In ousting of House speaker, congressional dysfunction hits a new low | Editorial

Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz and seven of his Republican colleagues ousted House Speaker Kevin McCarthy Tuesday and paralyzed the government.

They had their fun. Now what?

Gaetz and his band of rogue Republicans are like the proverbial dog who caught the car. They had no plan beyond punishing McCarthy for the heresy of working with Democrats to pass a stopgap measure that averted a government shutdown last week.

How dare McCarthy try to keep the government functioning.

Gaetz and his colleagues made clear they are not interested in governing, let alone compromise or bipartisanship. So instead, the country is controlled by the tyranny of the fringe few.

For the first time in our nation’s history, a House speaker was voted out of power. It is fair to argue that McCarthy had it coming. He was an empty vessel who was neither feared nor respected. He stood for little beyond the ethos of power without principle: a philosophy that has corrupted far too many corners of the GOP and that unsurprisingly led to his downfall.

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For a brief moment, McCarthy showed courage when he said Donald Trump “bears responsibility” for inciting the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection. But within weeks McCarthy was back to kissing the ring, making the pilgrimage to Mar-a-Lago to make amends. In May, McCarthy reached a deal with President Joe Biden to avoid a default but then reneged as the government shutdown loomed.

McCarthy could not be trusted by Republicans or Democrats, who chose not to save him. It required 15 rounds of voting just for McCarthy to get ahold of the speaker’s gavel in January. In doing so, he cut deals that gave the far-right in the GOP power — including the ability to call for his ouster at their whim.

McCarthy was wounded and weak from the start. No wonder his reign of error lasted only 269 days. The challenge for the country is, what comes next?

Since the Republicans narrowly won control of the House in November, it has been an embarrassing circus as the government lurched from the default crisis to the shutdown threat, and House GOP leaders spent taxpayers’ time and money on endless hearings regarding Hunter Biden.

Meanwhile, McCarthy promised to expunge Trump’s two impeachments and launched an impeachment inquiry into President Biden. The results so far? The GOP’s own star witness unearthed this blockbuster: Uh, yeah, there’s no evidence the president committed a crime. It’s Benghazi 2.0.

Governing should be for serious people. But for Gaetz — who was recently under federal investigation for sex trafficking and sex with minors — and other MAGA Republicans, it’s all just political performance. Never mind that the country’s national security, general health and welfare, and overall global standing are at stake.

The Gaetz gang had no clue on what to do once they toppled McCarthy. The problem is that the clock is ticking until the next government shutdown deadline on Nov. 17.

Meanwhile, the fiscal year began on Oct. 1, and Congress has yet to pass a budget. The most pressing geopolitical concern is the need to send more aid to help Ukraine in its war with Russia. Here again, the unserious GOP lawmakers don’t grasp that time is of the essence, and what happens in Ukraine will have repercussions across the planet.

If the GOP forces a shutdown next month, the impact will be far-reaching.

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Roughly 800,000 Pentagon employees will get sent home, along with most of NASA, consumer protection officials, and antitrust workers. The Securities and Exchange Commission would furlough roughly 90% of its employees, and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission would suspend most oversight activity. Workplace safety inspections would be limited.

Small Business Administration loans would stop, along with research and clinical trials at the National Institutes of Health. So would nutrition benefits for seven million mothers, and Head Start programs for low-income children. All national parks and monuments would close.

Cybersecurity reviews to help schools and local governments defend against ransomware attacks would be halted, as well as the training of new employees for the understaffed air traffic controller system.

Against that backdrop, it was telling that one of the first orders of business following McCarthy’s ouster was for acting Speaker Patrick McHenry of North Carolina to order former Speaker Nancy Pelosi to vacate her office by Wednesday.

Voters should keep in mind the GOP’s petty priorities.