The minority party speaker
The minority party speaker
What's going on now in the US House sort of happened in California 28 years ago
House Republicans are currently struggling to find a candidate for Speaker who can unite a fractious party behind him. Majority Leader Steve Scalise (Louisiana) has the support of the bulk of the conference, but roughly one to two dozen Republicans say they won’t support him, meaning there aren’t enough House floor votes to make him Speaker. Some Republicans are even begging Democrats to step in and help. [Update: Scalise withdrew Thursday evening.]
Unprecedented? Well, kinda, unless you look to the states. Something vaguely similar happened in the California Assembly less than 30 years ago.
The 1994 election was such a strong Republican wave that even California Democrats couldn’t break it. Republicans took control of the state Assembly by a narrow 41-39 margin, their first time controlling the chamber since 1970. This presumably marked an end to Democrat Willie Brown’s record-setting 13-year reign as Speaker.
Yet the new Republican majority wasn’t completely unified. Everyone expected Jim Brulte of Rancho Cucamonga, the chamber’s Majority Leader, to become the new Speaker, but one Republican, Paul Horcher of Diamond Bar, refused to support him. Meanwhile, another Republican, Dick Mountjoy of Monrovia, had just won a seat in the State Senate, and Democrats succeeded in disqualifying him from an Assembly vote. The result was that liberal Democrat Willie Brown was elected Speaker in the majority Republican Assembly.
This arrangement only lasted a few months. Republicans in Paul Horcher’s district succeeded in recalling him. In June, Willie Brown announced he was supporting Republican Doris Allen of Cypress for Speaker. Allen won the speakership with every Democratic vote and exactly one Republican vote — her own. Republicans in her district then organized a recall campaign against her, and she resigned a few months later. Then Republican Brian Setencich of Fresno won the Speakership in almost the exact same manner.
Republicans didn’t get an Assembly Speaker that most of them wanted until January of 1996, when they unified behind Curt Pringle of Orange County. This was more than a year into the two-year legislative term. Pringle served as California Assembly Speaker for nearly a year. He was the fourth Speaker of the session, and was the last Republican to hold that office. Democrats took control back of the chamber in the 1996 elections. (If you want to read more about this era, please check out my book No Middle Ground.)
Does this offer a model for Republicans struggling in the US House today? Well, maybe. A small number of Republicans could bolt their conference and support Democrat Hakeem Jeffries (or another Democrat) for Speaker. They could maybe offer something of value to the chamber’s more moderate Democrats (Ending the Biden impeachment hearings? Reversing Adam Schiff’s censure? Something more?) to entice them to vote for a compromise candidate. None of these situations would be ideal, but they would keep the chamber functioning and participating in the process of governing.
But as the California example illustrates, such exercises are not costless. Those Republicans in California who bucked their party lost their jobs over it. No, the recall doesn’t exist for members of Congress, but any member who partnered with Democrats in this current process would likely end up facing an amply-resourced primary challenger in 2024.
It’s useful here to see what the truly unpardonable sin is. It’s one thing to embarrass your party by voting against the caucus’ preferred Speaker candidate or voting to vacate the Speakership — Matt Gaetz, Nancy Mace, and several others have gotten some public criticism for this but don’t seem to be facing any dampened career prospects. The unpardonable sin is working with Democrats. McCarthy lost his job for that, and no Republican seems open to trying it now.
This is why we have a situation where Republicans won’t partner with Democrats, but they’re begging Democrats to help them without offering them anything. It would be helpful to find people who care more about the long term functionality of the Congress than about their own careers, but that’s a hard sell even in relatively congenial eras. And this is not such an era.
I remember this so well. My first day of work in the Assembly was when Horcher made his deal with Willie Brown. I spent most of the day trying to console senior Republican committee staff who had been fired after thinking they had won the majority.
Thank you for writing this up, but I think you miss two key points:
1) Willie Brown was personally the architect of each of the 3 deals. He was the aggressor, the driver. The Republicans were objects at rest until Willie figured out what each wanted and cut a deal with them. And they all had different motives that had little to do with ideology or policy.
Allen felt belittled by her male Republican colleagues - they treated her like she was dumb and not important. Willie understood what made her tick as a person and made a deal on that basis that allowed her to get back at those colleagues.
Setencich wanted to be famous. He loved the attention and loved being Speaker ev n if it was for a shirt while. He was former basketball star who wanted the limelight. Willie figured out how to make that deal too.
And Horcher hated Brulte for sure, but he also wanted a path out where he would be taken care of. If I remember correctly he was still working for Willie when he was Mayor of San Francisco. I think it was getting paid a big salary to be the titular head of the sanitation department.
So the question isn’t if Republicans in the House want to make such a deal with Jeffries. The question is - does Jeffries and his team have the skill to know individual House Republicans enough to be able to make deals with 5 of them. Are they doing the groundwork now? Are they understanding what makes these individuals tick, or are they just treating them as a monolith or parts of ideological groups?
Willie Brown was able to convince 3 out of 41 Republicans. That is the proportional equivalent of 16 Republicans in the House. Jeffries only needs 5.
So the question is whether Jeffries is a third as good as Willie Brown.
2. And the “congenial era” point makes no sense in this story. Maybe Horcher didn’t know he would get recalled, but the other two did. They saw it happen to Horcher and even knowing they would be recalled they did it anyway. They had full knowledge they would pay. It wasn’t all that congenial then either. Allen retired and left the state. Setencich just faded away. And Horcher - trash man.
This question bears repeating - can Jeffries pull off a one-third Willie Brown?
Here's an even more recent example on the state level: https://www.wral.com/news/local/story/1089971/ (They had a productive two years, although a couple lawmakers later went to prison.)