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Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.
America is now in its third week without a functioning House of Representatives. Given the Republican party’s lack of consensus on who to elect as Speaker, it is hard to see what will stop this mess from continuing. The fact that the US government will run out of money in mid-November, and that Joe Biden urgently needs funds for Ukraine and Israel, ought to be enough to galvanise any sensible party — but evidently is not for a Republican party in hopeless disarray. Nor is the fact that US democracy seems to the world to be missing in action at a moment of acute geopolitical tension. At this point, it is difficult to know what would qualify as sufficiently embarrassing to prompt the Republicans to act.
Nine Republicans have put their names forward for the party’s latest attempt to find a new Speaker. Of these, Tom Emmer, the party’s chief whip, has the best credentials to lead America’s lower house with some degree of responsibility. Emmer was one of only two among the nine to have voted to certify the 2020 US presidential election. He is also one of five who voted in favour of new funding for Ukraine last month. On those two counts alone his chances are badly diminished. Donald Trump has made it clear that he would not like to see Emmer as Speaker.
It is possible one of the other names, such as Kevin Hern, the chair of the Republican Study Committee, a conservative group that is slightly less hardline than the mostly pro-Trump Freedom Caucus, or Austin Scott, a backer of the outgoing Speaker, Kevin McCarthy, could emerge as a compromise name. But it would be rash to bet on it. McCarthy was ousted after having done his best to thread a wildly disparate party together. It is unclear why less experienced names could do better.
The largest Republican faction by far is in thrall to the most destructive form of Trumpian obstructionism. Yet as their standard bearer, Jim Jordan, discovered, there is a large enough minority of so-called moderate Republicans to veto their choice. Jordan withdrew last week after three attempts at taking the gavel.
It looks increasingly possible that Republicans will remain too bitterly divided to resolve this impasse. At that point, moderate Republicans would face a choice between complicity in the further disabling of US democracy, or throwing their support to Hakeem Jeffries, the Democratic minority leader of a very thinly divided house. It would only take five Republicans to join with Democrats to elect Jeffries as a “coalition Speaker”.
The plus point is that they could negotiate their terms. This would doubtless include federal spending restraint, new funding for US-Mexico border security, and a temporary truce on America’s most divisive cultural issues, such as a federal right to abortion. Such a deal would ensure the US government does not shut down before Thanksgiving and passes the $106bn package that Biden wants for Ukraine and Israel.
On the downside, any Republicans who voted for Jeffries would probably be writing suicide notes as GOP lawmakers. The Trumpians would brand them as traitors and launch primaries to unseat them. Such threats have succeeded in cowing non-Trumpian Republicans for many years. However, many Republican members of the “problem solver caucus” — a group that has yet to live up to its name — represent districts that Biden won in 2020. They would assuredly lose their seats in 2024 if this Republican mess continued.
They should weigh which career exit would be less ignominious; losing their seats because of Republican chaos; or losing their party’s nomination because they did the right thing on behalf of their nation. The longer this charade continues, the closer that choice will loom.