The ousting of Kevin McCarthy: bad for America, worse for Ukraine

TWO MONTHS before the French revolution in 1789, Congress met for the first time, in New York City’s Federal Hall. In the intervening 234 years no speaker of the House of Representatives has been removed by a motion to vacate—until this week, when a small cadre of Republicans ejected Kevin McCarthy. Mr McCarthy had only had the gig since January. But the House Republican Party exists in a state of permanent revolution. All of the past three Republican speakers have been hounded by their own side. The parliamentary point that did for Mr McCarthy in the end was arcane, but its consequences are not.

A healthy two-party system ought to encourage bipartisan dealmaking. In the House the only way Mr McCarthy could ascend to the speakership, after a humiliating 15 rounds of voting, was to make a series of apparently contradictory promises to members of his own side—and then agree to a rule whereby any one of 222 Republicans could bring forward a motion to replace him. Mr McCarthy has a reputation for being slippery, but making promises that are impossible to keep seems to be a condition for obtaining the speaker’s job. The minute he did the right thing, by reaching across the aisle to fund the government with help from Democrats, he was fired.

The next speaker, whoever he or she is, will try to amend the rule that allows just one member to trigger a contest. But the same dynamic will apply. One of the unwritten laws of American politics is that when Republicans control the House and the president is a Democrat, chaos ensues. There was a government shutdown when Republicans took the House during Bill Clinton’s presidency. There was another when they took the House during Barack Obama’s presidency. A shutdown was only narrowly, and temporarily, averted this time because Mr McCarthy decided to do the deal with Democrats which cost him his job.