“Democracy is necessarily despotism. As it establishes an executive power contrary to the general will; all being able to decide against one whose opinion may differ. The will of all is therefore not that of all, which is contradictory and opposite to liberty.” –Immanuel Kant
Representative Kevin McCarthy of the United States Congress won the election to be the Speaker of the House, in a historic five-day, fifteen rounds of voting through which he had to win the support of the right-wing members of his own party, one-by-one through each round.
It may not be a complete waste of time for Sri Lankans to learn about such events, especially since we are gearing up for Local Government Elections, hopefully in the near future.
Achieving political and social changes is a process of gathering knowledge through which an increasing number of people would become aware of the nature of the system they are living in. What better way to do that than to understand how things happen in the country that claims to be the epitome of democracy (or that has, at least, been able to convince the rest of the world that they are the epitome of democracy). To understand how Mr. McCarthy became the speaker of the house we have to understand the structure of the process first.
It starts with a member from each party nominating the party’s candidate for the position. According to the US Constitution, any member of the house can nominate anyone for the position and the nominee doesn’t necessarily have to be a member of the house at the time.
The election is not through secret ballots but by roll call vote. When each member’s name is called by the house clerk he/she should say the last name of the candidate whom he/she is voting for or they can just say ‘present’, meaning that he/she is not voting for any of the candidates.
Republicans
Then the candidate with more than 50 percent of the total votes that have been assigned for names of the candidates (excluding the ’present’ votes) will win the position. There were 434 voting members this year with 212 Democrats and 222 Republicans and one had to get a minimum of 218 votes to win if all the members voted for a candidate.
Hakeem Jeffries was nominated by the Democrats while Republicans nominated Kevin McCarthy and several other names including the name Donald Trump. All 212 Democrats voted for their candidates Mr. Jeffries throughout all fifteen rounds. There were 21 Republican right wing Trumpians who were not ready to support their leading candidate McCarthy in the early rounds of voting.
Though the Democrat Jeffries had more votes than McCarthy in the early rounds none could get the required minimum of 218 votes. It was very clear that Trump was trying to send McCarthy a strong message saying that ‘I have the power to make you the Speaker and I am open to negotiation’. Trump knows that McCarthy will be a strong competition at the Republican Presidential primaries later this year and more than electing the Speaker the process seemed more and more to be about the 2024 Presidential race.
After each round McCarthy and his supporters were seen negotiating with the gang of 21 and most of them received phone calls from Trump himself. One could see several heated arguments between the two groups within the same party. By the 11th round of voting there were still 21 Republicans voting for other Republican candidates other than McCarthy.
In the 12th round 14 of them voted for McCarthy going up to 15 in the 13th round. In the 13th round the tally was 214 for McCarthy, 212 for Jeffries and 6 for other candidates giving a total of 432 votes for candidates by the name.
That means if a candidate gets 217 votes it is enough to go over the 50 percent mark and to win the race.
The 14th round was held after some more negotiations resulting 216 for McCarthy, 212 for Jeffries and 4 for other candidates but 2 voted ‘present’, still making the total voted for names of candidates 432. McCarthy was short of just one vote to make it 217.
He could smell the blood and whatever the offerings he made and whatever Trump told his pawns seemed to have worked in the record 15th round making those 4 Republicans voted for other candidates to vote ‘present’ which made the total voted for a name of a candidate 428, 50 percent of which is 214. Therefore it is enough to get 215 votes and McCarthy sealed it with 216, Jeffries with 212 and 6 holdups voting ‘present’.
Though we neither heard inappropriate language or personal insults nor saw fistfights or throwing pepper powder at each other, the atmosphere in the chamber was charged, to say the least. The exact contents of the negotiations are not in the public records, but the outcomes will be.
If one observes carefully how the Speaker treats the demands of the 21 right-wing members during the sessions of the 118thCongress of the United States, then one would be able to guess the type of discussions they may have had during those fifteen rounds of voting.
Concessions
Some Republicans were saying that they may never know the full extent of the concessions McCarthy had made to appease the right-wing rebels since some of the negotiations took place behind closed doors.
One Republican member issued a statement to her constituents saying, “we can’t think of anything ‘swampier’ than a member of Congress who tells the American people they are holding up the Speaker vote because they are ‘fighting’ the ‘swamp’ only to broker some back-room deal, hidden away from the American people.”
Some information about how McCarthy will be serving American people while keeping the promises he made to the Trump-wing of the party is flowing through the Washington pipelines these days. Some Republican members say that some of the concessions
McCarthy had agreed to would diminish the power of the Speaker considerably and may create an environment that would cater to the appetite of the right-wing (Trump-wing) of the party.
McCarthy has agreed to allow a single member to force a snap vote at any time to oust the Speaker, a rule he had previously refused to accept, regarding it as tantamount to signing the death warrant in advance. (This might remind Sri Lankans about a leader who kept letters of resignations of members of the Parliament in his pocket so that he can officially accept them at any time he wants to.)
He has also agreed to give over a third of the seats on the powerful Rules Committee, which controls what bills reach the floor and how they are debated, to the members of this holdup group.
In spite of all the drama, the showmanship of the American politics was on display when McCarthy said, during his acceptance speech, “As the Speaker of the House of Representatives, I do not serve any particular party. I do not even serve this body of legislature.
I serve the American people.” This perhaps why Thomas H. Huxley said: “The results of political changes are hardly ever those which their friends hope or their foes fear” and Mark Twain said: “If voting made any difference, they wouldn’t let us do it.”
The writer has served in the higher education sector as an academic for over twenty years in the USA and fifteen years in Sri Lanka and he can be contacted at [email protected]