When Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) was ousted as Speaker, it created absolute chaos in the House.
Now, don’t get me wrong, I supported the removal of McCarthy, but as I had stated before, I surely thought there was a plan in place to remove him and replace him smoothly, but that was clearly not the case.
Newly elected House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) says he has no problem changing the rules to prevent something like this from ever happening again.
Changing the Rules
After McCarthy was ousted, numerous members of the House spoke up to say that the rule needed to be changed to ensure this never happened again. Mind you, the caucus voted on these rules, so…
Johnson says he is not afraid to change this rule.
He stated, “Everyone’s here in good faith … and everyone has told me that that rule has to change. Look, I’m not afraid of it because I’m going to openly work transparently and work with every member and everyone will be … will fully understand what we’re doing and why.
“And I think that’s a big part of it. But the rule makes it difficult for any Speaker to do their job.”
He tempered that by saying the rule change is not his top priority, continuing, “My highest priority is to get this work done and to do it an open and transparent way [to], as I said in my speech, the night when I took the oath, to decentralize the power from the Speaker’s office.
“I really want to empower our chairman and the committees of jurisdiction, and all the talented people in the House and make them more of a part of the big decisions and the situations and the processes here and ensure regular order.
“If we do that, we don’t have to worry about a motion to vacate, and I’m doing that, working on that every day.”
I would be happy to see single-issue legislation from this point forward so politicians cannot hide funding in omnibus bills.
If Johnson can accomplish that, I would consider his tenure as the Speaker a success.
