Why do eight radicals hold power over the entire US House of Representatives? | There are hundreds of Congresspeople representing millions of Americans – yet undemocratic rules give people like Matt Gaetz outsized sway
by Hrmbee
Why do eight radicals hold power over the entire US House of Representatives? | There are hundreds of Congresspeople representing millions of Americans – yet undemocratic rules give people like Matt Gaetz outsized sway
by Hrmbee
21 comments
A few points from the article:
>Eight members shouldn’t have this outsized power. Leaders who recognize the reality of compromise under divided government shouldn’t be ousted for working toward an accord. Yet our system incentivizes extremism and anti-majoritarianism. It will only get worse until we change the rules and stop punishing what a functional democracy would reward.
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>There’s more than enough blame to go around. Yet none of the partisan finger-pointing will solve the problem. Anti-majoritarian rules brought us to this ungovernable place. Fixing them is the only way out.
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>The good news is that’s actually not so hard. If the House elected leaders with ranked-choice voting (RCV), this debacle could have been avoided from the beginning. Imagine how different this would have been. The Democratic minority leader Hakeem Jeffries would have led after the first round. McCarthy would have been second. And the Republican Freedom Caucus protest candidate would have finished a distant third. No one would have earned a majority, so an instant runoff would have kicked in.
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>The Republican rebels would have been forced to make up their minds. When the options came down to McCarthy or Jeffries, they’d have to make a choice. Rather than being obstructionist kingmakers and winning concessions disproportionate to their numbers, Gaetz and his crew would have been heard – and that’s it. Under RCV, a gaggle of Gaetzes don’t get to run the show. They have a voice in line with their actual numbers. And then majorities prevail.
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>If the House used ranked-choice voting, McCarthy would not have been forced into a deal that allowed any one member to call for a vote to vacate the chair. Gaetz and his allies might have been furious that the Republican speaker went around them to win overwhelming bipartisan majorities to keep the government open. But they would not have had the power to destabilize the entire institution. Eight renegades could have criticized the deal all they wanted. They wouldn’t get to win.
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>The cost of compromise cannot be that the furthest extreme gets to manipulate the game to bring down those who dare make a deal. That’s a recipe for permanent dysfunction – and deepening minority rule.
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>After all, Matt Gaetz didn’t even win office with a majority. Gaetz won his seat in Congress in 2016 with just 36% of the vote – and merely 35,689 votes – in a crowded Republican primary. He has won re-election since then thanks to the power of incumbency and a district wildly gerrymandered to ensure a Republican victor.
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>Gaetz, in other words, represents the fringe of the fringe – a plurality winner in a district rigged to be uncompetitive from the get-go. This is yet another problem that a ranked-choice election would solve. The Gaetz Caucus wouldn’t be able to win election simply by appealing to a far fringe that values confrontation and chaos without any concern for the consequences. We have a Congress filled with members responsive only to a radical minority. If we want a different Congress, one responsive to majorities, one where the people rule and not the far fringe, we need to remake the rules.
Electoral reform at all levels can’t come soon enough. So many of these frankly undemocratic actions that we’ve been seeing over the years might be mitigated at least somewhat by a saner and fairer system that doesn’t always force a majority to accept the whims of a vocal minority. RCV as proposed by the author is certainly one model, but there are also others that have other balances that might be worth investigating. What isn’t tenable though is the current systems in place that have given us the unworkable governments we suffer through now.
It’s not some sinister conspiracy. The House is bitterly divided, so any small number of Republicans willing to do what the Democrats want have power over the rest of them. This is basic math.
In this case, what the Democrats wanted was to embarrass and enfeeble the GOP, and what these eight Republicans wanted was to oust a competent if unpopular Speaker for doing his job. It just happened that those could both be accomplished with one vote.
It’s because the GOP has a very narrow majority giving those 8 “radicals” far more sway than they would ordinarily. There’s also the fact that the republican party has turned into a cult whose views are dictated by their most extreme members. Maybe if they hadn’t knowingly protected a known pedophile they wouldn’t be in this position.
Because 213 house Republicans allow them to.
At any point, a small minority of those 213 congressmen could decide to actually govern alongside the Democrats, but they don’t, so this is what we get.
The rules for voting for speaker are democratic. Requires a majority of House of Representatives to elect the speaker. Democrats of course vote for their own leader. Republicans have a majority and are required to coaleasce around a majority vote for speaker. Nothing undemocratic about it at all. Republicans could make a deal with Democrats for a majority vote but they aren’t interested. But nothing undemocratic about it.
People get what they vote for, and a whole lot of people vote for Republicans because of “gubmint”. We unfortunately get what they vote for.
Same way Manchin and Simena hold power over the DEMs in the Senate.
Because morons vote for republicans and the less nihilistic republicans are scared as hell about the losing the moron vote to a primary challenger like these 8 douchebags. It’s pretty obvious and literally their only choice since they need the morons to enact their unpopular policies and also get elected in the first place. It’s like if Frankenstein was financially dependent on his monster.
Not a single Dem voted for the change that let 1 person cause the motion to vacate. The Republicans did this to themselves. The non MAGA group needs to grow a backbone and reach across the aisle to elect a speaker and begin to do their job. If this were private industry they would be fired for incompetence.
All of the republican party are radicals. They can’t govern and their only policies are hurting people and profiting off of their suffering. Fuck that. Vote every republican out of office.
https://democrats.org/
Just wait until they figure out how fucked the senate is!
Montana gets the same say as cali, NY, TX, fl…
No wonder we are fucked.
Cuz fucking Newt Gingrich made it like negotiation, compromise, and bipartisanship seem dirty.
Because the rest of the House Republicans would rather burn down the House than share power with Democrats and potentially lose their seats.
Any 5+ Republicans could either vote for Jeffries, or strike a deal with Democrats to elect a compromise Speaker, but there aren’t even five reasonable Republicans in the entire House.
Remember that come election time.
It’s not only the US that suffers from these kind of problems. When it is close between two blocs there can be a handful of people without strong ties to any of the blocs that can use their vote to make one or the other bloc win, and thus get a much stronger power and negotiation position than their share of votes would otherwise have. Common problem here in Sweden too.
Because a two party system does not work, and is not a real democracy.
Ranked-choice voting is just a loophole to somewhat circumvent the real problem.
This is a bullshit take.
218 people voted for the same thing, replacing a leader that was bad at their job.
Kevin McCarthy could have avoided being ousted if he had worked better with Democrats. Instead he chose a path that alienated Democrats AND a portion of Republicans. When two groups whose interests align have a chance to do something, expect that thing to be done.
So stop coming up with ways to give republicans and McCarthy a pass. They chose the dogma that they would rule with. And if that dogma was incompatible with the reality of the House, then that’s the fault of Republicans as a whole, not 8 people.
because of Americans who vote crazies into a house that is 50/50 split
If the Republicans wanted, they could given some concessions too the Dem ans keptcCarthy in. But they see Dems as the enemy
Don’t forget rules like that one dip shot putting the readiness of the military in danger. No one person should be able to do that, elected or not. Even the President has checks to prevent that.
reason is the hasterd rule
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hastert_Rule
when the progressives were in power we had majority rule
so republicans and democrats majority worked together
when the neoliberals got in power we switched to minority rule
so whoever controls the house runs the house with the other party
so republicans and democrats do not work together
whoever controls the house runs the house without the other party
basically what we have is tyranny of the minority
Republicans as a general rule don’t care for good governance. They recognize that they need to maintain the government’s capabilities to be able to use it to enrich themselves and their handlers which requires it to have limited functionality. MAGAs don’t give a shit about any of that. They know they will never lose their primary or their general elections. They also are 100% willing to grind the government to a screeching halt to get what they want, which the rest of the Republican caucus will give them because they understand that these people are insane and will tear down the entire Republican party in order to achieve their aims. Not wanting to lose their seats the other republicans will acquiesce knowing the alternatives are either working with Democrats or allowing the MAGAs to absolutely demolish their chances of an electoral victory in 2024.
Because the GOP does not want it to work, they will not govern, will not help people only themselves, but most of all it means they do not have to work at all.