They call themselves, in a nod to The Godfather, the “five families”. Five factions of the Republican Party, vying to bend the House Speaker, the capo di tutti of conservative America, to their will and thereby assume control of perhaps the world’s most powerful chamber of democracy.
For months these groups made the vulnerable incumbent, Kevin McCarthy, contradictory offers he could not refuse. Then on October 3 he was ousted, setting off a frantic succession struggle from which no one has yet emerged victorious.
The original leading candidate, Steve Scalise, withdrew from contention last week after failing to gain the required 217 supporters. Now Jim Jordan, the Donald Trump-endorsed founder of the House Freedom Caucus, is the nominee, but 55 members voted against his confirmation in a secret ballot on Friday, and he is unlikely to swiftly unite the party behind him given his extreme right-wing positions.
Without a Speaker congressional business cannot take place and a government shutdown looms on November 17. The deadlock leaves vital affairs of state hanging in the balance.
To understand this precarious power vacuum, it helps to know who has created it.
Advertisement
These are the eight House members who removed a Speaker for the first time in American history:
A raucous caucus
The rebels are variously members of, or have developed a connection with, the right-wing House Freedom Caucus. This group has been making life difficult for the party leadership since its formation in 2015.
It was the Freedom Caucus, with Matt Gaetz as something of a chief rabble-rouser, that was responsible for blocking McCarthy’s confirmation in January for 14 rounds of voting, before finally accepting him, with caveats, on the 15th.
Discontent over Ukraine
McCarthy’s ejection has exposed genuine rifts at the heart of the Republican Party.
In particular, discontent has long been brewing over Ukraine, as Republican voters grow reluctant to send large sums abroad.
Advertisement
A resolution brought by Gaetz in July to cut off all aid to Kyiv — “the American people will see who wants to represent them, and who wants to represent Crimea”, he said — was backed by 70 of his party colleagues in the House. A McCarthy-led resolution last month to approve $300 million of aid received substantially less support than the initial package of billions approved by most of his party in May last year.
Also at play are divisions on the best approach to the Biden White House, including over how much to engage in shutdown brinkmanship to secure concessions from the Democrats, and how vociferously to pursue the president’s impeachment.
But in a two-party system with a country of 335 million, internal divisions are inevitable. Why, in this case, have they become out-and-out chaos?
Why now?
The rifts have been exacerbated by three factors. First, the slim majority the party won in last year’s midterms has essentially given veto power on the choice of leader to any mutineer able to enlist four others to their cause.
Second, continuing Democratic control of the White House and the Senate has frustrated Republican efforts to take charge of the national agenda. Failure to prevent Democrats passing big set-piece liberal legislation under Biden, such as the Inflation Reduction Act, has led to feuding among frustrated Republicans.
Advertisement
Third, there is, naturally, Donald Trump. For a time immediately after those disappointing midterms, for which many blamed the former president, it appeared that Trump’s influence over the party might be waning, to the relief of establishment Republican figures.
Trump’s double-digit lead over the field for the Republican presidential nomination has put paid to that and ensured that his erratic, disruptive character looms large over proceedings.
The Republican Party, then, is not one happy family — or even five of them.
