House Republicans Ditch New Speaker Candidate in Less than 5 Hours

Yesterday, House Republicans selected nine candidates to be their potential designate for Speaker. This morning, they settled on Majority Whip Tom Emmer.

Four hours later, he dropped out of the race.

The United States has spent three weeks without a Speaker of the House of Representatives, effectively paralyzing the legislature—since all legislation requires approval from both House and Senate to pass—at a time when America can least afford it.

Instead of a fiscal budget, Kevin McCarthy’s deceit and cowardice before his ouster birthed a mere continuing resolution to fund the government—which expires on November 17th. Unless a Speaker is elected who intends to work in good faith with Democrats, we will suffer an unnecessary government shutdown on that date.

Abroad, Ukraine and Israel are waging wars against Russian invaders and Hamas terrorists respectively. President Biden has proposed a $105 billion foreign aid bill in response. But such proposals from the executive require legislative support, which—despite the backing of Senate Republicans—isn’t possible at this time thanks to the incompetence of House Republicans.

Once again, the incongruity between the two parties is on full display. Whatever legitimate disagreements the reader might have with them on policy matters, there can be no genuine argument that Democrats aren’t the objectively superior governing party.

The American people certainly aren’t happy with the GOP’s failure to get their house in order.

Perhaps it’s time for a handful of the 18 Congressional Republicans in districts won by President Biden to do the right thing for their constituents and country and elect Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries to the Speakership.