As many already know, Kevin McCarthy was removed as Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives several weeks ago. But the removal of McCarthy wasn’t unanimous; rather, it was quite contentious. Specifically, “The House voted 216-210 to oust McCarthy, with a handful of conservatives joining Democrats to remove him.” According to The New York Times, 208 Democrats and eight Republicans voted to remove McCarthy. Republicans have a majority in the House of Representatives; therefore, they have the power to select the Speaker of the House. The only rare case in which they lose that power is if Republican members of the House vote for a Democrat for speaker, which is highly unlikely to happen. Understanding that the Republicans hold such power, we now see that 210 Republicans wanted McCarthy to keep his position and eight wanted him to lose it. Yet, those eight are able to control the party’s decision by gathering Democratic support.
Here’s a quick comparison between McCarthy and the new speaker, Mike Johnson. McCarthy has been in the House of Representatives for 16 years and has experience as the House Majority Whip and House Majority Leader. Regardless of your political thoughts about him, it’s fair to say McCarthy has a lot of experience. On the other hand, according to Time, Mike Johnson “will be the least experienced House Speaker in more than a century.” That’s a huge difference as one of these individuals has the experience to be an effective Speaker of the House, while the other one doesn’t even come close to having the same qualifications.
This goes to show that a small amount of people can make pretty drastic changes. In this case, it only took eight people to replace a key member of our country’s leadership, someone who’s third in line in the presidential line of succession. What’s even crazier is who some of these eight people are. One of the proponents to replace McCarthy is representative Matt Gaetz, a man with a lot of baggage. According to the New York Times, “Mr. Gaetz has been under investigation over allegations he engaged in sexual misconduct and illicit drug use, shared inappropriate images or videos on the House floor, misused state identification records, converted campaign funds to personal use and accepted impermissible gifts under House rules, among other allegations.” Yet, Gaetz still had the power to be one of the eight people who made enormous change.
This situation shows that our democracy works in unique ways, some that many might find problematic. I’m not writing to argue whether this is a good thing or a bad thing, as it’s dependent on the situation. Some argue that the ability for the few to overrule the many is good because it requires a consensus to be formed, rather than the majority to rule all of the time. Others may say that such mechanisms fundamentally undermine the principles of democracy. Regardless of which side you fall on, this is an integral part of the U.S. system of government, and is something we must either accept or change. The electoral college is another example of this phenomenon, where the voters of a single state can change the outcome of the presidential election.
Overall, the U.S. has a very unique system of government; however, it is not without its flaws. And while there may be situations in which a small amount of people can create change that some would consider to be harmful, the system has worked for hundreds of years. This begs the question as to whether or not such practices should be allowed to persist.