How today's US House chaos mirrors that from 100 years ago

Washington: The US House was in an uproar, unable to settle on its new speaker, forcing roll call vote after roll call vote. The Senate had quietly slipped out of the city while insurgents in the House demanded more power as the nation watched anxiously. “Radicals Force Deadlock in House as Congress Opens,” blared one national headline. The year was 1923, almost exactly a century ago, the last time the House required multiple days and repeated votes to settle on a new speaker before this week’s continuing stalemate over the candidacy of Representative Kevin McCarthy , R-Calif. While it was long before the dawn of Twitter, super PACs and C-SPAN, things really haven’t changed all that much in Congress. In fact, the parallels between then and now are striking, down to the opponents of 1923’s eventual winner, Frederick H Gillett, R-Mass, angling for basic changes in the rules of the House to give them more influence and more top committee slots, just as hard-right adversaries of McCarthy are doing today. [caption id=“attachment_11942712” align=“alignnone” width=“640”] The Speaker’s Chair sits empty in the House Chambers after the House of Representatives could not elect its Speaker on the third day of voting. AFP[/caption] Unable to overcome the opposition from a band of progressive Republicans, supporters of Gillett kept pushing the House into adjournment to allow backroom talks about how to resolve the stalemate, another tactic being employed this time around as the vote tallies remain inconclusive. And the Senate, traditionally viewing itself as the more refined chamber, chose not to hang around for the slugfest in the House. Instead, senators organised without incident and expeditiously vacated the Capitol to let their counterparts across the Rotunda sully themselves alone. “What the Senate really did,” The New York Times of 4 December 1923, reported knowingly, “was to show respect for public opinion and its own dignity by not resorting to wrangling about the election of the president of the Senate. But in the House of Representatives the progressive bloc preferred to advertise itself and its insatiable passion for more places on the committees.” The 118th version of the Senate did the same this week, convening for a celebratory induction of new members and the swearing-in of re-elected senators Tuesday, then quickly fleeing the capital for three weeks to allow the House to occupy the political stage alone. While never common, stalemates over the speakership requiring repeated votes to resolve did occur with some frequency in the early days of Congress, almost all before the Civil War when party labels were not so firmly affixed. According to the archives of the House, there have been at least 14 cases of a speaker being chosen through multiple ballots, with the record being 133 in 1856. But before this year there have been none since Gillett’s contest, primarily because the two-party system has become so deeply entrenched. Members of the party that won control of the House would typically consider it foolhardy to risk their power and image by engaging in such a risky internal power struggle. Speakers Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat, and John Boehner, a Republican, had their challenges in recent elections, but never had to go beyond a single ballot to secure the post. Plus, Democrats held rock-solid control of the House for four decades before 1994 with their large majorities, allowing the certainty of who was speaker to be settled long before the pro forma vote on the House floor. And while the speaker is theoretically the constitutional officer for the whole House, the position has in reality evolved into the political and legislative leader of the majority party, making it the majority’s privilege to bestow. To many, the mess on the House floor the past few days has been the best illustration yet of Republican dysfunction, a potential inability to govern and an unfortunate political tendency for the party to devour its leaders. But as they held out against McCarthy, his Republican opponents sought to portray the return to the days of speaker uncertainty as healthy and a move away from ingrained party power. “We are making history in this process and we are showing the American people that this process works,” said Representative Scott Perry, R-Pa, a leading McCarthy opponent. “Is it going to be painful? Is it going to be difficult? Yes, it probably is. That’s why it took 100 years.” John James, a newly elected Republican from Michigan, pointed out Thursday that the differences that forced the House into a two-month, 133-vote marathon before the election of Nathaniel Banks of Massachusetts as speaker in 1856 were much more consequential than those holding up the speakership of McCarthy. “Without question, the issues that divide us today are much less severe than they were in 1856,” James, who is Black, said in nominating McCarthy for a seventh round of indeterminate voting. [caption id=“attachment_11942732” align=“alignnone” width=“640”] Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy has failed to earn more than 218 votes on several ballots; the first time in 100 years that the Speaker has not been elected on the first ballot. AFP[/caption] “The issues today are over a few rules and personalities, while the issues at that time were about slavery and whether the value of a man who looks like me was 60 per cent or 100 per cent of a human being. It was a long, drawn-out, painful process, but it had to happen.” “On that day long ago the good guys won,” he said. “The leading Republican nominee won then, and the leading Republican nominee will win again.” In the 1923 fight, the voting stretched over three days — the current deadlock hit three days Thursday — and Gillett finally prevailed over Finis J Garrett of Tennessee by a vote of 215-197 on the ninth ballot. That was a quicker conclusion than this year’s version, which saw its 11th ballot end Thursday without a winner. Ultimately, concessions made by Gillett and his supporters swung the bloc of progressive Republicans who had been supporting alternative candidates behind him while Democrats remained united behind their candidate — another familiar scenario. “The organisation of the House proceeded after the speakership election,” the Times of 6 December, 1923, reported with an almost palpable sigh of relief. There was a note of optimism added that might cheer whoever comes out of the current leadership strife. “Even with his diminished powers,” the newspaper noted, “the speaker is in a position to exercise great influence upon legislation.” But the whole ordeal may have been too much for Gillett. The next year he ran for the Senate — and won. Carl Hulse, c.2023 The New York Times Company Read all the Latest News , Trending News , Cricket News , Bollywood News , India News and Entertainment News here. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.