It’s my party and I’ll cry if I want to

I have long been a Republican activist, and I know that in politics, there are only two times when a party can cleanse its ranks or demand purity. Those times are when the party is in the minority with little chance of regaining the majority and when the party holds a clear majority that it is unlikely to lose. Iowa’s Republican governor, Kim Reynolds, understands this. In 2022, with Republicans holding overwhelming majorities in both the Iowa House and Senate, Reynolds took the unprecedented step of supporting primary challengers to Republicans who did not support her school-choice legislation. At the time, Republicans held 60 seats in the Iowa house. Afterward, Republicans increased their majority to 64 and Reynolds signature school-choice legislation has since been signed into law.

Apparently, U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida didn’t get the memo. In 2022, Republicans managed to gain control of the U.S. House but the predicted “Red Wave” never happened. The GOP ended up with a slim 9 seat majority and three weeks ago Gaetz successful led a small group of House conservatives, to oust House Speaker Kevin McCarthy.

The fissures in the party were already evident when McCarthy was elected Speaker in January. It took 15 rounds of voting for McCarthy to get the majority required. To get the requisite votes, McCarthy had to make significant concessions to the conservatives. In the end, one of those concessions helped bring about his downfall. McCarthy had to agree to allow a single member to make a ‘motion to vacate’ aimed at removing the speaker. In the end, Gaetz made a motion to vacate. Gaetz and seven other Republicans joined every Democrat member and voted to remove McCarthy.

The trouble is, just like the dog who finally catches the car, Gaetz and his band of insurgents ousted the speaker, but they don’t seem to have planned for what happened next. What happened next is the House has been unable to elect a speaker for the last three weeks. Without a speaker, the House is paralyzed and cannot pass any legislation.

First a divided GOP caucus nominated Rep. Steve Scalise over Rep. Jim Jordan for speaker. Scalise is generally considered to be more conservative than McCarthy but not as conservative as Jordan. When it became clear that the conservatives who had ousted McCarthy refused to rally around Scalise, Scalise bowed out of the race.

The caucus next nominated Jordan who was supported by former Donald Trump, and while the House conservatives were happy with the choice, some other GOP members were not. The House held a vote and 20 Republicans voted against Jordan. Jordan tried again and it got worse, he lost 22 Republicans votes and withdrew his candidacy.

During this debacle, Trump threw his support behind Jordan and members who voted against Jordan started receiving threats. Rep. Don Bacon of Nebraska reported that his wife had received threatening phone calls. Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks of Iowa’s 2nd Congressional District said she had received, “credible death threats and a barrage of threatening calls.” On my public social media (and in my private messages) I am seeing multiple calls to find a primary opponent for Miller-Meeks in 2024.

The GOP chose Rep Rom Emmer of Minnesota next. Donald Trump torpedoed his candidacy and Emmer never even made it to a floor vote. Trump said on Truth Social, that Emmer “never respected the Power of a Trump Endorsement, or the breadth and scope of MAGA.”

Finally, after a 3-week leadership vacuum. The GOP nominated Rep. Mike Johnson of Louisiana as speaker. Johnson is a conservative but relatively unknown. He has never chaired a committee or served in a leadership role in the House. Johnson was elected with 220 votes and is the new Speaker of the House.

In 1889, Frank McGurrin used the phrase "Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of the party" to demonstrate touch typing.

Republicans currently have a razor-thin majority in the House. There are three Independent Senators caucusing with Senate Democrats giving them the majority and we have a Democrat President. Now is not the time for infighting or weeding out members of our own party. The dysfunction on display in the House Republican Caucus this week will only help Democrats in 2024. We Republicans would do well to heed McGurrin’s advice!

David Chung is a Gazette editorial fellow. david.chung@thegazette.com