Last week on the third of October, Kevin McCarthy officially became the first person ever removed from the position of Speaker of the House. This occurred after Florida representative Matt Gaetz invoked a motion to vacate on McCarthy after McCarthy allowed for only 1 member to attempt to vacate the Speakership during negotiations when initially trying to get the speakership 9 months ago. The House voted to vacate on a 216-210 vote with 8 republicans joining all Democrats in voting to remove McCarthy. So given we currently don’t have a Speaker I believe it’s important to look at the prominent names being floated as successors and their backgrounds, and importantly, what does it mean going forward?
Steve Scalise
One of the two people currently running for Speaker is the Majority Leader Steve Scalise who is a fairly hard right conservative. Scalise came under scrutiny in 2014 after it was found out that in 2002 he had accepted a speaking engagement from a top aide to David Duke, a former Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan the most famous white supremacist group in American history. To be fair to Scalise this was before he was elected to congress in 2008 but I do think it should be taken into heavy consideration when considering who might be the second in line for the presidency should something terrible happen. However even though that speaking engagement wasn’t recent, his attempt to overturn the 2020 election very much was. Steve Scalise has been elected to our government for over a decade and has engaged in the system of government for longer at the state level, and yet he decided that in 2020, the voter’s decision didn’t matter, that he knew better than us what was best for us. Someone who showed so little care for the system of government should not be allowed to serve in the position Scalise seeks.
Jim Jordan
Jim Jordan is the other candidate running for speaker and is the Former President Trump’s pick for the job. Jim Jordan is not without his own controversies however. Before Jim was in politics he was Assistant Coach of the Ohio State Wrestling team during the sexual abuse scandal in the Athletics Department against Dr. Richard Strauss. Six former wrestlers said that Jordan knew about the abuse but did nothing one of them saying that when he filed a complaint, Jordan responded “Not my problem.” Another eight said it was an open secret and he must have known about it. This scandal involved over 177 students, Jordan according to many knew and did nothing and now he’s vying for the top job in the House. Like Scalise, Jordan also voted to overturn the 2020 results, however Jordan was far more involved with the idea of overturning. He spoke at “Stop The Steal” rallies and endorsed Trump’s lawyers lawsuits against dominion voting machines despite how meritless they were. He was subpoenaed by the January 6th commission violating house ethics in the process.
What does this mean for the future?
There are several things this could likely affect. On November 17th the government is going to shutdown, should there not be a deal, and both these candidates are less likely to reach a deal with than Kevin McCarthy. Jordan said he would only keep the government open if migrants were banned from coming in. Scalise is generally more conservative than McCarthy and expected to want deeper cuts. There is also the issue of funding for Ukraine, which would be a problem if Jordan is to win as Jordan is completely opposed to aid, repeatedly voting against it. Steve Scalise however has fairly consistently supported Ukraine. While on Wednesday, Scalise won the Republican Speaker nomination, many Jordan supporters say they’ll still vote for him instead of Scalise, so this may not be ending anytime soon.
Bottomline is, you have two very hard line extreme conservatives who both have issues with white supremacy and sexual abuse coverups, along with both of them going through with attempting to throw out the election results the people voted three years ago. These people are not fit to serve in such a high position or any position in our government as they so clearly don’t care, or hate how democracy functions, and it is on us to make sure they face consequences for those actions.
