House Republicans are meeting behind closed doors on Wednesday with the goal of uniting behind a new House Speaker. Make no mistake about it; this is a big deal. Our nation faces its fair share of problems: historic inflation, a border crisis, and an ongoing impeachment inquiry into Joe Biden’s corruption, among other things. To make matters worse, our strongest ally in the Middle East, Israel, was attacked on Saturday, and a new war has broken out.
Israel has always been under the threat of annihilation from its neighbors, but many have called the attack “Israel’s 9/11,” and it’s an appropriate analogy. This means that it is truly necessary for the House GOP to elect a new speaker quickly and without the same drama that we went through in January, where it took 15 rounds of voting to finally get Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) elected Speaker.
Rep. Kevin Hern (R-Okla.), the House Republican Study Committee Chairman, was reportedly considering a bid for House Speaker but has since taken his name out of consideration. President Trump previously said he would consider being speaker on a temporary basis but then endorsed Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) for the position. Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.) is also running.
The good news is that the Republican caucus learned from the embarrassment it went through in January and is working to select a candidate in a closed-door meeting. However, that doesn’t mean that the GOP will reach an agreement on Wednesday.
“I think there’s some [lawmakers] that have some problems with past behavior and each other, and so I think it’s going to take more than one day to get this done,” Rep. Greg Murphy (R-N.C.) told Fox News Digital.
Others suggest that this could be a long process.
“I don’t know if by the end of this week, we will have a speaker. If you were to ask me a couple days ago, pre-Israel being horrifically attacked by Hamas, I would have told you that it would have been a month before we had a speaker,” Rep. Kat Cammack (R-Fla.) said Tuesday night after a closed-door GOP meeting.
Related: Can We Make Lemonade Out of This House Speaker Debacle?
The bigger obstacle may not be choosing the candidate but agreeing to rules changes, which were to be debated first. Some believe it was far too easy to trigger a motion to vacate the speakership and want that rule, which was made as part of a deal to get McCarthy elected in January, to be changed back.
Still, there is no excuse for this process to take a long time. We’ve never seen such infighting among the Democrat caucus. In the past, there have been reports of Democrats who were set to oppose Nancy Pelosi for speaker, and nothing came of it.
So please, Republicans, get your act together and elect a speaker. This is no time for division in the GOP. There’s a war going on in Israel, we have an invasion at the southern border, and the economy is a mess, and we need to make sure Joe Biden is held accountable for his corruption. Let’s get the job done.