By Steve Brawner, © 2023 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.
There are two ways of looking at last week’s speaker of the House election in Washington – Rep. Bruce Westerman’s way, and Rep. Steve Womack’s way. Both are valid.
Westerman and Womack along with Arkansas’ other representatives, Reps. French Hill and Rick Crawford, were strong supporters of Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s bid. They all stuck with him through 15 votes over four days until he finally was elected over the strong opposition of about 20 conservatives.
Westerman, a close ally of McCarthy, gave the nominating speech on the 15th vote that finally settled the matter. Afterwards, his office released one of those statements that generally belongs at the end of a news story, but it’s worth repeating in part here.
“Regardless of your political affiliation, I hope you saw this exercise as a testament to the strength of our American Republic,” he said. “Our government is alive, and it represents over 330 million Americans, all with differing views and needs. That variety is sometimes hard to corral into one united vision, but that isn’t a weakness; it’s an asset. Bringing disparate parts of our country together is hard, but doing the hard work is what makes America great.
“Late last year, the world saw highly orchestrated images of a tightly scripted Chinese Communist Party conference. Everything there was rehearsed. Every decision was pre-determined. The entire world knew what was going to happen before the first words were spoken. That’s not who we are.”
Womack, in reporting by Politico, was less enthusiastic about the exercise.
“It’s painful to watch,” he told the news outlet. “It’s embarrassing. The country deserves better. And I’m sorry that the American public’s having to witness this.”
Elsewhere in the article, Politico described him as “aghast” until a staffer pulled him back onto the floor when a deal was struck after the 14th vote.
So which viewpoint is correct? Westerman is right to see the disputed election as part of the democratic process. So what if it took the House four days to elect a leader? Democracy is messy. Great Britain’s prime minister last year served only 44 days in office until she resigned under duress. Israel has had five national elections in four years because no one could win a big enough majority to form a stable government.
On the other hand, Womack’s despairing comment is also understandable. Last week’s standoff was the first of its kind in a century and reflected the deep divisions not only between Republicans and Democrats but among Republicans themselves. One Republican congressman had to be physically restrained from lunging at one of the holdouts. How will Congress conduct itself these next two years?
From an independent’s perspective in Arkansas, the standoff was doubly disappointing because of the way the two parties interacted. McCarthy was elected to be the speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, but everything about the process reflected that he mostly is the leader of the Republican caucus. All of the meaningful negotiations were with members of his own party while Democrats were united behind their own candidate, who could never win. Finding crossover votes from centrist Democrats apparently wasn’t an option. After McCarthy was elected, he received a standing ovation – from Republicans, while Democrats sat in their chairs.
Meanwhile in Little Rock, state Speaker of the House Matthew Shepherd, R-El Dorado, was elected to an unprecedented third term Monday by a vote of 97-1 on the first ballot, with support from both parties.
While partisanship exists at the State Capitol, the Legislature is a functioning governing body that actually passes laws and balances budgets. And despite being a minority of 18 in a 100-member House, Democrats can pass bills if they play their cards right and find the right Republican allies.
That’s partly because Republicans don’t have to treat the Democrats as a threat, and partly because of how Shepherd conducts business. House Minority Leader Tippi McCullough, D-Little Rock, said this about him in an interview with the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette: “When he says he is the leader of the House, he is the leader of the entire House with the Democrats being a part of that, and I certainly appreciate that. With our numbers where they are, it would be easy for him to discount us, but I don’t believe he does.”
That’s worth an election on the first ballot, no matter how you look at it.
Steve Brawner is a syndicated columnist published in 18 outlets in Arkansas. Email him at brawnersteve@mac.com. Follow him on Twitter at @stevebrawner.