Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Florida) presented a call to "vacate" the speaker's chair Monday night. That means another fight for California Congressman Kevin McCarthy, whose rise to power required an unprecedented 15 rounds of voting in January.
Republicans' in-fighting is on display while the clock ticks on the 45-day spending bill that landed McCarthy in hot water with Gaetz and other party ultra-conservatives. Only four of 12 annual appropriations bills have been passed so far.
Brandon Arnold, an official with the National Taxpayers Union, acknowledges that little meaningful legislation has been passed by the GOP-led House – and he argues the spending bills, not internal squabbling over leadership, are the best ways to push back against Joe Biden's radical agenda.
"So much of this is personal. Listen, it becomes really easy if you're a fan of football to get frustrated with your quarterback when he throws an interception or two and to say, 'Put in the backup quarterback,'" Arnold said on American Family Radio Tuesday. "But before you make that claim, you always have to look at who's sitting on the bench there. Do you have somebody who can step up and demonstrate the leadership that you're demanding that has that skill set?"
Family Research Council president Tony Perkins, in a recent op-ed, points out it's a thin bench.
"Speaker McCarthy made the right decision. The calls to replace him are nonsensical and counterproductive," Perkins wrote. "I've spoken to a handful of those who might be potential replacements. No one wants the position. Why? Because they know they would have the same challenge of leading a very, very narrow majority."
In spite of the call the vacate, Arnold believes McCarthy can still be an effective leader, but it's going to require give-and-take with Gaetz. "I think he can [still lead], but he needs to sit down and have a drink with Matt Gaetz, have dinner with Matt Gaetz and hash this out," Arnold told show host Jenna Ellis.
The uncertain backup plan makes McCarthy the clear choice for Arnold.
"That person [with the necessary skill set] may be out there, but if you're just simply trying to tear things down without an acceptable replacement, without a better solution going forward, then you're not really helping things," he argued.
The leadership 'vacuum' is noticeable
Arnold said Republicans lack the clear leadership voice that Donald Trump provided when he was in the White House. In his opinion, Trump's biggest legislative achievement was the tax cuts and jobs act of 2017, a measure that came about only after arm-twisting and deals at the finish line.
"You can certainly feel the vacuum of leadership among Republicans right now when it comes to legislation, when it comes to steering us in the direction of fiscal responsibility, and we're paying a price for that," Arnold said.
Republicans, he said, are taking their eyes off the ball. He contends that because the House majority has limited ways to push back against Biden's radical leftist policies, the appropriations bills are of utmost importance; and the amendments within the bills – the "riders" – have the best chance to rein in the administration.
"The bills say, not just 'This is the spending level that we're going to send to the Federal Trade Commission or the Department of Labor or whatever' – but they also include these provisions that say, 'The Department of Labor cannot use any of these funds in order to achieve policy like cracking down on independent contractors,' which is something the Department of Labor is trying to do right now.
"They could also stop the IRS from creating a taxpayer-funded tax service that would compete with private entities right now. That's another thing that the IRS is trying to do.
"These policy riders are essential," ARnold continued. "They're not going to materialize on their own, and they're not going to stay in those bills unless Republicans fight for them and get all these bills passed and over to the Senate."
Republican in-fighting is not all bad
Marc Lotter of the America First Policy Institute compared the current state of the Republican Party to Ronald Reagan's heated primary win against George H.W. Bush.
"We all remember the outcome of the landslide Reagan victory, but we don't remember that he almost lost the primary to George H.W. Bush. He came within a very close call of getting the nomination, and then when it came to building his team they were struggling to figure out who their vice president was going to be and reluctantly took George H.W. Bush to try to unite the party," Lotter told Ellis.
Ultimately the Reagan team, representing the conservative movement, had the tact to bring in the more traditional "chamber of commerce" Republicans represented by Bush, Lotter said.
"We've been through this before, and we will make it through it," he said, "but when we're at this point next year, I think it's going to be very important for us to bury the hatchet. Whether it's in the halls of Congress or whether it's on a debate stage, these fights are not the real fights that we need to be having. We're distracting from the one that's really important."
FRC's Perkins wrote there's good to be found in Republican squabbles.
"Don't dismiss the legislative drama that unfolded before the American public over the last week as dysfunction. This is how an open legislative process works. Had members of the House Freedom Caucus not held firm in January over the speaker negotiations at the start of the 118th Congress, we would not be witnessing a transparent and dynamic legislative process no longer scripted in advance by a handful in a back room.
"In short, this often-turbulent, unpredictable process has been instrumental in returning Congress to operating as it once did and should — with individual members representing their constituents and having a voice in the process."
