but he won’t,” The Federalist CEO Sean Davis noted.
Just hours after Republicans got shellacked in races across the country, not just falling to massive Democrat majorities in the House and Senate, but also enough state government trifectas to effectively end the Electoral College (barring Supreme Court intervention), the intra-party battle for House minority leader began.
Johnson did not make clear whether he would leave office entirely or remain a member of Congress outside of leadership, according to Politico, but House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., and Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, quickly threw their hats in the ring.
Conservatives have been trying to manifest Jordan as speaker for quite some time, and he received votes for the job during the litany of ballots that ultimately elected Johnson three years ago, after the ouster of former Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif. Jordan formally announced his candidacy Wednesday in a letter.
“This is a staggering day for our Conference,” Jordan said. “In these next two years, our jobs cannot be to merely spotlight how radical this new Democrat party is – offense, not defense, wins elections. … For too long, we have operated without a clear plan to survive the hour or the day in front of us. That will not cut it against an emboldened and energetic Democrat majority.”
Scalise, on the other hand, is already a member of leadership and is planning to use that fact as the pitch to his Republican colleagues as a “proven and tested leader.”
House Majority Whip Tom Emmer, R-Minn., another establishment Republican who holds the third-highest leadership position, announced he would be making a bid for House Minority Whip, which is the number two slot when in a minority. Rep. August Pfluger, R-Texas, the outgoing chair of House GOP’s largest caucus, the Republican Study Committee, announced a challenge to Emmer for Whip as well.
But all the jostling at the top, perhaps with the exceptions of Jordan and Pfluger, looks to be the same kind of trap Republicans have consistently found themselves in for years: They reward leadership positions to those in leadership, or those who have kept their heads down enough to make it into leadership. It is how the “young guns” of the GOP of 2013 — McCarthy, former Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., and former Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va. — came to power even during the Tea Party insurgency.
But who could say those “young guns” did anything differently than former Speaker John Boehner?
Outside House leadership, Republicans do the same thing. In 2008, it was John McCain’s “turn” to be the presidential nominee, and so he was. There was no regard for young talent who may not have had decades in office bronzing themselves into the D.C. establishment. McCain was well liked by the party, and by leadership, and no Republican was going to stand in the way of his candidacy. Mitt Romney was essentially coronated by the establishment, too.
This trap is how Republicans can hold a governing trifecta for two years and squander it completely, passing nearly no meaningful legislation like the SAVE America Act. Republican leadership does not have a Lyndon Johnson-style “indomitable will” to force members to make tough choices or be primaried for their failure, there is only herding cats and failure theater.
As Rep. Greg Steube, R-Fla., observed in a letter to Republican House and Senate “Leadership,” which he put in scare quotes, “No, the polls were not wrong. You were. Even with record amounts of money at your disposal, you managed to get absolutely annihilated. You have been embarrassingly weak and more afraid of governing conservatively than of disappointing the voters who put us in office.”
“Instead of standing firm on our principles, you have governed out of fear, continually knelt to the moderates in our conference (who all got crushed last night anyway), and discarded conservatives like me who warned of last night’s results,” he continued. “Please do us all a favor and step aside so new leadership can take a truly conservative direction, with the courage to do the things we were elected to do.”
