Gerald Seib, writing for the Wall Street Journal on Oct. 8, summed up the situation on the Republican side of the aisle in the House of Representatives:
"The turbulence that is rocking the Republican Party today – turbulence that has turned the presidential campaign upside down, compelled a House speaker to retire and persuaded both of his logical replacements to step away – can be traced to one giant, unresolved question.
"Is the party's mission to crusade passionately and even angrily for unadulterated conservative principles right now, or is it to more calmly convince voters that conservatives can govern effectively for the long run?"
I recommend his article, titled Republican Party's Big Question: To Fight or Govern?, as it goes in depth into the chaos caused by the struggle between those who wish to govern and those who wish to fight to the death. The view of many that most of the GOP House members are not conservative is just untrue. Almost half are members of the socially conservative Prayer Caucus. As many as 90 percent are pro-life and 99 percent against tax increases. The real problem is the inability of the GOP majority to actually pass conservative bills than can become law.
Speaker John Boehner had a 100 percent rating from the American Conservative Union up to the time he became speaker. As is tradition, the speaker rarely votes, but he still had a positive ACU life-time rating of 87 percent. Yet, he was viewed by many Republicans as either liberal or unwilling to fight for a conservative agenda. He just got tired of it and gave up.
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I have relationships with many of the tea party congressmen. The official name of that group of 40 congressmen is the Freedom Caucus. Their complaints about John Boehner as speaker were not as much about conservative values as his management style, failure to "fight hard" and his use of appointment authority to punish members who would not vote with him by stripping them of committee assignments. The latter is a tactic of all speakers to get vote outcomes they want, Republican or Democrat. Is it right? Of course not. Does it work? Yes.
Majority Leader McCarthy gave up even running for the speaker's post after personal attacks on his family. He decided it was just not worth it. Paul Ryan (as of this writing) has refused to run. He has small children and is concerned about taking a job that requires 18 hours a day and the constant presence of the Secret Service as No. 2 in line for the presidency. Then there is this issue of personal attacks on him and his family from both right and left that have already began.
Boehner, McCarthy and Ryan believe in governing, but many in the GOP, including a large number of members in the House, believe the best way to lead the nation is to toss firebombs by passing legislation that cannot win in the Senate and which will be vetoed by President Obama even if passed by both houses. This gives Obama more power not less.
The largest governable body of people was somewhere in the realm of 100 million, before the Internet era. Our original form of government was designed for independent States within a union for a common defense. The founders never envisioned a nation with the third-largest population in the world, half of them supported in some way by federal aid and all of them with access to an Internet that allows even the most idiotic concepts, such as transgender bathroom rights, broad outlets and financial support.
The result is a Congress driven by ideology – both right and left – that is so busy fighting over abortion, global warming and "LGBT" issues that our crumbling roads and bridges can't be repaired, and a president who rules with executive orders instead of laws enacted by Congress.
Over the last several decades the Congress – unable to govern – has given the presidency imperial powers, which Barack Obama is more than willing to use. The Congress has become so fractured that regardless of which party controls it, those imperial powers cannot be taken away. The next president may well declare himself (or herself) emperor and just get it over with.
No one who has a desire to govern with the rule of law and do right by the majority of the people of the nation can actually do so with Congress as now constituted. This is the reason no one who is rational really wants the top job of speaker of the House. However, Nancy Pelosi, who thinks the iron fist of government and more power to Emperor Obama is the solution to all the nation's ills, would be more than happy once again to have the speaker's gavel.
The real solution, of course, is to return governance to the States, with minimal Washington control, just as the founders intended. The nation was founded as a union of smaller, more accountable state governments, not a behemoth that knows all and runs all. The first step to accomplishing that end would be the repeal of the 16th Amendment to the Constitution, which gave Washington unlimited power through taxation. Let's get it done!