tag:theconversation.com,2011:/africa/topics/us-house-of-representatives-22185/articlesUS House of Representatives – The Conversation2024-03-25T12:39:00Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2256182024-03-25T12:39:00Z2024-03-25T12:39:00ZI’ve been studying congressional emails to constituents for 15 years − and found these 4 trends after scanning 185,222 of them<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/582872/original/file-20240319-26-phuyva.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=3%2C6%2C2299%2C1470&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Messages stream out from members of Congress to constituents around the country.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/illustration/washington-dc-background-royalty-free-illustration/1300184706">traffic_analyzer/DigitalVision Vectors via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Republicans in Congress use taxpayer-funded email messages to contact constituents more often, and perhaps more effectively, than their Democratic counterparts. </p>
<p>That’s what I’ve found over 15 years of compiling and analyzing the archive that I <a href="https://www.dcinbox.com/">call DCinbox</a>, a free and open real-time archive of every official e-newsletter sent by sitting members of Congress to their constituents. </p>
<p>To my knowledge, no other institution – not even the <a href="https://www.loc.gov/">Library of Congress</a> – digitally archives these significant historical government documents whose creation and distribution is funded by the American people. So far, my compilation includes more than 184,000 official e-newsletters, and it grows by about 30 messages each day.</p>
<p>These communications are a way for legislators to present themselves and their arguments directly to constituents, free from the oversight of a newspaper or magazine editor, and in ways that can put additional information just one hyperlink away. </p>
<p>The messages reveal fundamental differences in how each party seeks to connect with and inform their constituents: Republicans prefer visual elements and strategic timing, and Democrats prefer more text-heavy missives.</p>
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<h2>A public-minded legacy</h2>
<p>Direct ways for lawmakers to communicate with the public have a long and democratic history. When the United States was founded, members of Congress were allowed to adopt what had been a common practice in the British Parliament – using <a href="https://cha.house.gov/the-history-of-the-frank">taxpayer funds to send informational mailings</a> to constituents. This privilege, <a href="https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF10489/3">called “franking</a>,” allowed a senator or representative to sign his or her name on an envelope’s top right corner in place of a stamp. There were rules, though – the messages had to be <a href="https://ethics.house.gov/official-allowances/frank">informational, not campaign material</a> or endorsements of other politicians.</p>
<p>In recent years, this practice has evolved into <a href="https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF10489/3">sending constituents email messages</a> from House members’ and senators’ official email accounts. The rules still apply: Members of Congress who want to send campaign material or partisan political messages must do so <a href="https://cha.house.gov/communications-standards-commission">from their campaign accounts or personal accounts</a>, not email addresses ending in “@house.gov” or “@senate.gov.” </p>
<p>In 2009, I began collecting all of the official messages as a part of dissertation work, with the hopes of creating an archive for researchers to use and to answer my own questions about how legislators would “look” ideologically if all we had to go on <a href="https://www.lindseycormack.com/_files/ugd/f1b05b_258780c810564137a5c14f2a627e2a89.pdf">were the votes they decided to communicate to constituents</a>. At that time, I had to <a href="https://www.lindseycormack.com/_files/ugd/f1b05b_7c033f4587d844dd97dccdb40a33ce1c.pdf#page=27">manually enter my email address</a> into the website of every member of Congress. Now it’s easier to keep up, because I just sign up for new members’ lists after every election.</p>
<p>For years, I’ve shared various insights, analyzing <a href="https://twitter.com/DCInbox/status/677312070401056772/photo/1">word usage</a>, <a href="https://x.com/DCInbox/status/1206965493220958209?s=20">trends in geographical terms</a> and finer bits of information such as how many members of Congress talked about <a href="https://x.com/DCInbox/status/1343585291878195201?s=20">COVID-19 on a given day</a> during the pandemic. </p>
<p>From this work, I have developed a few major insights into how members of Congress use this free perk, offering a better understanding of contemporary political communication tactics. Here are four important points I’ve learned.</p>
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<h2>1. Republicans use email more – and with more strategic timing</h2>
<p>Over the past 15 years, Republicans have won <a href="https://github.com/unitedstates/congress-legislators">only slightly more seats</a> in the House and Senate than Democrats. But once in office, Republicans use this email perk far more than Democrats. </p>
<p>In every month I’ve been tracking these messages – except briefly in the middle of 2010, when Democrats held 59% of all the seats in Congress, and for nine of the 11 months at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and early 2021 – Republicans have sent many more official e-newsletters to constituents than Democrats have.</p>
<p>Republicans also tend to be more attuned to the leisure reading habits of people. They send a greater number of their <a href="https://x.com/DCInbox/status/1246432110677823489?s=20">emails on weekends</a> when people are likely to have weekend time to take them in. Democrats are more likely to send their messages during the work week.</p>
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<h2>2. Republicans tend to stay on message</h2>
<p>Republicans in Congress are more consistent in using key terms and phrases than Democrats.</p>
<p>For example, back in 2023 Republicans were unhappy with Democratic attempts to <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/11/politics/republican-irs-funding-87000-agents/index.html">boost the IRS’ efforts</a> to reduce tax evasion. A proposal included the projection that the IRS could <a href="https://time.com/6260075/irs-87000-agents-republican-lie/">hire an additional 87,000 workers</a> over the coming decade. Republicans took to e-newsletters to oppose that move <a href="https://x.com/DCInbox/status/1584340479130234880?s=20">and specifically used that number</a> as a rallying cry.</p>
<p>And in 2022 and 2023, as <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/05/18/1176830906/overdose-death-2022-record">fentanyl deaths gripped news headlines</a>, multiple Republicans told constituents about how the volume of fentanyl in the U.S. could “kill every single American.”</p>
<p>By contrast, Democrats are far less likely to have overlapping term usage or phrasing. That suggests they are not as focused on coordinating constituent communications as Republicans.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/582658/original/file-20240318-18-w9v0f0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A trio of screenshots of e-newsletters from Republican members of the House and Senate." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/582658/original/file-20240318-18-w9v0f0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/582658/original/file-20240318-18-w9v0f0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=192&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582658/original/file-20240318-18-w9v0f0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=192&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582658/original/file-20240318-18-w9v0f0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=192&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582658/original/file-20240318-18-w9v0f0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=242&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582658/original/file-20240318-18-w9v0f0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=242&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582658/original/file-20240318-18-w9v0f0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=242&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Republican e-newsletters tend to include eye-catching images up front.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Lindsey Cormack, DCinbox</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>3. Republicans also routinely co-opt opponents’ words</h2>
<p>GOP legislators tend to adopt phrases that originate with <a href="https://grist.org/article/whats-the-green-new-deal-the-surprising-origins-behind-a-progressive-rallying-cry/">policy oriented journalists</a>, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/article/what-is-critical-race-theory.html">academics</a> and <a href="https://time.com/5936408/defund-the-police-definition-movement/">protesters</a> on the left into a convenient, and dismissive, shorthand. Terms like “<a href="https://x.com/DCInbox/status/1762522701233594855">Green New Deal</a>,” “<a href="https://x.com/FGawehns/status/1494700662604673027?s=20">critical race theory</a>,” “<a href="https://x.com/DCInbox/status/1529807563654586370?s=20">defund the police</a>” and “Bidenomics” are all used commonly in official Republican e-newsletters railing against Democratic policy proposals.</p>
<p>Democrats in Congress didn’t have a similar sort of concerted effort to use a Republican-originated word or phrase until 2022, when they began to use the <a href="https://x.com/DCInbox/status/1666065652489043968?s=20">term “MAGA</a>” as a way to tell constituents about parts of the Republican agenda they disagree with. And even then, only 292 e-newsletters from Democrats have used MAGA, while Republicans have sent 1,531 messages deriding the Green New Deal, 496 about critical race theory, 824 with defund the police and 330 saying Bidenomics.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/582657/original/file-20240318-26-3gd12c.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A trio of screenshots of e-newsletters from Democratic members of the House and Senate." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/582657/original/file-20240318-26-3gd12c.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/582657/original/file-20240318-26-3gd12c.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=247&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582657/original/file-20240318-26-3gd12c.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=247&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582657/original/file-20240318-26-3gd12c.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=247&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582657/original/file-20240318-26-3gd12c.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=311&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582657/original/file-20240318-26-3gd12c.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=311&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582657/original/file-20240318-26-3gd12c.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=311&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Democratic e-newsletters tend to be text-heavy.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Lindsey Cormack, DCinbox</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>4. Official e-newsletters have changed with the internet</h2>
<p>Official e-newsletters have changed over time, as trends of online communication have shifted. But here again, Republicans are ahead of Democrats.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.dcinbox.com/email/?id=225840">Republicans use more images</a> than Democrats and tend to refer constituents to <a href="https://lindsey-cormack.medium.com/the-news-congress-pushes-to-constituents-30a84e5de639">more media outlets, including those that support right-wing views</a>.</p>
<p>This official e-newsletter archive allows researchers to better understand the evolving nature of online political communications and learn about how the parties use contemporary tools to connect with their constituents. In order for the public and historians to make sense of American politics, I believe it’s important to analyze what legislators say when acting in their official capacity.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/225618/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lindsey Cormack does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>In taxpayer-funded email messages to constituents, Republicans prefer visual elements and strategic timing, and Democrats prefer more text-heavy missives.Lindsey Cormack, Associate Professor of Political Science, Stevens Institute of TechnologyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2258702024-03-15T20:03:38Z2024-03-15T20:03:38ZAttempts to ban TikTok reveal the hypocrisy of politicians already struggling to relate to voters<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/582275/original/file-20240315-26-rjm6wo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C23%2C5333%2C2969&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Banning TikTok has economic implications and will affect hundreds of millions of users.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>TikTok has been under review due to national security concerns by the <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/tiktok-national-security-review-1.7143574">Canadian federal government</a> since September 2023.</p>
<p>This was reported the day after the U.S. House of Representatives voted to pass a bill potentially banning TikTok. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says that the Canadian review of TikTok <a href="https://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/federal-government-ordered-national-security-review-of-tiktok-didn-t-disclose-it-publicly-1.6807265">is not related to the current actions undertaken by U.S. lawmakers</a>, but the government is following how the situation unfolds.</p>
<p>A potential ban in the United States and possibly Canada reveals the hypocrisy of those trying to get rid of it: politicians.</p>
<h2>Government concerns over TikTok</h2>
<p>The legislation proposed by U.S. lawmakers to ban TikTok — unless their Beijing-based parent company ByteDance divests — stems from rising geopolitical tensions. The potential ban represents the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/03/30/facebook-tiktok-targeted-victory/">lobbying efforts</a> of Silicon Valley companies, who are finding their power in the global platform economy decreasing. </p>
<p>U.S. and Canadian governments are concerned about the control and authority China exerts over ByteDance, and the possibility they can access user data. </p>
<p>However, it is unsurprising that national security concerns are being debated about TikTok in Canada. Trudeau’s February 2023 decision to ban TikTok on <a href="https://apnews.com/article/politics-mobile-apps-canada-government-united-states-justin-trudeau-43b27a80a1c2bf3b55e5ccf2ce573684">government-issued mobile devices</a> followed a similar move undertaken by U.S. President Joe Biden, and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jan/20/us-tiktok-bans-university-campuses">numerous U.S. universities</a>. </p>
<p>Donald Trump also <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/18/business/trump-tik-tok-wechat-ban.html">expressed similar concerns about TikTok</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/trumps-attempts-to-ban-tiktok-and-other-chinese-tech-undermine-global-democracy-144144">national security in 2020</a>. He has since changed his position; one of Trump’s campaign supporters is a wealthy Republican billionaire who is also <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2024/03/14/trump-tiktok-billionaire-donors-00146892">a major investor in TikTok</a>.</p>
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<h2>Real-world implications</h2>
<p>A potential TikTok ban in the U.S. and Canada could have disastrous economic implications on the livelihoods of both Americans and Canadians.</p>
<p>TikTok is a lucrative platform for numerous small business owners and entrepreneurial platform workers. For <a href="https://windsor.ctvnews.ca/that-s-their-livelihood-windsor-ont-influencer-md-motivator-talks-possible-u-s-tiktok-ban-1.6806543">Canadian TikTok influencers</a>, their followers are predominantly composed of American users. Banning TikTok would likely mean the loss of views and interactions in the tens of thousands.</p>
<p>In the U.S., <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2023/11/15/23962766/nearly-one-third-of-young-adults-are-regularly-getting-news-from-tiktok">young people are increasingly using TikTok to access news</a>. While TikTok’s growth has been slower in Canada, it’s one of the <a href="https://socialmedialab.ca/2022/09/14/survey-finds-canadians-are-spending-less-time-on-social-media-but-tiktok-is-the-exception/">most popular apps</a> among young users. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/as-pandemic-measures-are-lifted-social-media-use-has-declined-with-the-exception-of-tiktok-191126">As pandemic measures are lifted, social media use has declined with the exception of TikTok</a>
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<p>It’s in accessing and circulating information where the hypocritical implications of a TikTok ban come to the forefront of this debate.</p>
<h2>U.S. politicians and TikTok</h2>
<p>President Biden first banned TikTok on government devices in <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/tiktok-ban-biden-government-college-state-federal-security-privacy-rcna63724">December 2022</a>. The move was due to the continuing debate about China’s influence over ByteDance.</p>
<p>However, TikTok was instrumental in the Biden adminstration’s communications strategy. In 2021, the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/01/technology/vaccine-lies-influencer-army.html">White House partnered with social media influencers</a>, including TikTok creators, to encourage U.S. citizens to get their COVID-19 vaccine. </p>
<p>TikTok played an important role leading up to the November 2022 midterm elections. The <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/10/27/tiktok-democrats-influencers-biden/">Democratic National Committee (DNC)</a> invited TikTok influencers to Washington, D.C. These influencers met with high-ranking members of Biden’s administration, interacted with former president Barack Obama, and toured key D.C. landmarks, like the Capitol and the Oval Office. These activities were all posted on TikTok as part of the DNC campaign.</p>
<p>Despite announcing that he would <a href="https://apnews.com/article/biden-tiktok-ban-house-china-aaa884d8c974f0a35856af5ee6aa4e99">sign legislation banning TikTok if passed</a>, Biden’s campaign recently <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2024/feb/13/joe-biden-tiktok-campaign-national-security-social-media">activated a TikTok profile</a> as part of their digital strategy for the upcoming presidential election. </p>
<p>Biden is currently <a href="https://theconversation.com/young-people-are-lukewarm-about-biden-and-giving-them-more-information-doesnt-move-the-needle-much-222233">not performing well with young voters</a>. His campaign’s decision to reestablish a TikTok presence reflects this re-election concern. It is not a wise re-election strategy to pass a TikTok ban prior to the November presidential election.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/582274/original/file-20240315-18-ebnnj2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C6000%2C3997&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="a group of people protesting with signs that read I'M ONE OF 170 MILLION AMERICANS WHO USE TIKTOK. the US capitol can be seen in the background" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/582274/original/file-20240315-18-ebnnj2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C6000%2C3997&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/582274/original/file-20240315-18-ebnnj2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582274/original/file-20240315-18-ebnnj2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582274/original/file-20240315-18-ebnnj2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582274/original/file-20240315-18-ebnnj2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582274/original/file-20240315-18-ebnnj2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582274/original/file-20240315-18-ebnnj2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Devotees of TikTok protest a proposed bill that would lead to a nationwide ban of the popular video app if its China-based owner doesn’t divest.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)</span></span>
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<h2>Politics and TikTok in Canada</h2>
<p>In contrast to the U.S., Trudeau’s ban of TikTok has stifled political campaigning on the platform by other Canadian politicians. </p>
<p>NDP leader Jagmeet Singh consequently <a href="https://www.thestar.com/politics/federal/pierre-poilievre-jagmeet-singh-take-tiktok-hiatus-amid-government-ban-over-privacy-concerns/article_3943a81c-ed92-5477-9335-266219980b95.html">deactivated</a> his TikTok profile. With almost 900,000 followers, Singh’s TikTok attempted to communicate with young users in a language and style they understand. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/canadas-decision-to-ban-tiktok-from-government-devices-is-bad-news-for-the-ndps-election-strategy-200980">Canada's decision to ban TikTok from government devices is bad news for the NDP's election strategy</a>
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<p>Despite these existing bans, national security reviews and the threat of new proposed bans, politicians across Canada are campaigning on TikTok.</p>
<p>The Ontario NDP began posting on TikTok in January 2024, with many of their videos using <a href="https://www.blogto.com/city/2024/02/ontario-political-flame-war-cat-memes/">cat memes</a> to advocate against Premier Doug Ford’s policies. This move is part of the Ontario NDP’s <a href="https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/distributed/P/bo70027855.html">permanent campaign</a> digital strategy gearing up for the 2026 provincial election. </p>
<p>Throughout his political career, Trudeau has cultivated his political image by using social media platforms like <a href="https://policyoptions.irpp.org/magazines/april-2018/instagram-justin-trudeau-and-political-image-making/">Instagram</a>. It’s noteworthy that neither himself, nor the Liberal or Conservative parties have ever had a TikTok presence.</p>
<p>That’s because TikTok has been strategically used by those parties that don’t have the same <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/20563051231157604">financial resources</a>. Political parties like the NDP see TikTok as a long term strategy to reach potential young voters. </p>
<p>If the Canadian government follows with similar legislation, these political parties will lose out on a platform where they can reach young voters.</p>
<p>Concerns about privacy and security exist with <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/mar/17/cambridge-analytica-facebook-influence-us-election">all social media platforms</a>, not just TikTok. Proposed U.S. legislation banning TikTok and Canadian national security reviews showcase the insincerity of politicians and the contradictory nature of politics. Their actions reveal what they don’t want to admit: TikTok is a dominant social media platform.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/225870/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Aidan Moir has previously received funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.</span></em></p>Proposed U.S. legislation banning TikTok and the recently revealed Canadian national security review of the app reveals the insincerity and hypocrisy of politicians.Aidan Moir, Assistant Professor, Department of Communication, Media and Film, University of WindsorLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2236822024-02-15T18:10:44Z2024-02-15T18:10:44ZUkraine recap: prospect of renewed US funding a boost for beleaguered Zelensky<p>It’s appropriate, a fortnight out from the second anniversary of the full-scale Russian invasion, to look back and see what the mood was this time last year as we marked the end of the first year of all-out war in Ukraine. We had just published a piece by two security analysts from the Paris-based research university Sciences Po, who had outlined <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-year-on-russias-war-against-ukraine-could-go-in-three-different-directions-199556">three possible scenarios</a> for the 12 months ahead. </p>
<p>The first two options were major military setbacks for Russia or Ukraine, with major losses of troops and territory. The third was almost uncannily prescient, envisaging – as it did:</p>
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<p>a drawn-out conflict leading to exhaustion and war weariness – not only in Russia and Ukraine, but also among those Kyiv is depending on for the military supplies that are keeping the country afloat.</p>
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<p>Which, broadly speaking, fairly neatly sums up the current state of the war in February 2024. Ukraine’s much-anticipated spring 2023 counteroffensive got under way later than had been hoped and when it did, Ukrainian troops found themselves facing extensive and well thought-out Russian defensive lines. Months of bitter, attritional fighting resulted in few Ukrainian gains at a significant cost in terms of both manpower and precious materiel. </p>
<p>Worse, Ukraine’s forces found themselves being pushed back in various areas along the frontline and, in others, caught up in desperate and bloody defensive efforts around towns and cities long since reduced to rubble. The town of Avdiivka, in the eastern Donetsk Oblast with a pre-war population of more than 32,000 people, now looks set to join placenames such as Bakhmut and Soledar as costly and morale-sapping defeats.</p>
<p>In an attempt to change the momentum, which in recent months has been with Russia, Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky last week replaced his commander-in-chief Valeriy Zaluzhnyi with Gen Oleksandr Syrskyi – who masterminded the defence of Kyiv in May 2022 and the successful counter-offensive in late summer which saw Ukraine recapture significant territory.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/575994/original/file-20240215-24-epce1z.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="ISW map showing the battle lines around Avdiivka and Donetsk in eastern Ukraine, February 2024." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/575994/original/file-20240215-24-epce1z.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/575994/original/file-20240215-24-epce1z.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=916&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/575994/original/file-20240215-24-epce1z.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=916&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/575994/original/file-20240215-24-epce1z.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=916&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/575994/original/file-20240215-24-epce1z.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1151&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/575994/original/file-20240215-24-epce1z.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1151&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/575994/original/file-20240215-24-epce1z.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1151&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">The battle for Avdiivka and Donetsk, February 2024.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Institute for the Study of War</span></span>
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<p>But, as Stefan Wolff and Tetyana Malyarenko <a href="https://theconversation.com/ukraine-war-kyiv-needs-a-fundamental-rethink-of-its-strategy-not-just-a-reshuffle-of-military-leadership-223236">point out</a>, Syrskyi is also associated with the defence of Bakhmut, a battle that consumed so many lives on either side. Wolff, an expert in international security from the University of Birmingham, and Malyarenko of the University of Odesa, are concerned that there are as yet few signs of any fresh strategic thinking from Ukraine’s military planners which might begin to turn things around. </p>
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<em>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/ukraine-war-kyiv-needs-a-fundamental-rethink-of-its-strategy-not-just-a-reshuffle-of-military-leadership-223236">Ukraine war: Kyiv needs a fundamental rethink of its strategy, not just a reshuffle of military leadership</a>
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<p>They also point to the fact that Ukraine’s remarkable battlefield successes in 2022 came when western support for Ukraine was in full swing. But fresh supplies of weapons and ammunition from the EU and the US began to dry up in 2023, seriously hamstringing the Ukraine army’s ability to gain the initiative on the battlefield.</p>
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<img alt="Ukraine Recap weekly email newsletter" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/449743/original/file-20220303-4351-1xhaozt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/449743/original/file-20220303-4351-1xhaozt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/449743/original/file-20220303-4351-1xhaozt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/449743/original/file-20220303-4351-1xhaozt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/449743/original/file-20220303-4351-1xhaozt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/449743/original/file-20220303-4351-1xhaozt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/449743/original/file-20220303-4351-1xhaozt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p><em>Since Vladimir Putin sent his war machine into Ukraine on February 24 2022, The Conversation has called upon some of the leading experts in international security, geopolitics and military tactics to help our readers <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/ukraine-12-months-at-war-134215?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=Ukraine12Months">understand the big issues</a>. You can also <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/newsletters/ukraine-recap-114?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=Ukraine12Months">subscribe to our fortnightly recap</a> of expert analysis of the conflict in Ukraine.</em></p>
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<p>In both cases there was an identifiable rogue element: in the case of the EU it was Hungarian president, Viktor Orbán, who vetoed EU military aid to Ukraine for some months, only relenting in Janaury under intense pressure from other EU heads of government. In the US, it was Donald Trump. Trump, who famously said he could bring an end to the war “in a day”, has strongly opposed giving more aid to Ukraine and for months has bullied his wing of the Republican party into obstructing Joe Biden’s US$95 billion (£75 billion) aid package in the US Senate.</p>
<p>After months of bitter debate the bill finally passed the senate this week. But, as Dafydd Townley, an expert in US politics from the University of Portsmouth, <a href="https://theconversation.com/us-senate-passes-us-95-billion-aid-package-for-ukraine-what-this-tells-us-about-republican-support-for-trump-223502">writes here</a>, there is no guarantee that the bill will even be brought before the House of Representatives, let alone receive the House’s approval, given the GOP’s majority there.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/us-senate-passes-us-95-billion-aid-package-for-ukraine-what-this-tells-us-about-republican-support-for-trump-223502">US Senate passes US$95 billion aid package for Ukraine – what this tells us about Republican support for Trump</a>
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<p>Incidentally, it’s worth looking at what surveys of the American public say about whether their government should support Ukraine and, if so, in what way. Paul Whiteley, a professor in the department of government at the University of Essex, <a href="https://theconversation.com/ukraine-war-what-the-us-public-thinks-about-giving-military-and-other-aid-223064">found that</a> support for Ukraine tended to divide down party lines, with Democrats tending to think the US should continue – or do more – to support Ukraine, while by contrast many Republicans thought the US had already spent too much on aid. </p>
<p>A fair few independent voters felt the same way, which probably helps explain Republican obduracy over supplying more arms and ammunition, despite the fact – as has been regularly pointed out – that much of the $60 billion-plus provided for by Biden’s latest bill will never leave the US and will go straight to buy American arms. </p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/ukraine-war-what-the-us-public-thinks-about-giving-military-and-other-aid-223064">Ukraine war: what the US public thinks about giving military and other aid</a>
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<h2>Friends and enemies</h2>
<p>You may well remember when Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin met in Helsinki in 2018 in the wake of allegations that Russia had interfered in the 2016 election that had sent Trump to the White House. The then US president raised eyebrows (and a few hackles in the US intelligence community) when he said he believed Putin’s assertion that Russia had done nothing to mess with US democracy, seemingly content to take the Russian leader’s word over his own intelligence agencies.</p>
<p>One of Trump’s greatest allies in the media, former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, sat down with Putin for a two-hour interview last week. Inderjeet Parmar, an expert in US politics at City, University of London, watched the interview and <a href="https://theconversation.com/tucker-carlsons-putin-interview-gave-russian-leader-a-platform-to-boost-his-own-cause-and-that-of-donald-trump-223108">gives us his verdict</a>. </p>
<p>Given Carlson’s core audience, it was a chance for the Russian president to speak directly to the Make America Great Again (Maga) constituency and he took the opportunity – with a fair bit of help from Carlson – to repeat Kremlin talking points (namely: if America stops sending weapons to Ukraine the war will be over in no time), while picking holes in the Biden administration’s performance.</p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/tucker-carlsons-putin-interview-gave-russian-leader-a-platform-to-boost-his-own-cause-and-that-of-donald-trump-223108">Tucker Carlson's Putin interview gave Russian leader a platform to boost his own cause – and that of Donald Trump</a>
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<p>Putin began the interview with a half-hour primer on Russian history designed to back his oft-repeated assertion that Ukraine has always been part of Russia and that the two countries have a shared history going back to the 8th century. He followed this a few days later by placing sanctions on a group of UK historians – “so-called academics” who “make a significant contribution to the subversive work of London against Russia”.</p>
<p>Nick Mayhew, an expert in Russian history and culture, is familiar with the foundational myths that Putin is so fond of and says it’s “so spurious that it requires the silencing of credible historians”. Much of the story comes from a 12th-century chronicle which, among other things, attempts to trace the origins of the Slavic people back to Noah’s Ark. He <a href="https://theconversation.com/vladimir-putins-history-war-where-truth-is-the-first-casualty-223365">concludes</a>: “Putin’s early history of Ukraine is part of a Russian imperialist story that has been told for centuries. Only it is exactly that, a story.”</p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/vladimir-putins-history-war-where-truth-is-the-first-casualty-223365">Vladimir Putin's history war where truth is the first casualty</a>
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<p>Incidentally, Putin’s origin story includes Belarus as a land that was also part of early Russia. And there’s little doubt that the Kremlin has a large amount of influence over the government there with Belarus president Alexander Lukashenko counted among his closest allies and most faithful supporters.</p>
<p>The same can’t be said for the Belarus people, who are by and large fairly sick of Lukashenko and dead set against joining the war on Moscow’s side. Natasha Lindstaedt, an expert on post-Soviet eastern Europe at the University of Essex, says 97% of Belarusians are opposed to deploying their country’s troops in Ukraine and the vast majority wouldn’t blame a soldier who refused to fight on Russia’s side.</p>
<p>As she <a href="https://theconversation.com/ukraine-war-why-propaganda-doesnt-work-as-well-in-belarus-as-it-does-in-russia-222038">notes here</a>, despite Russia’s iron grip on their country’s economy and the Kremlin’s influence over their government, the people of Belarus are not inclined to believe Russian propaganda about the war. In fact, she writes, they tend to disbelieve pretty much everything their own government says.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/ukraine-war-why-propaganda-doesnt-work-as-well-in-belarus-as-it-does-in-russia-222038">Ukraine war: why propaganda doesn't work as well in Belarus as it does in Russia</a>
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<p>It’s unavoidable though, in the intense battle for hearts and minds, that some in Ukraine have opted to side with Russia for one reason or another. Ronald Niezen of the University of San Diego says that in areas occupied by Russia and now retaken by Ukraine, <a href="https://theconversation.com/enemy-collaboration-in-occupied-ukraine-evokes-painful-memories-in-europe-and-the-response-risks-a-rush-to-vigilante-justice-212416">the search is on for collaborators</a>. He says more than 7,000 criminal cases have been opened accusing Ukrainians of giving aid to the enemy. </p>
<p>Some, he writes, are fairly clear-cut instances of Ukainians providing the invaders with information about Ukrainian targets or those among their neighbours who might become partisans and fight behind the lines. Others are less so: people who continued to do their jobs after their town was occupied: local government officials, garbage collectors and the like. </p>
<p>Niezen, who writes that his own father died leaving his family with doubts about his conduct in occupied Netherlands during the second world war, cautions against the same outbreaks of vigilante violence that broke out in many countries once the Nazi occupiers were driven out.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/enemy-collaboration-in-occupied-ukraine-evokes-painful-memories-in-europe-and-the-response-risks-a-rush-to-vigilante-justice-212416">Enemy collaboration in occupied Ukraine evokes painful memories in Europe – and the response risks a rush to vigilante justice</a>
</strong>
</em>
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<p><em>Ukraine Recap is available as a fortnightly email newsletter. <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/newsletters/ukraine-recap-114?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=UK+Newsletter+Ukraine+Recap+2022+Mar&utm_content=WeeklyRecapBottom">Click here to get our recaps directly in your inbox.</a></em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/223682/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
A selection of our coverage of the conflict from the past fortnight.Jonathan Este, Senior International Affairs Editor, Associate EditorLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2235022024-02-15T12:56:12Z2024-02-15T12:56:12ZUS Senate passes US$95 billion aid package for Ukraine – what this tells us about Republican support for Trump<p>After months of wrangling, the US Senate has finally <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2024/02/12/politics/senate-foreign-aid-bill-ukraine/index.html">passed</a> Joe Biden’s US$95 billion (£75 billion) foreign aid package. Ukraine is the destination for almost two-thirds of the aid, with US$14 billion set aside to assist Israel’s war against Hamas, and US$10 billion destined for humanitarian aid in conflict areas, such as Gaza.</p>
<p>The bill passed the Senate by 70 votes to 29, with 22 Republicans joining the Democrat majority. But two Democrats and Bernie Sanders, the independent senator for Vermont, voted against the bill because of its support of Israel.</p>
<p>The split in the Senate illustrates the divisions among both parties on the subject.</p>
<p>Republican senators originally <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/feb/07/us-senate-vote-bipartisan-border-bill">voted against</a> a much larger bill (US$118 billion). They demanded that any foreign aid package must be dependent on increased funding for security on the US southern border with Mexico, and declared the proposed bill was insufficient to address concerns there.</p>
<p>But when former president Donald Trump <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2024/01/27/trump-mike-johnson-border-00138223">came out against the bill</a>, even with the financial support for border control measures, Republicans were divided. Trump called the bill a “horrible, open borders betrayal of America,” and vowed that he would “fight it all the way”.</p>
<p>Republican support for the bill was led by Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell. McConnell has always been supportive of Ukraine, claiming it is in the US interest to support Ukraine. After passing the bill, <a href="https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2024/feb/11/mitch-mcconnell-fires-back-gop-critics-ukraine-aid/">McConnell argued:</a> “We equip our friends to face our shared adversaries so we’re less likely to have to spend American lives to defeat them.”</p>
<p>McConnell’s advocacy was enough to get the bill through the Senate, although his position as leader has been severely weakened by the number of GOP senators who defied him on the aid package.</p>
<p>McConnell’s support for Ukraine puts him in direct opposition to Trump. Last year, <a href="https://www.wsj.com/video/watch-trump-says-as-president-hed-settle-ukraine-war-within-24-hours/0BCA9F18-D3BF-43DA-9220-C13587EAEDF2">Trump said</a> he could end the war in Ukraine in just one day if he was reelected, indicating he would push the US towards a more isolationist position.</p>
<p>The former president doubled down on this with a statement at a rally in South Carolina on February 11, where <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/republicans-gop-trump-nato-remarks-b2494597.html">he declared</a> he would refuse to support Nato members who failed to pay their way, and that he would encourage invading nations “to do whatever the hell they want”.</p>
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<p>This is not a new position for Trump, who has regularly <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/14/us/politics/nato-president-trump.html">talked about</a> pulling US support for Nato. But, as with his position on the Ukraine aid package, not all Republicans support his views. </p>
<p>Senator Josh Hawley, a staunch supporter of the former president, said that Trump was right to criticise those nations that did not pay 2% of their GDP towards the upkeep of Nato. But <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/republicans-gop-trump-nato-remarks-b2494597.html">he added</a> that the US should live up to its commitments and that if Russia “invaded a Nato country, we’d have to defend them”.</p>
<p>Unsurprisingly, Utah’s Republican Senator Mitt Romney, a long-time Trump critic, <a href="https://www.romney.senate.gov/romney-if-your-position-is-being-cheered-by-vladimir-putin-its-time-to-reconsider-your-position/">said</a> on the Senate floor: “If we fail to help Ukraine, we will abandon our word and our commitment, proving to our friends a view that America cannot be trusted.”</p>
<p>It is too early to know whether – and to what extent – Trump is losing the support of some of the Republican party. But there definitely appears to be a division along foreign policy between the former president and some Senate Republicans. </p>
<p>What is clear is that the majority of those opposed to abandoning Ukraine – and who supported the bill through the Senate – are made up primarily of national security hawks and former veterans.</p>
<h2>Now for the House</h2>
<p>Even though the bill has passed the Democrat-controlled Senate, it will have an extremely tough time in getting through the GOP-controlled House of Representatives. McConnell has already reached out to the House speaker, Mike Johnson, to ensure that it will get a fair hearing, but there are questions about whether the bill will even reach the floor. </p>
<p>In an <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2024/02/13/mcconnell-johnson-ukraine-aid-senate-00141201">interview</a> with US politics website Politico, McConnell asked Johnson to “allow the House to work its will on the issue of Ukraine aid”.</p>
<p>House Republicans have <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/bd3b8f97-cb00-4723-866e-8c94900680c3">called</a> the bill a “waste of time” and “dead on arrival” in the lower chamber. House support for the war in the Ukraine has fallen, especially as Republicans have begun to <a href="https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2024/02/07/house-oversight-republican-letter-ukraine-aid-border/72497628007/">scrutinise</a> the details of US assistance to Kyiv.</p>
<p>Johnson has declared that the bill will not even get a reading without sufficient provisions for security on the US southern border. “National security begins with border security,” <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/house/4466433-discharge-petition-ukraine-aid/">he said</a>. “We have said that all along. That has been my comment since late October, it is my comment today.”</p>
<p>Johnson’s refusal to get the bill on the floor of the House is understandable. House Republicans that oppose the bill believe that if it does get a reading then there is enough of a majority among moderates in both parties for it to pass. Republican representative Andy Biggs, a member of the Trump-supporting <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_Caucus">Freedom Caucus</a>, <a href="https://x.com/AnthonyAdragna/status/1757415224875929742?s=20">told</a> one talk radio host: “If it were to get to the floor, it would pass.” </p>
<p>This is a not a sign that Trump’s influence on House Republicans is dwindling. But it shows there is still just enough bipartisan support for Ukraine for bills such as this to pass Congress.</p>
<p>Johnson is now at the centre of what will be a parliamentary issue. If he refuses to allow the bill to be read, then it may make it onto the floor through a <a href="https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/R/R45920">“discharge petition”</a> brought about by a bipartisan majority. </p>
<p>This is a mechanism by which matters can be brought before the House without the sponsorship of the majority leadership. It would undermine Johnson’s position as leader of the House and deeply divide the Republicans in an election year.</p>
<p>The Senate passing the bill is a small victory for the pro-Ukraine lobby – but there could be many twists and turns before it gets voted on in the House, if it does at all.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/223502/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dafydd Townley does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>There’s no guarantee that the bill will even make it onto the floor of the US House of Representatives.Dafydd Townley, Teaching Fellow in International Security, University of PortsmouthLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2207692024-01-23T20:02:18Z2024-01-23T20:02:18ZMichigan selects its legislative redistricting commissioners the way the ancient Athenians did<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/570410/original/file-20240119-21-bkynf2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=15%2C38%2C5066%2C3349&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Michigan’s redistricting commission consists of ordinary citizens with no special qualifications. A court has disapproved their initial effort.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/RedistrictingMajorityMinorityDistricts/5137b615fc8d46858956d5ec7bff88e1/photo?boardId=c895684284c34868ab222ff6c8ee3ff0&st=boards&mediaType=audio,photo,video,graphic&sortBy=&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=12&currentItemNo=3">AP Photo/Carlos Osorio</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>How well can ordinary citizens exercise a political function traditionally assigned to elected legislators? </p>
<p>Michigan is finding out. The state has assigned the job of drawing election districts to a group of citizens with no special qualifications. Selecting government officials by lot is a procedure <a href="https://blog.oup.com/2016/03/sortition-ancient-greece-democracy/">first employed in Athens 2,500 years ago</a>. This experiment has produced dramatic results – as well as a court challenge. </p>
<p>The Michigan experiment marks a departure from how redistricting has usually been done.</p>
<p>Every 10 years, after the U.S. Census Bureau determines how many members of the House of Representatives are allocated to each state, the states redraw the geographical districts from which members of the House, as well as members of the state legislature, are elected. Historically, state legislatures have been responsible for making these maps.</p>
<p>But throughout U.S. history, the redistricting process has been marred by <a href="https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/democracy/news/2019/10/01/475166/impact-partisan-gerrymandering/">partisan gerrymandering</a> – drawing election districts to favor the political party that controls the state legislature.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/redistricting-litigation-roundup-0">Gerrymandering has often been challenged in court</a> as a violation of the Constitution’s equal protection clause and on other grounds. But in 2019, <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/2018/18-422">the U.S. Supreme Court held</a> that federal courts may not hear claims of partisan gerrymandering because they represent a “political question” that is unsuited for resolution by the courts.</p>
<p>The high court held that such issues should instead be resolved by the legislative and executive branches of government. </p>
<p><a href="https://ballotpedia.org/State-by-state_redistricting_procedures">Eight states have withdrawn the authority</a> to draw election districts from legislatures and assigned it to independent commissions. The procedures for selecting the members of these commissions vary, but in most states they are chosen by state legislators or judges. </p>
<p>Michigan’s <a href="https://www.michigan.gov/micrc">Independent Citizens Redistricting Commission</a>, created by a <a href="https://votersnotpoliticians.com/redistricting/">2018 ballot initiative</a>, is unique. As a professor who teaches <a href="https://law.wayne.edu/profile/aj8419">constitutional law</a> and, occasionally, <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1020397">ancient Athenian law</a>, I am fascinated by the fact that Michigan’s seemingly novel experiment in governance is based on a process that is thousands of years old. </p>
<h2>Selection by lot</h2>
<p>Unlike any other state, Michigan selected its 13 commission members almost entirely by lot from among those who applied for the position. </p>
<p>All Michigan registered voters who met the eligibility criteria, which excluded holders of political office and lobbyists, were eligible to apply. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.michigan.gov/som/0,4669,7-192-47796-532639--,00.html">From 9,367 applicants</a>, the Michigan secretary of state randomly selected 200 semifinalists. The process resulted in 60 Democrats, 60 Republicans and 80 independents. Following the procedure established by the ballot initiative, the four leaders of the Michigan Legislature then eliminated 20 of those semifinalists. </p>
<p>In August 2020, the secretary of state <a href="https://www.mlive.com/public-interest/2020/08/13-commissioners-randomly-selected-to-draw-new-district-lines-for-michigan-house-senate.html">randomly selected the 13 commissioners</a> from the remaining pool of 180 candidates – four Democrats, four Republicans and five independents, as required.</p>
<p>In a process completed in December 2021, the commission – made up of citizens with no special qualifications for the office – created election districts that were used to elect officials to the Michigan Legislature and the U.S. House of Representatives in the 2022 election cycle.</p>
<h2>Random selection in ancient Athens</h2>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/570739/original/file-20240122-15-jbj453.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="In a formal painting, a man stands on a platform addressing a crowd. A classical white building with pillars is in the background." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/570739/original/file-20240122-15-jbj453.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/570739/original/file-20240122-15-jbj453.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=477&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570739/original/file-20240122-15-jbj453.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=477&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570739/original/file-20240122-15-jbj453.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=477&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570739/original/file-20240122-15-jbj453.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=599&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570739/original/file-20240122-15-jbj453.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=599&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570739/original/file-20240122-15-jbj453.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=599&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In ancient Athens, most government officials were selected at random from among citizens eligible to fill the positions.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/collection/RP-F-2001-7-864-5">Philipp Foltz</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>With the exception of trial juries, the random selection of citizens to fill government office is almost unheard of. But it was not always that way. </p>
<p>Random selection was a prominent <a href="https://www.ancient.eu/Athenian_Democracy/">feature of the ancient Athenian democracy</a>. In the fifth and fourth centuries B.C., most important government offices were filled by lottery. The Athenians considered this selection of officials a hallmark of democracy.</p>
<p>These included the <a href="http://www.stoa.org/demos/article_democracy_overview@page=6&greekEncoding=UnicodeC.html">500 members of the Council</a>. This body proposed legislation for the agenda of the Assembly, composed of all free male adult citizens who chose to attend and the centerpiece of Athenian direct democracy. It also handled diplomatic relations between Athens and other states and appointed the members of administrative bodies. </p>
<p>Those selected by lot also included the nine chief officials of the city-state, <a href="https://erenow.net/ancient/ancient-greece-and-rome-an-encyclopedia-for-students-4-volume-set/268.php">the archons</a>, who had executive and judicial responsibilities. About 1,100 officials were selected annually by lot from a citizen population of about 25,000. </p>
<p>The Athenian historian Xenophon tells us that the philosopher Socrates, who was sentenced to death by an Athenian jury for his unorthodox views, thought that the Athenians were foolish to entrust the selection of the bulk of government officials to chance: <a href="http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0208%3Abook%3D1%3Achapter%3D2%3Asection%3D9">Nobody would select “a pilot or builder or flautist by lot</a>,” Socrates observed, so why trust to chance the selection of government officials who, if unsuited to their responsibilities, could harm the community?</p>
<p>The Athenians agreed with Socrates to an extent. In Athens, an additional 100 or so officials were elected by the Assembly, not selected by lot. They included the 10 generals responsible for commanding the army and navy. The Athenians thought the generals’ role was too important, and too dependent on skills possessed by few citizens, to allow the choice to be made randomly.</p>
<h2>How did Michigan’s redistricting commission do?</h2>
<p>Like piloting a ship or commanding an army, districting is a complex task. The <a href="http://tinyurl.com/bdfm4yut">2018 amendment to the Michigan Constitution</a> that established the commission says that the districts must be drawn in compliance with federal law. That includes a requirement that voting districts have roughly the same populations. It also requires that the districts “reflect the state’s diverse population and communities of interest” and “not provide a disproportionate advantage to any political party.”</p>
<p>Dividing the map to meet all of these criteria is not within the capabilities of a group of randomly selected citizens. Recognizing this, the 2018 amendment authorizes the commission to hire “independent, nonpartisan subject-matter experts and legal counsel” to assist them. The experts that the commission hired <a href="https://www.bridgemi.com/michigan-government/redistricting-experts-tell-court-we-followed-law-michigan-maps">guided its members closely</a> throughout the redistricting process.</p>
<p>The outcome of the 2022 elections supports a conclusion that the commission achieved the goals that motivated its creation. </p>
<p>A <a href="https://www.michiganradio.org/post/report-quantifies-michigans-very-real-gerrymandering-problem">2018 report</a> by the nonpartisan Citizens Research Council of Michigan found that the state’s election districts were “highly-gerrymandered, with current district maps drawn so that Republicans are ensured disproportionate majorities on both the state and federal levels.” In 2019 a <a href="https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/politics/2019/04/25/michigan-gerrymandering/3576663002/">federal court</a> held that Michigan’s gerrymandering violated the U.S. Constitution. That opinion was later vacated, or canceled, for jurisdictional reasons. </p>
<p>This gerrymandering was reflected in election results. In recent elections preceding the 2022 redistricting, Democratic candidates for the Michigan House of Representatives received a majority of the votes cast, yet <a href="https://votersnotpoliticians.com/voters-won-in-michigan-this-year-and-fair-maps-made-the-difference/">a majority of the candidates elected were Republican</a>. But in the 2022 elections, the first held using the redistricting commission’s maps, Democratic candidates for both the Michigan Senate and House won a majority of the votes and were awarded a majority of the seats: <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/11/08/us/elections/results-michigan.html">20-18 in the Senate and 56-54 in the House</a>. Democrats control both houses of the state Legislature for <a href="https://michiganadvance.com/2022/11/09/democrats-wrest-control-of-michigan-legislature-for-first-time-in-almost-40-years/">the first time since 1984</a>.</p>
<h2>Legal challenge to redistricting commission’s maps</h2>
<p>While the redistricting commission can claim success in eliminating the state’s partisan gerrymandering, in December 2023 <a href="https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/michigan/miwdce/1:2022cv00272/104360/131/">a federal district court held</a> that the procedure the commission followed in drawing some of the election districts violated the U.S. Constitution. </p>
<p>The court said that the commission violated the equal protection clause when it drew boundaries for seven state House and six state Senate districts in metro Detroit in such a way that <a href="https://www.bridgemi.com/michigan-government/experts-everything-air-now-michigan-districts-must-be-redrawn">the voting power of Black voters was diluted</a>. </p>
<p>The commission filed an appeal with the U.S. Supreme Court, but the court <a href="https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/politics/2024/01/22/michigan-redistricting-commission-us-supreme-court-redraw-house-senate-district-boundaries/72272380007/">denied the commission’s request for a stay</a> of the lower court’s order. The commission is now working to redraw the districts, and the lower court has ordered it to have a draft of the state House districts ready for public comment by Feb. 2. Time is now of the essence, since under state law the candidate filing deadline is April 23.</p>
<p><em>Portions of this article originally appeared in <a href="https://theconversation.com/michigans-effort-to-end-gerrymandering-revives-a-practice-rooted-in-ancient-athens-143892">an article published on Sept. 30, 2020</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/220769/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>John Rothchild does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A battle over the voting districts in Detroit has landed in the Supreme Court, but any ruling may come too late for 2024 state elections.John Rothchild, Professor of Law, Wayne State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2194602023-12-08T16:30:28Z2023-12-08T16:30:28ZEx-Speaker McCarthy’s departure from Congress reads like Greek tragedy – but stars a ‘slight unmeritable man’ and not a hero<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/564358/original/file-20231207-27-59vx12.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Rep. Kevin McCarthy leaves a House Republican Conference meeting at the US Capitol on Dec. 5, 2023. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/rep-kevin-mccarthy-r-calif-leaves-a-meeting-of-the-house-news-photo/1827750414?adppopup=true">Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images </a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Rep. Kevin McCarthy’s <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/12/06/1217575428/former-speaker-kevin-mccarthy-to-retire-at-the-end-of-the-month">departure from Congress</a> brings to mind ambition and the other side of ambition’s coin, humiliation – the thirst for fame and power on one side, ignominious failure on the other.</p>
<p>Classical literature abounds with ambitious characters; heroes are by definition ambitious.</p>
<p>McCarthy says he will “<a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/kevin-mccarthy-my-next-chapter-house-gop-retirement-california-e4e593d7">serve America in new ways</a>.” When heroes are defeated, they don’t usually retire into private life, claiming that a new chapter lies before them. </p>
<p>Rather, classical heroes admit and enact drastic reversals: <a href="https://www.uww.edu/documents/colleges/cac/TheatreDance/audition%20info/21%20Antigone/Antigone-Script.pdf">Creon in Sophocles’ Antigone</a> withdraws from the scene, admitting to his disastrous errors of judgment, which led to the suicides of his son and his wife. <a href="https://classics.mit.edu/Sophocles/oedipus.html">Oedipus himself</a>, at the close of his eponymous tragedy, blinds and exiles himself. </p>
<p>More often, heroes die. But McCarthy wasn’t a hero.</p>
<h2>To fall, you need height</h2>
<p>In <a href="http://classics.mit.edu/Sophocles/ajax.html">Sophocles’ Ajax</a>, the hero is so enraged and shamed by the fact that the dead Achilles’ armor has gone to Odysseus rather than to him, that he butchers innocent livestock, deluded in his madness that he is killing his fellow Greeks. His madness, sent by the gods, ebbs, and Ajax falls on his sword rather than live with the guilt and disgrace of his actions. But although he accurately attributes his spell of madness to the gods, Ajax also takes responsibility for what he has done.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/564361/original/file-20231207-23-9woa13.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A black and white drawing shows a man wearing a very old looking robe putting a dagger into his stomach." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/564361/original/file-20231207-23-9woa13.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/564361/original/file-20231207-23-9woa13.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=481&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/564361/original/file-20231207-23-9woa13.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=481&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/564361/original/file-20231207-23-9woa13.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=481&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/564361/original/file-20231207-23-9woa13.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=605&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/564361/original/file-20231207-23-9woa13.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=605&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/564361/original/file-20231207-23-9woa13.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=605&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The suicide of Brutus is shown in an 1882 illustration.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/the-suicide-of-brutus-after-the-battle-of-philippi-in-news-photo/1036155792?adppopup=true">Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, both Cassius and Brutus kill themselves. The two plotted and carried out a conspiracy to assassinate Caesar. Defeat by Mark Antony in the civil strife following their success is unbearable. The logic of their actions in assassinating Caesar has led them to an impasse from which there’s no honorable escape.</p>
<p>Kevin McCarthy, with his pleasant face and unconfrontational style, reminds me of <a href="https://myshakespeare.com/julius-caesar/act-4-scene-1">another passage in Julius Caesar</a>. Late in the play, the victorious Antony and Octavian send the third man of their triumvirate, Lepidus, on an errand to retrieve Caesar’s will. No sooner has Lepidus scurried off than Antony vents his contempt for their associate:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>This is a slight unmeritable man,</p>
<p>Meet to be sent on errands…</p>
</blockquote>
<p>And in historical fact, Lepidus never got to share in the spoils of victory over Caesar’s assassination. Banished by his erstwhile confederates, he spent the remainder of his life in exile.</p>
<p>Slight unmeritable man: that epithet fits McCarthy. His ambition wasn’t in doubt. The price he paid to be elected speaker, after a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/01/04/us/politics/house-speaker-vote-tally.html">humiliating number of ballots cast against him</a>, testifies to McCarthy’s hunger for office. </p>
<p>But only months later, the price he had paid – an agreement to make it <a href="https://rollcall.com/2023/01/07/mccarthy-wins-speaker-election-finally/">easier to dethrone a speaker</a> – proved to be his undoing. From the <a href="https://sasn.rutgers.edu/rachel-hadas">perspective of a classicist</a>, McCarthy does not qualify as a hero. To be humiliated, to fall, you have to have attained some height to begin with.</p>
<h2>Fools and ambition</h2>
<p>American politics is rife with characters who seem immune to humiliation, incapable of apologizing or learning or changing. <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/dec/06/george-santos-cameo-income-salary">George Santos comes to mind</a> as an absurdly extreme example – what would Shakespeare have done with him?</p>
<p>But there are many others. <a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/11/rudy-giuliani-hair-dye-press-conference">Rudy Giuliani with his hair dye</a> running down his face. Sen. Bob Menendez, after federal investigators probing him for bribery found hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash stashed in his home, <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2023/09/25/sen-menendez-suggests-cash-found-in-bribery-raid-came-from-personal-savings.html">saying it came from</a> “my personal savings account, what I have kept for emergencies and because of the history of my family facing confiscation in Cuba.” Brazenness is the order of the day. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/564362/original/file-20231207-21-ln638l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Rudy Giuliani appears to speak with his mouth dropped open, and American flags behind him. He has dark dye running down his face." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/564362/original/file-20231207-21-ln638l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/564362/original/file-20231207-21-ln638l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/564362/original/file-20231207-21-ln638l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/564362/original/file-20231207-21-ln638l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/564362/original/file-20231207-21-ln638l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/564362/original/file-20231207-21-ln638l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/564362/original/file-20231207-21-ln638l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Rudy Giuliani, a former lawyer for former President Donald Trump, speaks during a news conference on Nov 19, 2020.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/former-new-york-city-mayor-rudy-giuliani-lawyer-for-u-s-news-photo/1229689770?adppopup=true">Sarah Silbiger for The Washington Post via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>What the fall of Ajax shares with Antony and Octavian’s machinations is also the backdrop of McCarthy’s abrupt exit: <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2023/12/06/kevin-mccarthy-resignation-congress-00130359">jostling political rivalries and wounded pride</a>. </p>
<p>Ajax feels entitled to be the inheritor of the fallen Achilles’ armor; to have that armor awarded to Odysseus makes the humiliation worse. Antony and Octavian don’t regard Lepidus as an equal; Antony explains to the younger man that they will soon turn Lepidus out to pasture. </p>
<p>But although McCarthy surely felt wronged and wounded by his ouster, he didn’t say so. On the contrary, <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/kevin-mccarthy-my-next-chapter-house-gop-retirement-california-e4e593d7">McCarthy’s special quality, his insistent good cheer</a>, calls to mind another applicable passage from Shakespeare. Noting his uncle <strong>Claudius’</strong> urbane and courtly manners, <a href="https://www.opensourceshakespeare.org/views/plays/play_view.php?WorkID=hamlet&Act=1&Scene=5&Scope=scene">Hamlet observes</a>, “One may smile and smile and be a villain.”</p>
<p>Is villain even the word for McCarthy? Only in the swamp of Washington, D.C., politics does he look, if not like a virtuous character, then like a relatively innocent victim. His chief hubris was in gambling that his maneuvers would work. </p>
<p>Fools can be ambitious; ambitious people can behave foolishly. McCarthy’s <a href="https://abc7.com/kevin-mccarthy-resigning-speaker-house/14147752/">desire for power at any cost</a> foolishly seeded his own humiliation. But there was an earlier seed, one planted by that model of brazen shamelessness, Donald Trump. In calling McCarthy “<a href="https://apnews.com/article/trump-cheney-mccarthy-republicans-84cb83aeab7833218537a174e2c2d437">my Kevin</a>,” Trump surely echoed what Antony might have called his fellow triumvir: “My Lepidus” – the man ultimately banished from the world he sought to govern, and sent into exile.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/219460/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rachel Hadas does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Kevin McCarthy, the only speaker of the House to be ousted, has quit Congress. The ancient Greeks and Romans, as well as Shakespeare, understood the price of ambition like McCarthy’s: humiliation.Rachel Hadas, Professor of English, Rutgers University - NewarkLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2170442023-11-16T13:19:07Z2023-11-16T13:19:07ZPrison sentence for Trump adviser Navarro gives new teeth to Congress as watchdog over the White House<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/559455/original/file-20231114-15-fb67p7.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=13%2C0%2C2982%2C2106&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">At a January 2017 executive order signing, adviser Peter Navarro is third from left behind Trump, while Steve Bannon is on the far right. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/president-donald-trump-signs-the-first-of-three-executive-news-photo/632489940">Ron Sachs - Pool/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Former Trump administration trade official <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2024/01/25/peter-navarro-sentence-contempt/">Peter Navarro has been sentenced to four months behind bars</a> for contempt of Congress. Navarro had refused to provide the House Jan. 6 committee with information it sought from him. He joins Steve Bannon as the first defendants in decades to be held <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/us/former-trump-adviser-navarro-convicted-contempt-congress-2023-09-07/">criminally liable</a> by the U.S. Department of Justice for refusing to provide information in response to congressional subpoenas. </p>
<p>The Supreme Court has long supported Congress’ authority to obtain information needed to carry out its constitutional duties. But weak enforcement tools have made getting that information difficult, especially from the executive branch. </p>
<p>As <a href="https://law.wayne.edu/profile/fy5438">a former chief counsel for the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations</a>, I view the jury convictions of Bannon and Navarro as reviving the use of criminal proceedings as an enforcement option for Congress, offering a potent tool for holding powerful people accountable if they defy the legislative branch. How often that option will actually be used in the future, however, remains unclear.</p>
<h2>The cases</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/us/congressional-probe-us-capitol-riot-subpoenas-bannon-meadows-2021-09-23/">Bannon and</a> <a href="https://january6th-benniethompson.house.gov/news/press-releases/select-committee-subpoenas-peter-navarro">Navarro subpoenas</a> were issued by the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol. </p>
<p>The subpoenas required both men to testify before the committee and produce documents related to the 2020 presidential election and the January 2021 attack. </p>
<p>But Bannon and Navarro declined to provide any documents or even to appear before the committee as the subpoenas directed. Both claimed they <a href="https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/4175318-navarro-says-trump-wanted-him-to-assert-privileges-during-jan-6-panel-investigation/">did not have to comply with the subpoenas</a> because, as presidential advisers, they were absolutely immune to congressional orders and because former President Donald Trump had <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-house-committee-rejects-bannon-privilege-argument-jan-6-probe-2021-10-18/">asserted executive privilege</a> over the requested information – which meant they couldn’t produce it to Congress.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/559457/original/file-20231114-21-brrevk.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A man in a suit with white hair looking pensive." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/559457/original/file-20231114-21-brrevk.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/559457/original/file-20231114-21-brrevk.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=419&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/559457/original/file-20231114-21-brrevk.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=419&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/559457/original/file-20231114-21-brrevk.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=419&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/559457/original/file-20231114-21-brrevk.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=526&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/559457/original/file-20231114-21-brrevk.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=526&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/559457/original/file-20231114-21-brrevk.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=526&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Peter Navarro, after being found guilty of contempt of Congress at the E. Barrett Prettyman Courthouse on Sept. 7, 2023, in Washington.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/peter-navarro-an-advisor-to-former-u-s-president-donald-news-photo/1666307036?adppopup=true">Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images</a></span>
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</figure>
<p>The committee and the full House <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2022/04/06/house-votes-dan-scavino-peter-navarro-in-contempt-00023619">voted to hold the subpoena recipients in contempt of Congress</a>. The committee referred their cases to the Department of Justice, requesting prosecution under <a href="https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/USCODE-2010-title2/USCODE-2010-title2-chap6-sec194">a federal law</a> that says if Congress refers a case, the Department of Justice shall present it to a grand jury.</p>
<p>Bannon was tried in July 2022; the <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/07/22/politics/steve-bannon-contempt-of-congress-january-6-verdict/index.html">jury took only three hours to return a guilty verdict</a>. Navarro went to trial on Sept. 7, 2023; the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/07/us/politics/navarro-contempt-trial-jury.html">jury found him guilty the same day</a>. Bannon was sentenced to four months imprisonment and fined US$6,500. In addition to his sentence of four months in prison, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2024/01/25/peter-navarro-sentence-contempt/">Navarro has been fined $9,500</a>. <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/us/former-trump-adviser-navarro-convicted-contempt-congress-2023-09-07/">Both men</a> have said they will appeal their convictions. </p>
<h2>Criminal penalties</h2>
<p>Congressional investigations are part of the Constitution’s system of checks and balances and can include examining actions taken by the executive branch. </p>
<p>In the past, for example, Congress has evaluated government waste, fraud and <a href="https://www.levin-center.org/harry-truman-and-the-investigation-of-waste-fraud-abuse-in-world-war-ii/">abuse</a>; <a href="https://www.levin-center.org/frank-church-and-the-church-committee/">troubling covert intelligence operations</a>; and <a href="https://www.levin-center.org/the-watergate-hearings/">government misconduct</a>. </p>
<p>When Congress begins asking questions, executive branch officials have sometimes refused to provide requested information.</p>
<p>Using its authority granted in the Constitution, Congress has previously imprisoned individuals for defying a congressional subpoena. <a href="https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/R/R45653">But that last occurred in 1935</a>. </p>
<p>When Congress has referred cases to the Department of Justice under the law requiring presentation to a grand jury, the department has <a href="https://levin-center.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/shaub-the_executive_s_privilege.pdf">routinely declined to prosecute</a> executive branch officials who are following presidential instructions to withhold information. Essentially, the department hasn’t chosen to prosecute officials from its own administration.</p>
<p>The change in pattern in the Bannon and Navarro cases may have occurred in part because the Biden Justice Department was asked to prosecute people associated with the Trump administration, and the withheld information involved a matter of rare constitutional significance. </p>
<p>The Bannon and Navarro convictions demonstrate for the first time in over 80 years that if the Department of Justice chooses to use them, statutory criminal prosecutions and penalties offer a feasible and forceful tool to protect congressional inquiries.</p>
<p>The House committee that requested the information from Bannon and Navarro has disbanded, so the two criminal cases will not be supplying it with any new information. But the contempt prosecutions, if they end up punishing the defendants’ misconduct, could create a potentially significant deterrent to those thinking about defying a congressional subpoena.</p>
<h2>Executive privilege</h2>
<p>Another key aspect of both cases involves the issue of executive privilege. Executive privilege enables the president to withhold information from Congress when it is in the public interest. <a href="https://www.levin-center.org/congress-first-investigation-general-st-clairs-defeat/">President George Washington was the first</a> to articulate the principle in 1792.</p>
<p>The Supreme Court first recognized executive privilege as constitutionally legitimate in <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/1973/73-1766">United States v. Nixon</a>, while also ruling that President Richard Nixon could not use the privilege to quash a grand jury subpoena of conversations recorded in the Oval Office, because “fundamental” due process and fairness required the prosecutor to have access to the tapes as part of a criminal inquiry. The Supreme Court has since provided little additional guidance on how to claim executive privilege or what it protects.</p>
<p>Both Republican and Democratic administrations have subsequently claimed that, due to executive privilege and other separation of powers concerns, presidential advisers are absolutely immune to congressional subpoenas, despite court rulings to the contrary. </p>
<p>In <a href="https://casetext.com/case/trump-v-mazars-usa-llp-2">Trump v. Mazars</a>, when President Trump sought to block the disclosure of certain personal financial documents to Congress, the Supreme Court pointedly ignored his claims of absolute immunity to congressional subpoenas. Instead, the court established a new test enabling Congress to subpoena certain information involving the president and sent the cases back to the lower courts to apply the test to the subpoenas at issue. </p>
<p>Following that Supreme Court guidance, the Bannon and Navarro district courts rejected the defendants’ immunity claims, although it is likely the defendants will bring up the issue again in their appeals.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/559459/original/file-20231114-17-kgyfft.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A large room filled with people, including almost a dozen at a long table at the front of the room, with a large screen behind them that says them that says 'Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol.'" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/559459/original/file-20231114-17-kgyfft.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/559459/original/file-20231114-17-kgyfft.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/559459/original/file-20231114-17-kgyfft.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/559459/original/file-20231114-17-kgyfft.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/559459/original/file-20231114-17-kgyfft.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/559459/original/file-20231114-17-kgyfft.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/559459/original/file-20231114-17-kgyfft.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A June 9, 2022, hearing of the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol attack.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/capitol-police-officer-caroline-edwards-and-british-news-photo/1241208542?adppopup=true">Jabin Botsford-Pool/Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>Also significant is that the two district court judges in the Bannon and Navarro cases refused to allow either defendant to raise an executive privilege defense at trial. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.justice.gov/usao-dc/pr/stephen-k-bannon-found-guilty-jury-two-counts-contempt-congress">In the Bannon case</a>, the court held that he never proved that Trump asserted executive privilege over the requested information and that, while Bannon was an adviser to Trump in 2017, he was not in 2020, which was the time period covered by the congressional subpoena. <a href="https://www.justice.gov/usao-dc/pr/former-white-house-advisor-convicted-contempt-congress">In the Navarro case</a>, while Navarro was a presidential adviser in 2020, the court found him unable to prove that Trump ever asserted executive privilege over the subpoenaed information. </p>
<p>The inability to prove Trump instructed either of them to assert privilege suggests that neither defendant will be able to offer a strong executive privilege argument in their appeals.</p>
<h2>Strengthening Congress</h2>
<p>Unless reversed, the Bannon and Navarro cases have nudged open a door that had been effectively closed for 80 years, showing that federal prosecutors and juries can use criminal penalties to hold powerful political players accountable. </p>
<p>While their appeals continue, the two cases already suggest that criminal as well as civil enforcement of congressional subpoenas can work. If the convictions are upheld on appeal, Congress could even consider ways to make criminal prosecution a more viable option, perhaps by legislating new authority enabling Congress to require appointment of a special prosecutor to handle cases involving executive branch officials. </p>
<p>If Congress could appoint a special prosecutor, it would not have to rely on the Department of Justice to bring a prosecution. Of course, the special prosecutor would still have to try the criminal case in court before a judge and jury.</p>
<p>Equally important, the two cases may clarify the legal limits on executive privilege and absolute immunity.</p>
<p>The appeals court could, for example, bar future absolute immunity claims by executive branch officials subpoenaed by Congress. It could also make clear that executive privilege requires specific evidence to succeed in court. That includes proof that a current or former president asserted privilege, that the defendant was a presidential adviser at the relevant time, and that the defendant appeared before Congress and claimed the privilege on a question-by-question basis. </p>
<p>If the appeals court sustains those requirements, clarifying what has to be proved to assert executive privilege could affect not only criminal but also civil enforcement efforts, strengthening the hand of Congress when facing nebulous assertions of executive privilege.</p>
<p>The D.C. Court of Appeals held <a href="https://rollcall.com/2023/11/09/appeals-court-skeptical-of-bannon-push-to-overturn-contempt-of-congress-convictions/">oral argument in the Bannon case on Nov. 9</a>; the Navarro case will follow. How the appeals process unfolds will determine the extent to which the Bannon and Navarro contempt of Congress convictions will create an effective deterrent to executive branch defiance of Congress’ authority to subpoena information. Curbing noncompliance with congressional subpoenas promises, in turn, to strengthen Congress’ ability to serve as a constitutional check on the executive branch.</p>
<p><em>This story has been updated to reflect Navarro’s four-month prison sentence.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/217044/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Elise J. Bean does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The conviction and incarceration of 2 former Trump aides who refused to comply with the House Jan. 6 committee’s information requests could revive a potent tool for accountability.Elise J. Bean, Director of the Washington Office of the Levin Center for Oversight and Democracy, Wayne State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2164012023-10-25T20:02:19Z2023-10-25T20:02:19ZNew House Speaker Mike Johnson leads a GOP majority weakened by decades of declining party authority<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/555920/original/file-20231025-21-dtjqm0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=42%2C42%2C5668%2C3810&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">House Republicans applaud as U.S. Rep. Mike Johnson, center, is elected the new speaker of the House on Oct. 25, 2023.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/house-republicans-applaud-as-u-s-rep-mike-johnson-is-news-photo/1756417576?adppopup=true">Alex Wong/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>After the House of Representatives took the unprecedented step on Oct. 3, 2023, of removing its own speaker, Kevin McCarthy of California, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/10/03/us/politics/mccarthy-house-speaker-vote-live.html">with eight Republicans joining all 208 voting Democrats to</a> “vacate the chair,” what followed was weeks of uncertainty. Until <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/24/us/politics/house-speaker-election.html">conservative Louisiana Rep. Mike Johnson</a> was elected speaker of the House on Oct. 25, no candidate had been able to secure the necessary number of Republicans to win a vote on the House floor. And without an elected speaker, the <a href="https://theconversation.com/gops-house-paralysis-is-a-crisis-in-a-time-of-crises-216204">chamber was effectively stuck</a>.</p>
<p>The two proximate reasons for the GOP’s struggle to pick and keep a speaker are that it is internally divided and its majority in the House is small. But as a <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=rzgJTxIAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">scholar of American politics</a>, I believe the party’s problems also stem from long-term pressures that have made it hard for both parties in Congress to exercise the kind of authority they need to govern.</p>
<h2>The authority of parties</h2>
<p>An effective legislative party exercises four kinds of authority. The first is the ability to choose the chamber’s top leader and write the chamber’s rules – which both form part of what political scientists call <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691118123/fighting-for-the-speakership">organizational authority</a>. </p>
<p>The second kind is <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/setting-the-agenda/C3B6AB4BAD51BDEE406120597A460C16">procedural authority</a>, or the ability to set the legislative agenda and decide which bills come to the floor for a vote.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A middle aged white dressed in a business suit rests his hands on a lectern as he stands in front of two other white men" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/555896/original/file-20231025-27-poazjo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/555896/original/file-20231025-27-poazjo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555896/original/file-20231025-27-poazjo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555896/original/file-20231025-27-poazjo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555896/original/file-20231025-27-poazjo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555896/original/file-20231025-27-poazjo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555896/original/file-20231025-27-poazjo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy stands in front of Republican House members Jim Jordan and Steve Scalise in this 2019 photograph.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/house-minority-leader-rep-kevin-mccarthy-speaks-as-rep-jim-news-photo/1177076170?adppopup=true">Alex Wong/Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>The third type of authority is over policy – being able to pass the party’s desired bills and amendments on the floor.</p>
<p>Finally, parties have electoral authority, meaning they help their members get reelected and help challengers beat incumbents from the other party.</p>
<p>All four kinds of authority are important, but the first two are especially so. Without them, the minority party in the House could choose the speaker, write the chamber’s rules in its favor and bring only the bills it prefers to the chamber floor.</p>
<h2>Before the 1990s: Stronger parties</h2>
<p>From the 1970s through the mid-1990s, as the House Democratic Party – the majority party at the time – became more liberal, its members worked to expand the party’s authority in all four dimensions, hoping to marginalize Republicans and conservative Democrats.</p>
<p>As a result, minority party Republicans had fewer and fewer chances to bring bills and amendments to the floor, and when they did, they <a href="https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/P/bo3638205.html">usually lost to more liberal proposals </a>. Democrats’ election fundraising also grew rapidly, and they gave more attention to recruiting strong candidates to run for office.</p>
<p>Republicans adopted these tactics after they became the majority party in the House in 1995 and elected <a href="https://kansaspress.ku.edu/9780700633265/">Newt Gingrich</a> as speaker. <a href="https://www.press.jhu.edu/books/title/9270/leading-representatives">Under Gingrich’s leadership</a>, the GOP pushed through a package of major conservative bills in the first 100 days of the new Congress, and Democrats were mostly powerless to stop them.</p>
<h2>From the 1990s to today: Weakening parties</h2>
<p>Though Republicans appeared to have a monopoly on power in the House in 1995, their rise to the majority also coincided with significant changes in the political environment that would threaten the authority of both parties.</p>
<p>For one thing, congressional elections became more competitive, <a href="https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/I/bo24732099.html">giving the minority little incentive</a> to help the majority govern. <a href="https://history.house.gov/Institution/Party-Divisions/Party-Divisions/">Smaller margins in the House between the two parties</a> gave the majority party less leeway to allow for defections on floor votes. And new legislators were elected to Congress who were skeptical of leaders and the tradition of party loyalty.</p>
<p>The most obvious sign of fraying party authority was a new willingness of lawmakers, <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3638134">starting in the mid-1990s</a>, to vote against their own party’s nominee for speaker. In 2019, Democrat Nancy Pelosi had to engage in <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3638134">intense backroom negotiations</a> to get elected speaker; in January 2023, the House went through <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/06/us/politics/house-speaker-vote-mccarthy.html">15 rounds of balloting</a> before selecting McCarthy as speaker.</p>
<p>In recent years, other forces have further weakened the authority of the House Republican Party in particular. These include the <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2020/04/08/five-facts-about-fox-news/">rise of Fox News as the dominant voice of conservatism</a> and the emergence of <a href="https://www.cpi.org/">outside groups</a> that lobby GOP lawmakers to avoid compromise and act aggressively on behalf of conservative policies.</p>
<p>The election of Donald Trump in 2016 accelerated this trend by turning the <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2016/02/donald-trump-working-class-voters-219231">Republican Party’s base toward angry populism</a> and encouraging some incumbents to openly defy their party in the hopes of tapping into that base. </p>
<p>It also encouraged other conservative mavericks to run for Congress, such as <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/12/us/politics/lauren-boebert-colorado-elected.html">Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado</a>, <a href="https://www.denverpost.com/2023/01/06/lauren-boebert-kevin-mccarthy-speaker-votes/">who opposed McCarthy’s initial selection as speaker</a> or who otherwise <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/01/politics/mccarthy-government-spending-fight/index.html">made it hard for him to lead the party</a>.</p>
<h2>What comes next?</h2>
<p>The current situation has created a serious <a href="https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/acref/9780199670840.001.0001/acref-9780199670840-e-223">collective action problem</a> for the GOP, meaning that too many lawmakers think only about their own political needs, even at the risk of hurting the party as a whole. Polls show that the stalemate over choosing a speaker was <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2023/10/22/americans-house-elect-speaker-poll/71270869007/">damaging to the Republican Party’s reputation</a>. But so many party members believe they will win the support of conservative voters in their districts or gain more coverage on right-wing media by being intransigent that, until Johnson’s election, a speaker candidate had yet to unite the GOP over three weeks of effort. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A middle aged white man wearing eyeglasses is surrounded by television cameras and reporters." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/555900/original/file-20231025-18-eid4yg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/555900/original/file-20231025-18-eid4yg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555900/original/file-20231025-18-eid4yg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555900/original/file-20231025-18-eid4yg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555900/original/file-20231025-18-eid4yg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555900/original/file-20231025-18-eid4yg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555900/original/file-20231025-18-eid4yg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">U.S. Rep. Mike Johnson of Louisiana arrives for a House Republican meeting and vote on a new speaker of the House on Oct. 24, 2023.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/representative-mike-johnson-arrives-for-a-house-republican-news-photo/1744079738?adppopup=true">Matt McClain/The Washington Post via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It’s not just conservative populists who are undermining the party’s authority. Even though Jim Jordan, an Ohio Republican, had been nominated by the party to be McCarthy’s replacement, he gave up after losing three rounds of balloting on the floor. That was thanks to the opposition of institutionally minded Republicans and <a href="https://theconversation.com/house-speaker-paralysis-is-confusing-a-political-scientist-explains-whats-happening-215947">Republicans from swing districts</a>.</p>
<p>The new speaker, despite having been able to pull together his GOP colleagues, will face the same challenges that McCarthy did. The party’s majority will still be small, it will still be divided, and the same forces that have weakened their party’s authority will remain in place.</p>
<p>It may thus take changes in the broader political environment – along with an election that either costs the GOP its majority or gives it a larger, more cohesive majority – for the House Republicans to be able to rebuild their collective authority and act as a cohesive and effective legislative party.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/216401/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Matthew Green does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The problems faced by the House GOP in choosing a new speaker aren’t particular to Republicans. They’re a reflection of larger problems that have afflicted both parties in Congress.Matthew Green, Professor of Politics, Catholic University of AmericaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2162042023-10-23T18:59:36Z2023-10-23T18:59:36ZGOP’s House paralysis is a crisis in a time of crises<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/555378/original/file-20231023-25-n0skbs.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=19%2C0%2C4341%2C2903&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">There's trouble under the U.S. Capitol dome. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/dark-government-royalty-free-image/1181743541?phrase=US+house+of+representatives&adppopup=true"> iStock / Getty Images Plus</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/10/23/1207933406/the-house-is-without-a-speaker-nearly-3-weeks-after-kevin-mccarthy-was-ousted">House Republicans fired one leader</a>, Kevin McCarthy, and have spent almost three weeks trying unsuccessfully to choose another to succeed him as speaker of the House. That’s left the U.S. House of Representatives <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/21/politics/house-speaker-race-candidates/index.html">unable to do its work</a>, paralyzing the entire legislative branch of government, because the Senate can’t pass legislation without a functioning House. </p>
<p>Is this a “constitutional crisis?” Or something less significant?</p>
<p>The speaker of the House of Representatives is <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-does-the-speaker-of-the-house-do-heres-what-kevin-mccarthys-successor-will-have-for-a-job-94884">a powerful position with an outsized role in lawmaking</a>. According to the rules of the House, the speaker is “<a href="https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GPO-HPRACTICE-108/html/GPO-HPRACTICE-108-35.htm">the presiding officer of the House and is charged</a> <a href="https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GPO-HPRACTICE-108/html/GPO-HPRACTICE-108-35.htm">with numerous duties and responsibilities by law and by the House rules</a>.” </p>
<p>The speaker calls the House to order, refers bills to committees, appoints committee members, rules on points of order and recognizes members on the floor. These duties and responsibilities keep the House engaged in considering and passing bills. </p>
<p>In short, the speaker is critical to the administration of House business. Under the <a href="https://www.senate.gov/about/officers-staff/president-pro-tempore/presidential-succession-act.htm">Presidential Succession Act</a>, passed to supplement Article 2 of the Constitution, the speaker also stands <a href="https://www.usa.gov/presidential-succession">second</a> in line to the presidency, after the vice president, in the event of the president’s incapacity.</p>
<p>For now, the House is presided over by a temporary speaker, U.S. Rep. Patrick McHenry, a Republican from North Carolina, but scholars and experts are <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/04/us/politics/patrick-mchenry-interim-speaker.html">divided about whether the House rules</a> allow the person in that role to fulfill all the critical duties of the speakership. Because the situation is unprecedented and because the rules are ambiguous, <a href="https://www.politico.com/live-updates/2023/10/19/congress/jordans-new-plan-00122465">McHenry appears reluctant to exercise</a> anything other than the minimal powers necessary to elect a new speaker.</p>
<p>Thus the House remains in limbo, with action needed as <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2023/09/30/government-shutdown-live-updates-congress-faces-funding-deadline.html">budget deadlines loom</a> and <a href="https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2023-10-22/israel-strikes-gaza-syria-and-west-bank-as-war-against-hamas-threatens-to-ignite-other-fronts">a war between Israel and Hamas threatens to spread</a> to other fronts. <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Stefanie-Lindquist-2">As a scholar of both constitutional law and politics</a>, I believe the U.S. could be viewed as in constitutional crisis – a crisis that, if it does not end, could provoke larger crises ahead.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/555380/original/file-20231023-15-s57hlb.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="An empty leather chair behind a lectern and in front of an American flag." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/555380/original/file-20231023-15-s57hlb.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/555380/original/file-20231023-15-s57hlb.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555380/original/file-20231023-15-s57hlb.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555380/original/file-20231023-15-s57hlb.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555380/original/file-20231023-15-s57hlb.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=535&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555380/original/file-20231023-15-s57hlb.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=535&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555380/original/file-20231023-15-s57hlb.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=535&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The chair for the speaker of the House remains empty at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/the-chair-for-the-speaker-of-the-house-remains-empty-as-news-photo/1746583947?adppopup=true">Drew Angerer/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>What is a “constitutional crisis”?</h2>
<p>The term “constitutional crisis” is largely undefined, although <a href="https://www.vox.com/2019/5/16/18617661/donald-trump-congress-constitutional-crisis">scholars generally agree on a few</a> of its characteristics. </p>
<p>One common factor in most historical events described as constitutional crises is that constitutionally mandated processes for resolving conflict break down or have no ready answers. Typically, constitutional crises emerge when the legislature and the president find themselves in conflict over the legality or wisdom of a particular action or policy. </p>
<p>When the legislature and the president reach such an impasse, one or the other of the branches could exercise force to achieve its preferred outcome. </p>
<p>This applies not only to the U.S. but other countries as well. In the case of Russian President Boris Yeltsin’s confrontation with the Russian Parliament <a href="https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/russia-programs/2018-10-04/yeltsin-shelled-russian-parliament-25-years-ago-us-praised-superb-handling">over the power of the presidency</a> in 1993, for example, Yeltsin deployed the Russian military to attack the Parliament and arrest its members. </p>
<p>In the U.S. in 1832 and 1833, conflict between the federal and state governments led President Andrew Jackson to threaten military force to ensure that federal law would be followed in South Carolina during the so-called “<a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/nullification-crisis">nullification crisis</a>.” In that crisis, South Carolina claimed that a state could unilaterally block a federal law imposing tariffs on imports. Believing that South Carolina’s actions threatened the union and the constitutional order, Jackson proposed to send federal troops to the state to collect the tariffs. This threat of force ultimately led to South Carolina’s capitulation. </p>
<p>Clearly, the Republican standoff in Congress does not rise to the level of a crisis that might involve military force. Yet to the extent that a constitutional crisis involves the paralysis of government machinery without a readily available solution under the Constitution, the current situation in the House could qualify. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/555382/original/file-20231023-15-lv228c.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A white haired man in a gray suit and bow tie sits and listens." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/555382/original/file-20231023-15-lv228c.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/555382/original/file-20231023-15-lv228c.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=446&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555382/original/file-20231023-15-lv228c.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=446&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555382/original/file-20231023-15-lv228c.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=446&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555382/original/file-20231023-15-lv228c.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=560&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555382/original/file-20231023-15-lv228c.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=560&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555382/original/file-20231023-15-lv228c.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=560&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">U.S. Speaker Pro Tempore Patrick McHenry listens as the House of Representatives votes for a third time on whether to elevate Rep. Jim Jordan to Speaker of the House.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/speaker-pro-tempore-rep-patrick-mchenry-listens-as-the-news-photo/1746641345?adppopup=true">Win McNamee/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
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<h2>Paralyzed Congress</h2>
<p>Because the speaker is a constitutionally mandated office whose occupant is second in line for the presidency, the role is part of the U.S. constitutional machinery. The Constitution clearly contemplates that a speaker will lead the House, although it does not define their duties, which are determined by the House’s own rules. Those rules have evolved over time to elevate the speaker’s role as central to the lawmaking functions of Congress. And without a speaker, it is not clear that Congress can fulfill its constitutional functions. At the same time, no constitutional remedy exists to solve the current impasse.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/about-the-white-house/our-government/the-legislative-branch/">To enact legislation</a>, both chambers in Congress must agree on statutory language and submit the bill to the president for his approval. </p>
<p>Without the House, however, Congress will be unable to fund the federal government, which requires yearly budgetary authorization from Congress for its funding. As the nation’s largest employer, the federal government’s failure to pay its employees’ wages will cause financial disruption to millions, even if retroactive <a href="https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IN/IN12251">pay is available afterward</a>. </p>
<p>Critical regulatory agencies that keep water clean, air breathable, roads and bridges safe and the country’s financial system operating fairly and effectively could be stalled in meeting their legal duties to the nation. </p>
<p>Other pressing national concerns, such as the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/10/22/house-speaker-candidates-running/">opioid crisis</a>, will continue without federal legislation to address them. Efforts to support Ukraine and Israel in their battles against Russia and Hamas will be stymied. </p>
<p>A <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/21/politics/house-speaker-race-candidates/index.html">paralyzed federal government paralyzes the nation</a>, with potentially dire national and global consequences to the economy, the environment and U.S. foreign policy. The absence of a speaker – a single individual but the linchpin in Congress – could thus produce a dangerous crisis in our constitutional democracy. </p>
<p>The longer this impasse continues, the greater the threat to the constitutional order.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/216204/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stefanie Lindquist does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The absence of a speaker of the House − a single individual but the linchpin in Congress − could produce a dangerous crisis in America’s constitutional democracy.Stefanie Lindquist, Foundation Professor of Law and Political Science, Arizona State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2159472023-10-18T18:03:12Z2023-10-18T18:03:12ZHouse speaker paralysis is confusing – a political scientist explains what’s happening<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/554593/original/file-20231018-15-k8hk5s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=9%2C9%2C6448%2C4289&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Jim Jordan, center, has been working feverishly to line up support for his speakership.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/CongressSpeaker/fa407677d9f7487b8ebce89fe26998b7/photo">AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Political observers, most Americans and even members of Congress can’t remember a battle for the post of speaker of the U.S. House as fraught as the one that began back in January 2023 and continues still, 10 months later. </p>
<p>On Jan. 7, California Republican Rep. Kevin McCarthy finally became speaker <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/06/us/politics/house-speaker-vote-mccarthy.html">after 15 rounds of voting</a>. But on Oct. 3, <a href="https://apnews.com/article/mccarthy-gaetz-speaker-motion-to-vacate-congress-327e294a39f8de079ef5e4abfb1fa555">he was ousted</a>. On Oct. 17 and again on Oct. 18, Ohio Republican <a href="https://apnews.com/article/jim-jordan-house-speaker-mccarthy-trump-f2b2bf9dc834742bde93d5fc918d9940">Jim Jordan came up short</a> in two rounds of voting to replace McCarthy.</p>
<p>The reason it’s so hard to recall a parallel is that there isn’t one – at least not since the 1850s, which saw a fight over the speakership that took nearly <a href="https://history.house.gov/Historical-Highlights/1851-1900/The-longest-and-most-contentious-Speaker-election-in-its-history/">two months and 133 rounds of voting</a>. </p>
<p>Along with all manner of other inauspicious “firsts” in American politics over the last few years – a <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-the-criminal-referral-of-trump-means-a-constitutional-law-expert-explains-the-jan-6-committee-action-196841">violent attempt to overturn a presidential election</a> in the halls of Congress and a <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-most-serious-trump-indictment-yet-a-criminal-law-scholar-explains-the-charges-of-using-dishonesty-fraud-and-deceit-to-cling-to-power-210600">former president being indicted for the attempt</a>, to name just two – the <a href="https://history.house.gov/People/Office/Speakers-Multiple-Ballots/">century-long tradition</a> of House speakers being quickly and unanimously elected by their party has been similarly blown to pieces.</p>
<p>It can be hard to understand what’s going on. But as a political scientist who co-authored a textbook called “<a href="https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/congress-explained/book276746">Congress Explained</a>,” I have an obligation to give it my best shot. Here are three of the most revealing elements of the ongoing speaker kerfuffle, and how political science can help people – including me – understand them.</p>
<h2>1. Jordan’s attempts to win over his conference</h2>
<p>For a member of Congress with a reputation as a far-right “<a href="https://www.cleveland.com/news/2023/04/as-head-of-weaponization-committee-attack-dog-jim-jordan-insists-hes-not-just-playing-at-political-theater.html">attack dog</a>,” Jordan has spent a lot of the past few days on what congressional experts like to call “<a href="https://press.umich.edu/Books/T/The-Politics-of-Herding-Cats">herding cats</a>” – leaders getting their rank-and-file party members in alignment for a vote, even when many of those members want different things. </p>
<p>To get members to go their way, party leaders in Congress frequently use a combination of offers and threats. They can, for example, offer rank-and-filers desired committee assignments or attention to their pet issues. </p>
<p>Alternatively, they can encourage – implicitly or explicitly – someone to challenge the member in a primary, or withhold fundraising support, which is a main responsibility of party leadership. So far, Jordan appears to have favored this more aggressive approach in what The New York Times called a “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/14/us/house-speaker-republicans-jordan.html">pressure campaign</a>” to round up support from moderate members still unsure about him. </p>
<p>Whether the pressure tactics end up being enough for Jordan to become speaker is an open question. But if he does win the gavel, he’ll need to work even harder to win over his colleagues for <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2023/09/30/government-shutdown-live-updates-congress-faces-funding-deadline.html">impending budget negotiations</a> and to deal with international crises in the Middle East and Ukraine. And fundraising promises or threats may not be enough.</p>
<h2>2. The votes cast for non-Jordan Republicans</h2>
<p>In a first round of voting on Oct. 17, Jordan fell short of the majority required to become speaker of the house. Not surprisingly, no Democrats backed him. But he also faced <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/interactive/2023/house-member-speaker-votes/">20 Republican holdouts</a>. Even more <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/10/17/us/politics/house-speaker-vote-tally.html">Republicans voted for someone else</a> on Oct. 18. And those holdouts didn’t all vote for the same person. Who they did vote for can reveal a lot about the internal dynamics in the Republican Party.</p>
<p>Most of the Republican holdouts voted for either McCarthy or House Majority Leader Steve Scalise of Louisiana, who as recently as last week was <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/house/4250062-steve-scalise-wins-gop-speaker-nomination/">touted as McCarthy’s heir</a>. Those members have been extensively quoted as having <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2023/09/22/government-shutdown-lawler-mccarthy-00117589">major problems</a> not just with Jordan as a potential speaker but with the chaos introduced to the broader legislative process by far-right members like Jordan ally Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz.</p>
<p>Several <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2023/10/17/some-ny-gop-house-members-go-it-alone-on-jordan-vote-00122099">Republicans from the New York delegation</a> voted for someone who had first appeared to be a bit of a head-scratcher: New York Republican <a href="https://www.c-span.org/person/?61616/LeeMZeldin">Lee Zeldin</a>, who is no longer a member of Congress.</p>
<p>Although Zeldin – or any other person, even if they are <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/house-speaker-non-member-of-congress-requirements-qualifications-kevin-mccarthy-ouster-donald-trump/">not a member of the House</a> – can be elected speaker under House rules, the votes cast in his direction were purely symbolic. But they were also telling. </p>
<p>These New York Republican representatives, many of whom come from districts won by Democratic President Joe Biden, are sending the message that <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/sep/25/new-york-republicans-biden-impeachment-anthony-d-esposito">they and other Republicans</a> elected in competitive districts are the only reason Republicans have a majority in the House at all. They have a point: There is significant evidence that in the 2022 election, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/16/upshot/trump-effect-midterm-election.html">farther right candidates</a>, particularly those who denied the outcome of the 2020 election, were <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/14/election-deniers-cost-gop/">less popular with voters</a> than their moderate counterparts – and almost cost Republicans the House majority. </p>
<p>The votes for Zeldin, therefore, are a warning to fellow Republicans from the moderates in New York, insisting they not be taken for granted.</p>
<h2>3. The floor action of Congress’ most extreme members</h2>
<p>C-SPAN is not known for its exciting television, but political observers on Tuesday afternoon were treated to a few dramatic moments that – aside from their entertainment value – are emblematic of some of the larger dysfunction and political dynamics that have come to define both parties in recent years. </p>
<p>One instance came during California Democrat Pete Aguilar’s Oct. 17 nomination speech for Democratic speaker candidate Hakeem Jeffries of New York, in which Aguilar noted that Jordan has yet to pass a bill out of the chamber since 2007, when he was first sworn in.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">California Democrat Pete Aguilar nominates Hakeem Jeffries and criticizes Jim Jordan.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In response, far-right Republican members Gaetz and Lauren Boebert of Colorado <a href="https://twitter.com/MEPFuller/status/1714323397050617989">reportedly applauded</a>.</p>
<p>According to the research, Aguilar is not wrong about Jordan’s reputation: The Center for Effective Lawmaking, an academic research center out of Vanderbilt University, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/10/16/jim-jordan-speaker-legislation-effectiveness/">ranks Jordan near the bottom</a> of his Republican conference on a whole battery of figures measuring legislative effectiveness. </p>
<p>That doesn’t mean that Jordan can’t be an effective speaker. But the willingness of the party to nominate someone with such a thin record of achievement – and Gaetz’s and Boebert’s open enthusiasm for the comment about Jordan’s lack of action – is a monument to the <a href="https://theconversation.com/ouster-of-speaker-mccarthy-highlights-house-republican-fractures-in-an-increasingly-polarized-america-214993">increasingly obstructionist politics</a> that continue to plague Congress.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/215947/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Charlie Hunt does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>In the 1850s, a fight over the speakership took nearly two months and 133 rounds of voting. But for nearly a century, the majority party in the House has unanimously supported its leader. No longer.Charlie Hunt, Assistant Professor of Political Science, Boise State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2154012023-10-11T13:06:49Z2023-10-11T13:06:49ZWhy the crisis in Israel is putting pressure on GOP to act over vacant House speaker role<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/553095/original/file-20231010-19-39pfq0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=20%2C41%2C6968%2C4610&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">With Patrick McHenry leading the House as speaker pro tempore, spending and legislative options appear limited.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/CongressSpeaker/bd1d7937b5ba4f24b420cfcf62260918/photo">AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>In the wake of the <a href="https://apnews.com/article/israel-palestinians-gaza-hamas-rockets-airstrikes-tel-aviv-11fb98655c256d54ecb5329284fc37d2">Hamas surprise attacks</a> on Israel, and that country’s resulting <a href="https://apnews.com/article/israel-gaza-hamas-war-74d8d8dc8dd26e84a189f72b65ec9428">heavy military response</a>, calls for Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives to <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/republicans-blocking-calls-israel-aid-no-house-speaker-1833399">pick a new speaker quickly</a> have grown, including <a href="https://www.axios.com/2023/10/08/gop-lawmakers-israel-attack-urgency-house-speaker-vote">from GOP members themselves</a>. The absence of a speaker may slow or limit any aid the U.S. could provide to Israel.</em></p>
<p><em>The Conversation U.S. asked congressional scholar <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=50s4yQgAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">Laura Blessing</a>, a senior fellow at Georgetown University’s Government Affairs Institute, to explain what a major crisis abroad has to do with internal divisions within one U.S. political party.</em></p>
<h2>How has the violence in Israel and Gaza shifted the dynamics within the GOP around the speaker search?</h2>
<p>Israel has strong support within Congress in general, and certainly among House Republicans and Republican voters. Both of the speaker candidates, Rep. Steve Scalise and Rep. Jim Jordan, have <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2023/10/07/lawmakers-want-to-help-israel-but-political-chaos-could-slow-it-down-00120489">expressed their strong support</a> for Israel. The attacks on Oct. 7, 2023, call attention to the leadership vacuum in the House and place more urgency on the speaker search. </p>
<p>Both parties have voiced <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/08/us/politics/house-speaker-israel-jordan-scalise.html">concern about the situation</a> in Congress. The notable exceptions have come from those who engineered the ouster of former Speaker Kevin McCarthy, including Matt Gaetz, who said, “<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2023/10/09/israel-hamas-war-puts-pressure-on-republicans-to-select-house-speaker.html">I don’t think that other countries</a> think about Kevin McCarthy’s speakership quite as much as Kevin McCarthy does.”</p>
<p>Some House Republicans have <a href="https://www.politico.com/live-updates/2023/10/10/congress/mccarthy-speaker-vote-israel-math-00120720">even suggested</a> reinstating McCarthy, though apparently <a href="https://twitter.com/guypbenson/status/1711825592394678383">not at his direction</a>. </p>
<p>The Republican chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Michael McCaul, has strongly <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2023/10/08/congress-israel-hamas-mike-mccaul-00120514">called for action on Israel</a>, wanting a House statement of support even in the absence of a newly elected speaker. But the current consensus in Congress is that the power of the temporary speaker, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/10/05/acting-house-speaker-powers/">Speaker Pro Tempore Patrick McHenry</a>, is very limited, which creates more pressure for a new speaker to be elected. McHenry appears to agree with this consensus. </p>
<p>Jordan <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/10/06/1203961930/ukraine-funding-congress-speakers-race">opposes Ukraine aid</a> and supports larger appropriations cuts; he is seen as the populist, anti-establishment insurgent in contrast to Scalise’s establishment credentials. Both candidates support Israel.</p>
<p>But if Jordan were speaker, he would be expected to be more resistant to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/10/09/biden-israel-ukraine-aid/">packaging support for Israel with other items</a>, such as Ukraine aid, or the passage of appropriations generally. Scalise, by contrast, is expected to be <a href="https://about.bgov.com/news/partisan-brawler-or-establishment-choice-confronts-house-gop/">far closer to the Kevin McCarthy mold</a> of leadership.</p>
<p>But whether the higher stakes of the crisis in Israel prompt those in the Republican conference to reconsider their votes, enlist McCarthy again, or prompt a faster process is hard to tell in this fast moving and, for now, opaque process.</p>
<p>Initial tracking of support, from <a href="https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1f5Ezu28UaO8NncBr6fG_moy2inMz70XfRZKvVrH8cAQ/edit#gid=0">FiveThirtyEight journalist Nathan Rakich</a>, for both Scalise and Jordan shows that neither candidate has a clear path to a win, that Jordan initially has more support, and that Scalise has the more establishment-minded members of the party backing him. But it took <a href="https://rollcall.com/2023/01/07/mccarthy-wins-speaker-election-finally/">15 votes and four days</a> for McCarthy to win the speakership this January, even though no one mounted an organized, opposing candidacy. </p>
<h2>What difference would it make if there were a House speaker already in place?</h2>
<p>Initially, the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/08/world/middleeast/us-aid-israel-biden-blinken.html">Biden administration is accelerating delivery of aid</a> the U.S. has already promised Israel, which receives more than US$3 billion in U.S. aid a year.</p>
<p>But when the administration wants more funding, which is very likely, it will need to go to Congress. The position of speaker would need to be filled for legislation to move forward. General congressional support for Israel may mean that proposal could more easily be coordinated with the Senate than other spending bills.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/553096/original/file-20231010-27-5ojn5j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Soldiers kneel and lie on the ground." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/553096/original/file-20231010-27-5ojn5j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/553096/original/file-20231010-27-5ojn5j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/553096/original/file-20231010-27-5ojn5j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/553096/original/file-20231010-27-5ojn5j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/553096/original/file-20231010-27-5ojn5j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/553096/original/file-20231010-27-5ojn5j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/553096/original/file-20231010-27-5ojn5j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Israeli soldiers take up positions near a kibbutz overrun by Hamas.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/IsraelPalestiniansDailyPhotoGallery/fb84a440619e4ddd95481e0db893a812/photo">AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg</a></span>
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</figure>
<h2>What can the House do with only a temporary speaker in office?</h2>
<p>Nobody is really certain, and there are legitimate disagreements of how to interpret the powers of the speaker pro tempore. The bipartisan consensus of those in Congress, at least for now, is that <a href="https://wisconsinexaminer.com/2023/10/05/how-does-a-frozen-u-s-house-function-without-a-speaker-everyones-got-an-opinion/">McHenry can’t call up legislation</a>, including the appropriations bills that would be needed to give additional funding to Israel.</p>
<p>The part of the House rules governing the interim speaker, <a href="https://cha.house.gov/_cache/files/5/3/5361f9f8-24bc-4fbc-ac97-3d79fd689602/1F09ADA16E45C9E7B67F147DCF176D95.118-rules-01102023.pdf">Rule 1, Clause 8</a>, is very much open to <a href="https://goodauthority.org/news/everything-you-should-know-about-the-house-speakership-battle/">interpretation</a>. Congress could have gone in a different direction and voted to interpret the position’s powers as more active, though that would have reduced pressure for a new speaker. </p>
<p>The possibility of even having this office of a temporary speaker was a precaution taken in the wake of 9/11, imagining that a speaker might somehow be incapacitated; it’s never been tested. McHenry and the Congress are making precedent with every new action.</p>
<h2>How might different results in the speakership race affect the US positions toward Israel and Hamas?</h2>
<p>Aid for Israel, as a stand-alone item, has strong bipartisan support in Congress and with both candidates for speaker. But it is hard to say how quickly a new speaker would be elected; certainly it could be a drawn-out process. </p>
<p>The White House has <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/white-house-lawmakers-weigh-linking-ukraine-israel-aid-rcna119516">expressed interest</a> in a combined aid package that includes assistance to both Israel and Ukraine. Many House Republicans oppose such a move, and a Jordan speakership would be expected to make negotiations with the Senate and White House more difficult in general, with a greater appetite for government shutdowns. <a href="https://clerk.house.gov/Votes/2023513">Jordan voted against the recent stopgap spending measure</a> that averted a government shutdown; Scalise voted for it. </p>
<p>The wider state of government funding will be far more difficult, with the appropriations process revealing strong partisan disagreement. Even typically bipartisan bills such as <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/07/14/politics/house-ndaa-vote-amendments/index.html">defense spending are very partisan</a> after the inclusion of different socially conservative amendments in the House. </p>
<p>Ukraine funding is also in a difficult position, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/05/us/politics/republicans-ukraine-aid.html">emerging more recently as a partisan flashpoint</a> even though <a href="https://thehill.com/policy/defense/4096744-majority-of-republicans-vote-down-greene-gaetz-ukraine-bills/">back in July most House Republicans supported aid to Ukraine</a>. If funding for Israel becomes embroiled in other spending debates, agreement will become more difficult. </p>
<p>The lessons the House learns from deposing a speaker for the first time can also be consequential. Will members tire of the few in the hard-right flank who engineered McCarthy’s ouster, thus giving the incoming speaker more political capital, perhaps by eliminating the motion to vacate, with which a speaker can be ousted? Or will a very difficult governing situation become more so, as the next speaker continually looks over his shoulder? Much remains to be seen.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/215401/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Laura Blessing does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A major crisis abroad may exacerbate internal divisions within one of the US’s major political parties.Laura Blessing, Senior Fellow, Government Affairs Institute, Georgetown UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2151822023-10-06T13:45:42Z2023-10-06T13:45:42ZCould Donald Trump stand for US speaker? An expert explains<p>The roiling civil war on Capitol Hill that’s led to the ousting of Kevin McCarthy as <a href="https://theconversation.com/ouster-of-speaker-mccarthy-highlights-house-republican-fractures-in-an-increasingly-polarized-america-214993">speaker of the US House of Representatives</a> has left Republicans scrambling for a replacement. With no clear successor, the risk of further acute embarrassment to the party, and a slew of legislative priorities on the docket, desperation may already be setting in.</p>
<p>That’s led some to float the possibility of a left-field pick for the speakership — someone who’s not even serving in Congress. That man: Donald Trump.</p>
<p>The former president initially didn’t say no, although he has endorsed another candidate. “They have asked me if I would take it for a short period of time for the party, until they come to a conclusion,” he <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-accept-speakership-for-short-period-republicans-decide-permanent-replacement">declared</a> on October 5. “I’m not doing it because I want to — I will do it if necessary.”</p>
<p>Republican Representative Troy Nehls of Texas had said he would <a href="https://www.texastribune.org/2023/10/05/troy-nehls-donald-trump-house-speaker/">nominate Trump for speaker</a>, and other potential backers range from far-right firebrand <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/house/4237631-greene-trump-house-speaker-support/">Marjorie Taylor Greene</a> of Georgia to Floridian <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/4241412-steube-says-gop-would-change-house-rules-for-trump/">Greg Steube</a>. But would Trump even be able to stand?</p>
<p>Although a non-member of the house has <a href="https://sgp.fas.org/crs/misc/RL30857.pdf">never served as speaker</a> in the institution’s 234-year history, a speaker isn’t actually required to be a Congress member. The constitution only <a href="https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/article-1/section-2/">states</a> that the “House of Representatives shall chuse [sic] their Speaker and other Officers”.</p>
<p>Under normal circumstances, Trump would qualify for the role, so long as he could garner a simple majority in the 435-person body. Undoubtedly, if he threw his hat in the ring, Trump would probably enjoy next to unanimous support within the Republican conference.</p>
<p>Yet there’s a wrinkle. Republican conference rules of the current 118th Congress <a href="https://www.gop.gov/conference-rules-of-the-118th-congress/">stipulate</a> that “[a] member of the Republican Leadership shall step aside if indicted for a felony for which a sentence of two or more years’ imprisonment may be imposed.”</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/democrat-failure-to-save-us-speaker-hands-power-to-republican-right-214969">Democrat failure to save US speaker hands power to Republican right</a>
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<p>Trump faces 91 criminal indictments, spanning four criminal prosecutions, including US Department of Justice charges <a href="https://www.justice.gov/storage/US_v_Trump_23_cr_257.pdf">over the January 6 attack on the Capitol</a>, the <a href="https://www.justice.gov/storage/US_v_Trump-Nauta_23-80101.pdf">mishandling of classified documents</a>, a federal case related to <a href="https://manhattanda.org/district-attorney-bragg-announces-34-count-felony-indictment-of-former-president-donald-j-trump/">business fraud in New York City</a>, and <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/read-the-full-georgia-indictment-against-trump-and-18-allies">a state case over vote rigging in Georgia</a>. Trump denies all the charges.</p>
<p>Party rules would need to be modified to allow Trump to serve, which would again require a simple house majority. Doing so would be <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/house/4238156-why-rule-26-is-trending-trump-speaker/">highly unusual</a>, but not impossible, in the middle of a congressional session. </p>
<h2>Why would Trump think about it?</h2>
<p>By seizing the speaker’s gavel, Trump could have depicted himself as the GOP’s white knight coming to save Republicans from themselves. He’s the one leader capable of unifying the party, or at least beating it into submission. </p>
<p>With the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primaries coming up, snatching the speakership now would all but ensure that Trump continued to dominate the headlines, sucking up all the oxygen in the room, leaving his rivals flummoxed, and stroking his notorious ego. </p>
<p>However, Trump has enough on his plate and, with a 40-plus percentage point lead ahead of his party’s <a href="https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/president-primary-r/2024/national/">other candidates in the primaries</a>, he’s already the prohibitive favourite to win the Republican nomination. He’s in the middle of a full-scale campaign. And he’s focused on raising tens of millions of dollars just to <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/08/05/1192343919/a-large-amount-of-trumps-campaign-money-is-being-diverted-to-his-legal-fees">finance his legal defence</a>. </p>
<p>Running for speaker could have been a distraction, if not a demotion from his previous heights in the White House. “I’ll do whatever it is to help, but my total focus is on being president,” Trump recently <a href="https://twitter.com/NewsNation/status/1709575822338662678">said</a>.</p>
<p>If Republicans couldn’t rally behind a permanent successor, Trump might also be in the awkward spot of staying on as speaker longer than anticipated. Even on his own <a href="https://nypost.com/2023/10/05/trump-says-hes-willing-to-serve-as-house-speaker-for-up-to-90-days-if-its-necessary-to-unite-republicans/">proposed timeline</a> – a “30, 60, or 90-day period” – he’d still need to negotiate real pieces of legislation.</p>
<p>The federal government will <a href="https://thehill.com/business/4238909-shutdown-fears-loom-over-wall-street-after-mccarthy-ouster/">shut down in roughly 40 days</a> without a budget or new continuing resolution. <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/10/04/1203685361/biden-says-hes-worried-about-ukraine-aid-he-plans-to-give-a-major-address-about-">Funding for Ukraine</a> also remains a matter of live debate. </p>
<p>If Trump couldn’t deliver on conservative priorities, he’d look weak. Even more than with McCarthy, Democrats would be eager to exploit Trump’s vulnerabilities. They’d be in no mood to compromise, much less grant Trump any favours.</p>
<h2>If not Trump, then who?</h2>
<p>Beyond Trump, Republican representatives <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/06/politics/jim-jordan-profile-house-speaker-race/index.html">Jim Jordan</a> of Ohio and <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/06/politics/steve-scalise-profile-house-speaker-race/index.html">Steve Scalise</a> of Louisiana are widely thought to be the main frontrunners for speaker. </p>
<p>Jordan is a founding member and leader of the House Freedom Caucus (a cadre of hard-right Republicans) and an outspoken champion of Trump. He’s been a <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/09/28/jordan-biden-impeachment-hearing/">leading force in the attempt to impeach President Joe Biden</a>. </p>
<p>As current house majority leader, Scalise served as the “number two” man under McCarthy. While Scalise arguably enjoys more support among moderates, he’s almost certainly also to the right of McCarthy </p>
<p>For his part, Trump is vocally supporting Jordan, <a href="https://www.axios.com/2023/10/06/trump-endorses-jim-jordan-house-speaker">pronouncing</a>: “He will be a GREAT Speaker of the House, & has my Complete and Total Endorsement!”</p>
<h2>Short-term solution?</h2>
<p>Trump as speaker had always seemed like a provocative but ultimately unlikely scenario. It would, temporarily, end the bickering and give a short-term reprieve to Republicans while they continue their not-so-private machinations and infighting. But it would just be a sticking plaster. </p>
<p>Trump gallivanting in to rescue the Republicans wouldn’t solve the deep divisions rife within the party. And whoever the next speaker is would be subject to the same precariousness that saw McCarthy’s abrupt ejection.</p>
<p>Not only that, but Trump – a figure who is accused of, less than two years ago, helping whip up a mob at the US Capitol – would have been at the helm of the “people body”. If even for a short time, that’s not nothing. </p>
<p>It’s an irony that shouldn’t be lost on Democrats who, by voting with a group of hard-right rebels earlier this week to expel McCarthy, <a href="https://theconversation.com/democrat-failure-to-save-us-speaker-hands-power-to-republican-right-214969">paved at least the path for Trump to get there</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/215182/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Thomas Gift does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Some Republicans have said they want to nominate Donald Trump for speaker, after the previous candidate was ousted.Thomas Gift, Associate Professor and Director of the Centre on US Politics, UCLLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2149932023-10-04T15:06:38Z2023-10-04T15:06:38ZOuster of Speaker McCarthy highlights House Republican fractures in an increasingly polarized America<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/552072/original/file-20231004-24-y82i7z.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=17%2C8%2C5973%2C3979&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Kevin McCarthy, just before he was ousted as speaker of the House. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/speaker-of-the-house-kevin-mccarthy-is-surrounded-by-staff-news-photo/1715424738?adppopup=true">Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>The House of Representatives on Oct. 3, 2023, did something that had never been done before in the nation’s history: It <a href="https://apnews.com/article/mccarthy-gaetz-speaker-motion-to-vacate-congress-327e294a39f8de079ef5e4abfb1fa555">ousted the speaker of the House</a>. Kevin McCarthy, a California Republican, lost his job in a vote of 216 to 210. To look deeper than the surface machinations, The Conversation U.S. spoke with political scientist <a href="https://www.charlesrhunt.com/">Charles R. Hunt</a> at Boise State University.</em></p>
<p><em>He offers a sense of what this historic development might mean for the government at the moment, as well as for American democracy over the longer term.</em></p>
<h2>What does the ouster say about the House’s ability to function, such as to pass a new budget in the next 45 days?</h2>
<p>It’s important to remember what the purpose of the speaker of the House is: to literally speak for the entire House, to guide legislation through. It’s an unruly chamber of <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-the-us-house-of-representatives-has-435-seats-and-how-that-could-change-191629">435 members</a>.</p>
<p>So what you need, ideally, is someone who has the trust of the chamber – particularly of their own party, since the majority party at least traditionally has unilateral control over the business of the House. So both trust and party discipline are conducive to a smoothly functioning legislative process. </p>
<p>When Americans think of a functioning democracy, they might think of bills getting passed on time, of Congress getting things done. But voters of all party affiliations are frustrated by the gridlock here, particularly <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2022/03/10/the-polarization-in-todays-congress-has-roots-that-go-back-decades/">over the past decade or two</a>. </p>
<p>The interesting thing about this situation with the speakership is that gridlock has traditionally been between the two parties. Right now, it’s within one party.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/551917/original/file-20231003-23-xtl9h.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A dark-haired woman walking down a hallway, talking." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/551917/original/file-20231003-23-xtl9h.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/551917/original/file-20231003-23-xtl9h.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551917/original/file-20231003-23-xtl9h.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551917/original/file-20231003-23-xtl9h.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551917/original/file-20231003-23-xtl9h.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551917/original/file-20231003-23-xtl9h.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551917/original/file-20231003-23-xtl9h.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Rep. Nancy Mace, a Republican from South Carolina, voted to oust Kevin McCarthy as speaker.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/rep-nancy-mace-arrives-for-a-house-republican-caucus-news-photo/1704665153?adppopup=true">Drew Angerer/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Do House members want to do what the public wants them to do – get things done?</h2>
<p>Americans say they <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/new-poll-shows-americans-want-congressional-cooperation-but-expect-gridlock">don’t want</a> to be focusing on these fights. But there are members of Congress for whom these fights are really important to how they represent — like Florida Republican Matt Gaetz — who hail from very Republican districts and have staked their reputations on fighting establishment figures in their own party like Kevin McCarthy. Likewise, many Democrats back in 2019 or 2020, when they held the majority in the House, felt they had a responsibility to their mostly Democratic constituents to bring the fight to President Donald Trump.</p>
<p>For some in the GOP, there is also this ideology of smaller government, less spending, lowering the national debt – the more typical conservative Republican priorities. They are not new, but there is now this sense that being anti-establishment, and trying to wield power to its greatest possible extent, is a goal in itself.</p>
<p>Some voters have looked at how the House has operated over the past couple of decades and thought, “we don’t want any more of that.” So they are willing to put their trust in the hands of some of these people who want to, figuratively at least, burn the place down – even if there is no clear exit strategy for what happens next. The <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/us/what-are-next-steps-us-house-searches-new-speaker-2023-10-03/">lack of a plan after McCarthy’s ouster</a> seems to show that obstruction is kind of the point.</p>
<h2>How can people understand these events in the context of America’s system of representative democracy?</h2>
<p>Gaetz has been saying he doesn’t like the process, that he wants to go back to “<a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/why-oust-mccarthy-matt-gaetz-remove-speaker-of-the-house/">regular order</a>,” in which budget proposals are voted on separately, instead of in huge omnibus spending bills. He and others just see that the way the House is conducting its business is not working. In Congress, those concerns are mainly coming from the far left and far right. They relate to the increasing polarization in this country, and Congress mirrors that growing division. </p>
<p>Democrats are getting more progressive, and Republicans in particular are getting more conservative over time. This is in part because <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-this-cycle-of-redistricting-is-making-gerrymandered-congressional-districts-even-safer-and-undermining-majority-rule-173103">districts are becoming more and more safe</a> for one party or the other. So the average district is less likely to produce a moderate member of Congress. That increases the influence of party primaries. The voters who participate in these elections tend to be pretty ideologically extreme Republicans and Democrats who don’t want to see their representatives working with the other side.</p>
<p>And the more polarized the country gets, the more you see this element of <a href="https://theconversation.com/bidens-dragging-poll-numbers-wont-matter-in-2024-if-enough-voters-loathe-his-opponent-even-more-204608">negative partisanship</a>, where a representative’s voters are more driven by how much their candidate is willing to fight against the other side, rather than how much they’re getting done for their own side. </p>
<h2>Why isn’t this kind of drama happening in the Senate?</h2>
<p>The cultures of the two institutions are really different, even today. George Washington is said to have described the House as a cup of hot tea that was going to overflow with the passions of the “common people,” and the <a href="https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/minute/Senate_Created.htm">Senate would be the saucer</a> that would catch that overflow.</p>
<p>This session, both institutions are living up to those reputations.</p>
<p>The first reason is that House districts are smaller. They can be drawn in very specific ways and gerrymandered and are more subject to <a href="https://theconversation.com/when-it-comes-to-explaining-elections-in-congress-gerrymandering-is-overrated-201454">geographic sorting</a>, so you end up with really extreme districts, politically. </p>
<p>Whereas in the Senate, they represent whole states. They typically have to represent a lot more people than a House district, a much broader constituency. That can lead to adopting a more consensus-driven tone.</p>
<p>The rules of the Senate are also much more consensus-driven. Rules like the <a href="https://www.senate.gov/about/powers-procedures/filibusters-cloture.htm">filibuster</a> and <a href="https://www.senate.gov/about/powers-procedures/rules-procedures/first-unanimous-consent-agreement.htm">Unanimous Consent Agreements</a> can force more moderate senators to work together to reach a kind of consensus. </p>
<p>Plus, because it’s a smaller body, there is generally more collegiality. These senators know each other better, and so even between the parties you get people teaming up on legislative proposals a lot more often. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/551920/original/file-20231003-19-fdn0eu.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Two men in suits shake hands in front of the US Capitol." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/551920/original/file-20231003-19-fdn0eu.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/551920/original/file-20231003-19-fdn0eu.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=426&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551920/original/file-20231003-19-fdn0eu.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=426&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551920/original/file-20231003-19-fdn0eu.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=426&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551920/original/file-20231003-19-fdn0eu.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=535&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551920/original/file-20231003-19-fdn0eu.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=535&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551920/original/file-20231003-19-fdn0eu.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=535&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Senate is more inclined to bipartisanship than the House, as can be seen in the handshake between GOP Sen. Jerry Moran (R-KS) and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a Democrat, after both worked to pass toxic exposure legislation in 2022.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/sen-jon-tester-looks-on-as-sen-jerry-moran-and-senate-news-photo/1403310961?adppopup=true">Joe Raedle/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Finally, Senate leadership is less powerful. Mitch McConnell, when he was the majority leader, wielded a great amount of procedural power, and Chuck Schumer does now, but much less than the speaker does in the House. This creates a lot of the friction in the House between leadership and rank and file that you don’t typically see in the Senate.</p>
<h2>What are the key differences that help explain how these different House members are behaving?</h2>
<p>This is the big question Americans ask: Why on Earth does Congress do any of the things it does? </p>
<p>It may not seem like it, but members of Congress have incentives for doing what they do. There are the incentives of Congress as a whole. There are the incentives of the two parties, which is why they meet in their conferences and caucuses to strategize.</p>
<p>But individual members also face <a href="https://theconversation.com/voters-want-compromise-in-congress-so-why-the-brinkmanship-over-the-debt-ceiling-206465">very different pressures</a> in their different districts, even if they’re in the same party. Consider Gaetz, whose district Trump won by almost 40 points. He faces no serious challenge in a general election against a Democrat because it’s mostly Republicans in the district. The only race that really matters in this district is the primary. </p>
<p>By contrast, think of a moderate Republican from New York in a district that Joe Biden won by four or five points. This person understands that to get reelected, they need some critical mass of independents and maybe even some Democrats to support them.</p>
<p>Ultimately, the only constituency that any member of Congress must be responsive to is the one in their district. In political science, we call it <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/07343469.2020.1811425">dyadic representation</a>. It’s a pairing, a dialogue, between a member and their constituents. And that is ultimately what they are thinking about, or, at least, they should be thinking about if they want to get reelected. This is how you get these divergent approaches to governing.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/214993/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Charlie Hunt does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Long gridlocked by fighting between the two major political parties, the US House is now split by conflict within the GOP, thanks in part to redistricting practices that boost extremism.Charlie Hunt, Assistant Professor of Political Science, Boise State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2149692023-10-04T11:51:28Z2023-10-04T11:51:28ZDemocrat failure to save US speaker hands power to Republican right<p>California Republican Kevin McCarthy has become the first ever speaker of the US House of Representatives to be ejected from his position. In a 216 to 210 vote, Democrats joined with far-right Republicans to <a href="https://www.cnn.com/politics/live-news/matt-gaetz-kevin-mccarthy-house-speakership-10-03-23/index.html">remove McCarthy from office</a>.</p>
<p>The “<a href="https://apnews.com/article/kevin-mccarthy-matt-gaetz-speaker-vacate-congress-e7e5ccc6cf79ccbf5b4a7b73b9d5a3ae">motion to vacate</a>” the speakership, initiated by Florida Republican firebrand <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matt_Gaetz">Matt Gaetz</a> on October 3, has now plunged the house into civil war.</p>
<p>Most eyes are, understandably, on the dysfunction within the Republican party that enabled a small flank of disruptors to upend the party’s leadership in the house – and this shows no signs of abating. But Democrats also missed a moment to endorse bipartisanship over political gamesmanship.</p>
<p>The first thing to stipulate: Democrats were under no obligation to throw a life vest to McCarthy.</p>
<p>Politically, voting against him was the shrewd thing to do. Supporting a bid to oust the speaker is what we’d expect from whichever party was in the minority.</p>
<p>An internal tussle for the speaker’s gavel makes Republicans look weak, chaotic, and disorganised. Saving a man who helped to <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/andrewsolender/2021/07/29/mccarthy-walks-back-saying-trump-bears-responsibility-for-capitol-riot/">resuscitate Donald Trump after the January 6 attack on the Capitol</a> would have been a tough sell for many in their home districts.</p>
<h2>Missed opportunity</h2>
<p>But, by letting McCarthy lose his job, Democrats missed an opportunity to “go high”, if not for McCarthy personally, then for the integrity of Congress as an institution.</p>
<p>Most Democrats agree with most Republicans that the house is under assault from a far-right group intent on torpedoing Washington for personal gain, punishing pragmatism and framing bipartisan compromise as unforgivable.</p>
<p>Democrats had a chance to halt this brand of politics and prevent it from gaining traction. Instead, they rewarded it.</p>
<p>It’s hard to complain about a far-right radical like Gaetz coming to Capitol Hill to blow up the system, and then offer him a hand grenade. Yet that’s what Democrats did by voting with a tiny fraction of Republican rebels to topple McCarthy.</p>
<p>For Democrats, McCarthy was far from a perfect speaker. No Republican would be. But it’s hard to discount his willingness to at least look for compromise. In June, McCarthy worked with Democrats to <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/05/31/1179246766/house-debates-the-biden-mccarthy-debt-ceiling-bill-as-default-deadline-looms">avoid a debt-ceiling fiasco</a>. At the end of September, he reached across the aisle to <a href="https://apnews.com/article/government-shutdown-mccarthy-congress-republicans-732baaa19c91f981e492fd0e6a76aba8">stave off a government shutdown</a>, which would have left millions of government <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/articles/what-is-a-government-shutdown-and-why-are-we-likely-to-have-another-one/#:%7E:text=When%20Congress%20fails%20to%20enact,known%20as%20a%20government%20shutdown.">employees unpaid</a>.</p>
<p>McCarthy was under no obligation to do either. Had he let the house descend into chaos, he’d still be clenching the speaker’s gavel.</p>
<p>Of course, for many Democrats, McCarthy crossed a line by launching an <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-66792083">impeachment</a> investigation into President Joe Biden in September. He also <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/house/4047677-democratic-leader-accuses-mccarthy-of-reneging-budget-deal-biden/">reneged</a> on his budget agreement with the White House to cut spending levels to appease the right-wing flank of his party.</p>
<p>And it’s true that bipartisanship came only after McCarthy had seemingly exhausted all other options. But that’s part of the role. He couldn’t try to appease the other side unless he could prove to his party that he’d made a good-faith effort to be partisan.</p>
<p>Now, the message from Democrats to the man who extended an olive branch to their political minority: “You’re out.”</p>
<p>In the end, “mainstream” Republicans may have no one but themselves to blame for McCarthy’s demise. For too long, they’ve indulged the impulses of far-right radicals. Their <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/23448972/midterms-results-democrats-senate-red-wave">failure to secure a larger majority during the midterms</a> gave outsized influence to a “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/23/us/republicans-congress-freedom-caucus.html">wrecking ball caucus</a>”, a powerful ultra-conservative group.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://theconversation.com/speaker-kevin-mccarthy-how-backroom-deals-have-put-controversial-republicans-into-key-roles-198196">concessions that McCarthy made</a>, or was forced to make, in securing the speakership ensured his precarious position. Ultimately, he sowed the seeds of his own demise.</p>
<p>Yet it’s Democrats who, since Trump took centre stage, have rightly complained about ultra-Maga types willing to light Washington on fire. The relentless refrain from the White House is that you’re either with “us” (democracy), or with “them” (Trump’s authoritarianism).</p>
<h2>Emboldening the radical right</h2>
<p>After the speaker’s vote, Democrat house minority leader <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hakeem_Jeffries">Hakeem Jeffries</a>, true to form and without an apparent tinge of irony, <a href="https://twitter.com/RepJeffries/status/1709339219443749242">declared</a> his “hope that traditional Republicans will walk away from Maga extremism and join us in partnership for the good of the country”.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1709339219443749242"}"></div></p>
<p>Perhaps it’s too much to expect that the battle over the speakership would be defined by anything but raw, unadulterated politics. Yet what Democrats have done by failing to rescue McCarthy is embolden an already too-bold radical right caucus.</p>
<p>They may have also scuttled their best hope for priorities, such as getting a palatable budget deal by November and securing <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/oct/04/us-house-speaker-kevin-mccarthy-republican-ousting-aid-to-ukraine-joe-biden">further aid to Ukraine</a>. McCarthy’s successor may be less likely to compromise on these issues, and any movement on both will be delayed as the house scrambles to name a new speaker.</p>
<p>By striking a Faustian bargain with Gaetz, Democrats, at least for now, have got their wish. But with no clear McCarthy successor, whether the devil they know is really worse than the devil they don’t know is anything but obvious.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/214969/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Democratic failure to rescue the speaker may mean they don’t get the budget and Ukraine aid they were hoping for.Thomas Gift, Associate Professor and Director of the Centre on US Politics, UCLJulie M Norman, Associate Professor in Politics & International Relations & Co-Director of the Centre on US Politics, UCLLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2140402023-09-27T12:28:13Z2023-09-27T12:28:13ZWhat will this government shutdown shut down? Social Security and Medicaid keep going; SBA loans and some food and safety inspections do not<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/550335/original/file-20230926-25-7ftzlh.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=13%2C6%2C4587%2C3014&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A shutdown's effects will be broad and deep.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/government-shutdown-in-washington-interstate-road-royalty-free-image/1095019568?phrase=government+shutdown+congress&adppopup=true">gguy44/ iStock / Getty Images Plus</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The U.S. is moving toward a government shutdown. House and Senate appropriators are divided on <a href="https://apnews.com/article/politics-us-republican-party-thomas-emmer-united-states-house-of-representatives-hockey-744b602f30285f3398da09d1489f37dd">spending levels</a>, <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2023/09/13/defense-bill-house-republicans-00115530">policy riders</a> and additional items, such as support for Ukraine.</p>
<p>As a political scientist who studies the <a href="https://gai.georgetown.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Under-the-Iron-Dome-2022-Blessing-book-chapter-on-eroding-budget-process.pdf">evolving budget process</a>, as well as <a href="https://gai.georgetown.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Blessing-HBC-testimony-debt-ceiling-2-16-22.pdf">brinkmanship</a> in Congress, it is clear to me that this episode prompts many important questions for how the U.S. is governed. </p>
<p>There’s the larger, long-term question: What are the costs of congressional dysfunction? </p>
<p>But the more immediate concern for people of the country is how a shutdown will affect them. Whether delayed business loans, slower mortgage applications, curtailed food assistance or postponed food inspections, the effects could be substantial. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/550339/original/file-20230926-15-he7bob.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="An airplane landing near an air traffic control tower." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/550339/original/file-20230926-15-he7bob.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/550339/original/file-20230926-15-he7bob.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=414&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/550339/original/file-20230926-15-he7bob.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=414&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/550339/original/file-20230926-15-he7bob.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=414&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/550339/original/file-20230926-15-he7bob.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=520&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/550339/original/file-20230926-15-he7bob.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=520&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/550339/original/file-20230926-15-he7bob.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=520&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Air traffic controller training will be halted in a government shutdown.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/the-air-traffic-control-tower-is-seen-at-the-miami-news-photo/1700958797?adppopup=true">Joe Raedle/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Affected: Farm loans to Head Start grants</h2>
<p>The total federal budget is almost US$6 trillion. <a href="https://www.cbo.gov/publication/58890">A little over one-fourth</a> is discretionary spending that is funded by the annual appropriations process and thus debated in Congress. This portion of spending provides money for virtually every federal agency, roughly half of which goes to defense. The rest of yearly federal spending is on mandatory entitlement programs, mainly Social Security and Medicare, as well as interest on the national debt. </p>
<p>The Office of Management and Budget, which oversees both development of federal budget plans by federal agencies <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/">and their performance</a>, regularly requires agencies to <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/information-for-agencies/agency-contingency-plans/">develop shutdown plans</a>. Because agencies continually update these plans, no two shutdowns are exactly alike. A week before the expected shutdown, 40% of the plans posted had been updated since July 2023, and 80% had been updated since 2021; late-breaking updates can be consequential for policy.</p>
<p>Details depend on the agency, program and duration of the shutdown, as well as laws passed with funding since the previous shutdown, and the administration’s priorities. These plans identify a <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2023/09/20/extreme-house-republicans-chaos-is-marching-us-toward-a-government-shutdown/">variety of ways</a> the shutdown will affect Americans. </p>
<p>If a shutdown happens this year, new loan approvals from the Small Business Administration <a href="https://www.sba.gov/document/report-sba-plan-operating-event-lapse-appropriations">will stop</a>. The Federal Housing Administration will experience <a href="https://www.hud.gov/sites/dfiles/Main/documents/ShutdownFAQs.pdf">delays</a> in processing home mortgage loans and approvals. The Department of Agriculture will not offer new <a href="https://www.usda.gov/sites/default/files/documents/usda-2021-contingency-plan.pdf">farm loans</a>. Head Start grants will not be awarded, initially affecting 10,000 young children from low-income families who are in the program. </p>
<p>Some food inspections by the Food and Drug Administration, workplace safety inspections by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, and environmental safety inspections by the Environmental Protection Agency could be delayed, as they have been when the government stopped functioning in the past. </p>
<p>During the <a href="https://www.npr.org/2019/01/14/685369719/government-shutdown-leads-to-a-spike-in-cancelled-immigration-hearings">last shutdown</a>, about 60,000 immigration hearings, organized by the Department of Justice and not the courts, <a href="https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/R/R47077">were canceled and</a> had to be rescheduled. <a href="https://www.aila.org/advo-media/aila-practice-pointers-and-alerts/government-shuts-down">This year</a> would also see cases involving noncitizens who are not being held by the government reset for a later date, even as other immigration services proceed. </p>
<p>Infrastructure projects awaiting approval from the Environmental Protection Agency could be stalled. The National Institute of Health’s clinical trials for diseases could also be slowed.</p>
<p>This is not a comprehensive list. Agency plans show what happens when federal workers are furloughed – that is, those who cannot report to work in a shutdown. Furloughs will apply to <a href="https://www.govexec.com/workforce/2023/09/see-who-would-get-furloughed-shutdown-year/390517/">over 700,000</a> out of <a href="https://missouriindependent.com/2023/09/20/a-disaster-nears-millions-of-federal-workers-paychecks-would-be-on-hold-in-a-shutdown/">roughly 3.5 million</a> federal employees, but even more workers will be “excepted” and required to work without pay until the shutdown ends. </p>
<p>That of course means employee hardship. But like <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/government-shutdown-jetblue-ceo-says-air-travel-near-tipping-point-2019-1">past shutdowns</a>, unpaid workers can fail to report to work in larger numbers. Americans relying on those services will face delays. There may be air travel delays as well, as air traffic controllers and Transportation Security Administration agents <a href="https://www.barrons.com/articles/government-shutdown-affect-air-travel-flights-aad0970">go without pay</a>.</p>
<h2>Not affected: The postal service and entitlement programs</h2>
<p><a href="https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/R/R44763/3#:%7E:text=Mandatory%20spending%20is%20composed%20of,the%20bulk%20of%20mandatory%20spending.">Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid benefits</a> are entitlement programs that are not included in the annual appropriations process. Americans relying on these programs will not see those benefits affected. But these programs require administration. Federal employees would not be available to verify benefits or send out new cards.</p>
<p>There are additional funding sources for government activities, beyond entitlement programs, that aren’t included in the annual appropriations bills and thus are unlikely to be affected by a shutdown. </p>
<p>The U.S. Postal Service, independently funded through its own services, will be unaffected by a shutdown. The federal judiciary could <a href="https://sgp.fas.org/crs/misc/RL34680.pdf">operate for a limited time</a>, funded by court filings, fees and appropriations allocated off the yearly cycle. But this funding <a href="https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/us-judiciary-can-keep-operating-2-weeks-if-government-shuts-down-2023-09-19/">won’t last long</a> – 10 days was an estimate for the 2013 shutdown. The Supreme Court, which has functioned in previous shutdowns, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-government-shutdown-what-closes-what-stays-open-2023-09-21/">is expected to continue its typical schedule</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/550349/original/file-20230926-23-gcwhwp.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A sign reading 'Because of the Federal Government SHUTDOWN All National Parks are Closed' is posted on a barricade in front of the Lincoln Memorial." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/550349/original/file-20230926-23-gcwhwp.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/550349/original/file-20230926-23-gcwhwp.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/550349/original/file-20230926-23-gcwhwp.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/550349/original/file-20230926-23-gcwhwp.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/550349/original/file-20230926-23-gcwhwp.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/550349/original/file-20230926-23-gcwhwp.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/550349/original/file-20230926-23-gcwhwp.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">National parks will be closed in a shutdown, as the Lincoln Memorial in Washington was in the 2013 shutdown.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/GovernmentShutdownFederalWorkers/db15aad4b2e8423f8579363642314974/photo?Query=government%20shutdown&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=7332&currentItemNo=5">AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The IRS had <a href="https://federalnewsnetwork.com/government-shutdown/2023/09/irs-to-remain-fully-operational-if-congress-triggers-government-shutdown/">promised</a> that the additional funds from the Inflation Reduction Act meant it could be fully operational in a shutdown. In a sign of how agency plans can get updated at the last minute, the <a href="https://home.treasury.gov/system/files/266/IRS-FY24LapsePlan.pdf">IRS updated its contingency plan</a> on Sept. 28 following a ruling by the OMB, a change that will result in <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/09/28/irs-shutdown-furlough-inflation-act/">60,000 furloughed IRS workers</a>. While some activities of the agency will continue, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/09/28/irs-shutdown-furlough-inflation-act/">customer service activities</a> to individual taxpayers will halt. </p>
<p>A <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/aaa_fy2024.pdf">variety of advance appropriations</a> also exist that provide funding for various programs one year or more beyond the year the appropriations bill was passed, including Veterans Affairs medical care; most VA benefits are unaffected. </p>
<p>The primary <a href="https://federalnewsnetwork.com/government-shutdown/2019/01/government-shutdowns-once-incomprehensible-inconceivable-unthinkable-now-the-norm/">law</a> governing funding gaps also makes exceptions for “emergencies involving the safety of human life or the protection of property,” which includes a variety of military activities.</p>
<h2>The big question mark</h2>
<p>The major unknown is, of course, how long a shutdown might last. Food assistance programs – including the federal food program for poorer women, infants and children, called WIC, and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP – which have some contingency funds that carry over into the next fiscal year but are running low, run the risk of those accounts running out. </p>
<p>The federal judiciary has limited funds. There are also a variety of <a href="https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IN/IN11554">federal grants to states and localities</a> that could be short on funds, such as disaster relief and economic development programs, in addition to nutrition assistance. Government officials at the federal, state and local levels will have to make choices about whether a federal shortfall should be covered by state funds, or if workers should be furloughed. Some of these funds have been protected by increased funding in recent laws: The <a href="https://www.everycrsreport.com/reports/R47573.html">Highway Trust Fund is solvent through 2027</a>, due to the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law of 2021.</p>
<p>The economy as a whole will suffer more the longer a shutdown continues. The <a href="https://www.cbo.gov/publication/54937">Congressional Budget Office estimated</a> that the last shutdown, in 2018-2019, reduced gross domestic product growth by 0.2% in the first quarter of 2019. While that 35-day partial shutdown was the longest in U.S. history, it did not affect all agencies.</p>
<p>Federal employees and contractors are disproportionately hurt. Federal employees who are furloughed or excepted and do not receive pay during the shutdown will receive it retroactively, according to a <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/senate-bill/24/text">2019 law</a> passed as a response to the last shutdown. </p>
<p>No such policy exists for contractors working for the federal government, including services ranging from janitorial to manufacturing. Beyond affecting individual workers, the private sector loses business and adjusts its hiring decisions and other practices. </p>
<p><strong><em>This story has been updated to reflect revised shutdown plans for the IRS.</em></strong></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/214040/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Laura Blessing does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>You won’t be able to ignore a government shutdown. From delayed business loans to slower mortgage applications and postponed food inspections, the effects could be substantial.Laura Blessing, Senior Fellow, Government Affairs Institute at Georgetown University, Georgetown UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2134322023-09-12T19:58:20Z2023-09-12T19:58:20ZRepublicans call for impeachment inquiry into Biden – a process the founders intended to deter abuse of power as well as remove from office<p>Yielding to pressure from <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-09-12/mccarthy-hardliner-dilemma-resounds-from-impeachment-to-ukraine">hard-line members of the GOP House</a> caucus, on Sept. 12, 2023, U.S. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy directed the top Republicans in Congress to open a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/sep/11/biden-impeachment-inquiry-abject-failure-report">formal impeachment inquiry</a> into President Joe Biden. The Republicans allege that the president committed financial wrongdoing with foreign businesses.</p>
<p>GOP-led congressional <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/12/us/politics/mccarthy-biden-impeachment-inquiry.html">inquiries of presidential son Hunter Biden’s records</a> to date <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/sep/11/biden-impeachment-inquiry-abject-failure-report">have not shown any foreign payment</a> to his father, Joe Biden, or any other evidence of wrongdoing. </p>
<p>But McCarthy said in brief remarks on Sept. 12, 2023, “Taken together, these allegations paint a picture of a culture of corruption.”</p>
<p>Although impeachment inquiries can be misused, those concerned about McCarthy’s actions should consider words spoken at the Constitutional Convention, when the founders explained that impeachment was intended to have many important purposes, not just removing a president from office. </p>
<p>A critical debate took place on July 20, 1787, which resulted in adding the impeachment clause to the U.S. Constitution. Benjamin Franklin, the oldest and probably wisest delegate at the convention, said that when the president falls under suspicion, a “<a href="https://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llfr&fileName=002/llfr002.db&recNum=71">regular and peaceable inquiry</a>” is needed.</p>
<p>In my work as a <a href="http://www.clarkcunningham.org/">law professor</a> studying <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/01/29/big-trump-case-hinges-definition-emoluments-new-study-has-bad-news-him/">original texts</a> about the U.S. Constitution, I’ve found statements made at the Constitutional Convention explaining that the founders viewed impeachment as a regular practice with three purposes: </p>
<ul>
<li>To remind both the country and the president that he is not above the law. </li>
<li>To deter abuses of power. </li>
<li>To provide a fair and reliable method to resolve suspicions about misconduct.</li>
</ul>
<p>The convention delegates repeatedly agreed with the assertion by George Mason of Virginia that “<a href="https://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llfr&fileName=002/llfr002.db&recNum=68">no point is of more importance</a> … than the right of impeachment” because no one is “above justice.”</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/294441/original/file-20190926-51425-1fa1c8y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/294441/original/file-20190926-51425-1fa1c8y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/294441/original/file-20190926-51425-1fa1c8y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/294441/original/file-20190926-51425-1fa1c8y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/294441/original/file-20190926-51425-1fa1c8y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/294441/original/file-20190926-51425-1fa1c8y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/294441/original/file-20190926-51425-1fa1c8y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/294441/original/file-20190926-51425-1fa1c8y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">George Mason of Virginia.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:George_Mason_portrait.jpg">Library of Congress/Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Need for deterrence</h2>
<p>One of the founders’ greatest fears was that the president would abuse his power. George Mason described the president as the “<a href="https://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llfr&fileName=002/llfr002.db&recNum=68">man who can commit the most extensive injustice</a>.” </p>
<p>James Madison thought the president might “<a href="https://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llfr&fileName=002/llfr002.db&recNum=68">pervert his administration</a> into a scheme of stealing public funds or oppression or <a href="https://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llfr&fileName=002/llfr002.db&recNum=69">betray his trust to foreign powers</a>.” Edmund Randolph, governor of Virginia, said the president “will have <a href="https://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llfr&fileName=002/llfr002.db&recNum=70">great opportunitys of abusing his power</a>; particularly in time of war when the military force, and in some respects the public money will be in his hands.” </p>
<p>Gouverneur Morris of Pennsylvania worried that the president “<a href="https://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llfr&fileName=002/llfr002.db&recNum=71">may be bribed by a greater interest to betray his trust</a> and no one would say that we ought to expose ourselves to the danger of seeing him in foreign pay.” James Madison, himself a future president, said that in the case of the president, “<a href="https://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llfr&fileName=002/llfr002.db&recNum=69">corruption was within the compass of probable events</a> … and might be fatal to the Republic.” </p>
<p>William Davie of North Carolina argued that impeachment was “an essential security for the good behaviour” of the president; otherwise, “he will spare no efforts or means whatever to <a href="https://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llfr&fileName=002/llfr002.db&recNum=67">get himself re-elected</a>.” Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts pointed out that a good president will not worry about impeachment, but a “<a href="https://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llfr&fileName=002/llfr002.db&recNum=69">bad one ought to be kept in fear</a>.” </p>
<h2>Creating a powerful oversight procedure</h2>
<p>Until the very last week of the convention, the founders’ design was for the impeachment process to <a href="https://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llfr&fileName=002/llfr002.db&recNum=432">start in the House of Representatives and conclude with trial in the Supreme Court</a>. </p>
<p>It was not until Sept. 8, 1787, that the convention <a href="https://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llfr&fileName=002/llfr002.db&recNum=557">voted to give the Senate instead the power to conduct impeachment trials</a>. </p>
<p>This is clear evidence that the convention at first wanted to combine the authority and resources of the House of Representatives to conduct the impeachment investigation – a body they called “<a href="https://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llfr&fileName=002/llfr002.db&recNum=159">the grand Inquest of this Nation</a>” – with the fairness and power exemplified by trial in a court. </p>
<p>Even though trial of impeachments was moved from the Supreme Court to the Senate, Congress can still draw on the example of court procedures to accomplish an effective inquiry, especially if they are trying to get information from uncooperative subjects. In many of the investigations that are now part of the House’s impeachment inquiry, the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/politics/trump-blocking-congress/">Trump administration has refused</a> to hand over documents and blocked officials from testifying to Congress.</p>
<p>The Constitution makes clear that impeachment is not a criminal prosecution: “<a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/articlei">Judgment in cases of impeachment shall not extend further than to removal from office</a>.” </p>
<p>If impeachment trials had remained at the Supreme Court, the court could therefore have consulted the rules it has approved for civil cases. It makes sense that when the convention at the last minute decided Congress would have complete power over impeachment, the delegates intended Congress would have at least the same powers the Supreme Court would have exercised.</p>
<h2>When courts are stonewalled</h2>
<p>In civil cases, courts have powerful tools for dealing with someone who blocks access to the very information needed to judge the allegations against him.</p>
<p>The most commonly known method is the rule that says that once a person is legally served with a lawsuit against them, they must respond to the complaint. If they don’t, the court can <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/rules/frcp/rule_55">enter a judgment</a> against them based on the allegations in the complaint. But there are other processes as well.</p>
<p>One court tool that could easily be adapted to the impeachment process comes from the federal rules of civil procedure. In a process called “<a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/rules/frcp/rule_36">request for admission</a>,” one party to a lawsuit can give their opponents a list of detailed factual allegations with a demand for a response.</p>
<p>If the party does not respond, the court can treat each allegation as if it were true, and proceed accordingly. If the respondent denies one or more particular allegations, there is a follow-up procedure called a <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/rules/frcp/rule_34">request for production</a>, demanding any documents in their possession or control supporting the denial. If the respondent refuses, again the court has the power to order that the alleged fact be taken as true. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/294443/original/file-20190926-51438-chhu7p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/294443/original/file-20190926-51438-chhu7p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/294443/original/file-20190926-51438-chhu7p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=734&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/294443/original/file-20190926-51438-chhu7p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=734&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/294443/original/file-20190926-51438-chhu7p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=734&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/294443/original/file-20190926-51438-chhu7p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=923&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/294443/original/file-20190926-51438-chhu7p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=923&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/294443/original/file-20190926-51438-chhu7p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=923&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Benjamin_Franklin_by_Joseph_Duplessis_1778.jpg">Joseph Duplessis/National Portrait Gallery/Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Good for the president and the country</h2>
<p><a href="https://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llfr&fileName=002/llfr002.db&recNum=70">Benjamin Franklin told his fellow delegates the story</a> of a recent dispute that had greatly troubled the Dutch Republic. </p>
<p>One of the Dutch leaders, William V, the Prince of Orange, was suspected to have secretly sabotaged a critical alliance with France. The Dutch had no impeachment process and thus no way to conduct “<a href="https://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llfr&fileName=002/llfr002.db&recNum=71">a regular examination</a>” of these allegations. These suspicions mounted, giving rise to “the <a href="https://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llfr&fileName=002/llfr002.db&recNum=71&">most violent animosities & contentions</a>.”</p>
<p>The moral to Franklin’s story? If Prince William had “been impeachable, a regular & peaceable inquiry would have taken place.” The prince would, “<a href="https://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llfr&fileName=002/llfr002.db&recNum=71">if guilty, have been duly punished – if innocent, restored to the confidence of the public</a>.”</p>
<p>Franklin concluded that impeachment was a process that could be “<a href="https://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llfr&fileName=002/llfr002.db&recNum=68">favorable</a>” to the president, saying it is the best way to provide for “the <a href="https://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llfr&fileName=002/llfr002.db&recNum=68">regular punishment</a> of the Executive when his misconduct should deserve it and for his <a href="https://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llfr&fileName=002/llfr002.db&recNum=68">honorable acquittal</a> when he should be unjustly accused.”</p>
<p><em>Editor’s note: This is an updated version of an article originally published Sept. 26, 2019.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/213432/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Clark D. Cunningham does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The founders of the United States viewed impeachment as a way to remind the country and president that he is not above the law and to deter abuses of power.Clark D. Cunningham, Professor of law and ethics, Georgia State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2125202023-09-05T12:32:02Z2023-09-05T12:32:02ZCongress needs to pass 12 funding bills in 11 days to avert a shutdown – here’s why that isn’t likely<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/545962/original/file-20230901-25-par0qb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=70%2C70%2C3264%2C2409&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A shutdown last happened in 2018. Could it happen again?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/sign-is-displayed-on-a-government-building-that-is-closed-news-photo/1074601288?adppopup=true">Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>U.S. senators and representatives returning from their summer vacations will need to shake off their suntans in quick time and get down to business.</p>
<p>Congress has just 11 days when it’s in session before the next <a href="https://www.federaltimes.com/management/budget/2022/09/20/why-the-us-federal-fiscal-year-2023-starts-in-october/">federal fiscal year begins on Oct. 1, 2023</a>. And in that time, it will need to enact all 12 <a href="https://www.house.gov/the-house-explained/open-government/statement-of-disbursements/glossary-of-terms">appropriation bills</a> to ensure that government agencies and departments have funding to keep programs going – or face a potential government shutdown.</p>
<p>So will they pull it off? And what will happen if they don’t? As an <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/raymond-scheppach-19b98536/">expert of public policy</a> and former deputy director of the Congressional Budget Office, I feel that the challenge this year is the greatest faced since the enactment of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974, which made significant reforms in the process. This is due to the magnitude of the differences not only between the two parties but also between the House and Senate. A worst-case scenario could see a government shutdown for several weeks, or even a couple of months – and that could have a significant negative impact on the economy.</p>
<h2>One down, many to go</h2>
<p>The House of Representatives initially faced a workload of 12 appropriation bills to get through Congress. But just before the House broke for August recess, it <a href="https://appropriations.house.gov/news/press-releases/house-approves-hr-4366-military-construction-veterans-affairs-and-related">passed one appropriation bill, for military construction</a>.</p>
<p>One down, 11 to go. The problem is the military construction bill is traditionally the easiest to pass, as it is very small – this year it stood at US$19.1 billion in spending. This is substantially less than the largest bill, which is usually the <a href="https://www.appropriations.senate.gov/news/majority/bill-summary-labor-health-and-human-services-education-and-related-agencies-fiscal-year-2024-appropriations-bill">Labor, Health, Human Services and Education bill</a>. When reported, or passed, out of the committee in the Senate this year, that bill amounted to $224 billion. Providing money for military construction is also generally done without much controversy, as it includes funding for housing military families – something few members want to oppose.</p>
<p>And while the military construction funding bill passed before the recess, the House leadership had also hoped to pass the <a href="https://appropriations.house.gov/subcommittees/agriculture-rural-development-food-and-drug-administration-118th-congress">Agriculture, Rural Development, and Food and Drug bill</a> but did not have the necessary votes for passage.</p>
<p>Complicating matters is that ongoing funding bills could be delayed or derailed by ideological battles in Washington.</p>
<p>The conservative Freedom Caucus in the House is <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2023/08/21/house-freedom-caucus-potential-shutdown-00112068">pushing for tens of billions of dollars in cuts</a> in the eight appropriation bills that fund domestic spending. The other four are military construction; defense; state and foreign operations; and the legislative branch itself.</p>
<p>Part of this desire for cuts comes from the frustration that conservatives feel over there being virtually no reductions in the <a href="https://budgetmodel.wharton.upenn.edu/issues/2023/5/31/the-fiscal-responsibility-act-of-2023">Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023</a>, which lifted the debt ceiling and was negotiated by House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and President Joe Biden in late May.</p>
<h2>Ideological impasse</h2>
<p>Members of the Freedom Caucus are also expected to <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/house/4162189-freedom-caucus-policy-conditions-stopgap-government-funding-bill/">push for several riders</a> on the appropriation bills that would restrict abortion rights and eliminate funding for LGBTQ+ centers and diversity and inclusion programs. These will be vehemently opposed by Democrats and potentially create an impasse in negotiations. </p>
<p>Another complicating factor is that, recently, the administration <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/biden-administration-seeks-billions-ukraine-aid-teeing-congressional/story?id=102175637">submitted to Congress a request</a> for a $45 billion supplemental appropriation that includes $24 billion for the war in Ukraine. </p>
<p>In the past, these measures would often be attached to either an individual appropriation bill or what is known as <a href="https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/blog/2014/09/19/what-s-continuing-resolution-and-why-does-it-matter">a continuing resolution</a>. A continuing resolution generally funds the government at the same level as in the preceding year for a short time, usually a number of days or weeks.</p>
<p>However, there are Republicans in the House who may object to moving such a bill. Congress would also have to declare an emergency to exempt it from the caps in the <a href="https://www.cbo.gov/publication/59235">Fiscal Responsibility Act</a>.</p>
<p>Members in the House prefer to pass individual appropriation bills, since those are easier to amend. But with time running out, they may be forced to combine all of the outstanding bills into an omnibus bill – with the hopes that it could pass by Oct. 1.</p>
<p>While, constitutionally, appropriation bills must start in the House, they have to be reconciled with whatever version the Senate passes.</p>
<p>The good news here is the Senate Appropriations Committee has <a href="https://www.appropriations.senate.gov/news/majority/icymi-murray-leads-senate-appropriations-in-passing-all-12-bills-out-of-committee-in-overwhelming-bipartisan-votes">reported all 12 bills out of committee</a> and thus is ready for the full Senate to consider when it returns. It has also agreed to raise the caps on national defense spending by $8 billion and domestic spending by $5.2 billion above the caps in the Fiscal Responsibility Act.</p>
<p>But differences in spending between what’s in the bills passed by the Senate committee and the much lower levels desired by many Republicans in the House, combined with the ideological arguments over the various riders expected to be adopted by the House, is setting the stage for a chaotic time in late September and early October.</p>
<h2>A history of shutdowns</h2>
<p>So what is likely to happen?</p>
<p>Given the limited number of days the House is in session in September, the speaker has floated the idea of a short-term continuing resolution. This approach has been endorsed by the White House to give time to <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/white-house-congress-short-term-spending-bill-cr-government-shutdown/">negotiate a permanent solution</a>. But the Freedom Caucus has indicated it will oppose such a measure unless it can attach many of its ideological riders.</p>
<p>Which would leave Congress – and the country – facing a funding gap or potential government shutdown.</p>
<p>Since the 1974 Budget Act, there have been 22 such gaps or shutdowns due to the inability of Congress to enact all the appropriation bills. Three of these shutdowns have been significant. </p>
<p>The first lasted 21 days in 1995-1996 <a href="https://www.npr.org/2019/01/12/683304824/the-longest-government-shutdown-in-history-no-longer-how-1995-changed-everything">during the Clinton administration</a>. It started as a standoff over the debt ceiling but then included disagreements on the appropriations bills. </p>
<p>There were some unique aspects to this standoff. The Republican Senate leader, Bob Dole, was running for president and was not really interested in lengthy negotiations. Meanwhile, House Speaker Newt Gingrich made some inappropriate comments about <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/us-politics/10347951/US-shutdown-1995-flashback-when-Newt-Gingrich-was-snubbed-on-Air-Force-One.html">being snubbed by the president</a> while traveling on Air Force One, and the press had a field day by linking the shutdown to the snub. Polling showed that the Republicans were being blamed for the shutdown - one indicated <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2011/03/poll-americans-split-on-who-to-blame-for-a-shutdown-050398">46% blamed Republicans</a>, while only 27% blamed Democrats. Republicans finally accepted the Clinton budget proposal.</p>
<p>The second major shutdown lasted 16 days in 2013 during the Obama administration and was triggered by a dispute regarding the implementation of the Affordable Care Act. It ended with an agreement between the Obama administration and Republicans on a continuing resolution to fund the government.</p>
<p>The most recent significant funding gap <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/21/us/politics/trump-shutdown-border-wall.html">occurred in December 2018</a> during the Trump administration, when the president stated he would not sign an appropriations bill that did not include his request for $5.7 billion to build a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border. This shutdown lasted 35 days – the longest in history.</p>
<h2>A record shutdown?</h2>
<p>Shutdowns eventually end, but not without first causing damage. Politically, the Republicans received virtually nothing beneficial from the 1995 or 2018 shutdowns, and were in fact <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2011/03/poll-americans-split-on-who-to-blame-for-a-shutdown-050398">blamed for both</a>. Similarly, Republicans received little in 2013 but also seemed to receive less blame.</p>
<p>But there is more than political face-saving at play. The economic cost of the 2018 shutdown was <a href="https://www.cbo.gov/publication/54937">estimated by the Congressional Budget Office</a> to be $3 billion in the fourth quarter of 2018 and $8 billion during the first quarter of 2019. Much of this was recovered during the next several quarters, but the impact on the individual families of furloughed government workers and businesses that were not able to receive loans or certificates to operate were far greater.</p>
<p>Perhaps more important than the impact on the economy are the huge inefficiencies that are created by the uncertainties regarding funding in government purchases, particularly in national defense and other capital purchases. Federal contractors cannot extend long-term contracts until the bills are passed. This forces them into numerous short-run extensions, which are substantially more expensive.</p>
<p>With so much at stake, expect a stormy and chaotic session with huge partisan differences – as well as discrepancies between the House and Senate – regarding spending levels and riders to appropriation bills. </p>
<p>Congress has just 11 working days to pass these bills, and that seems virtually impossible, especially in the current political climate.</p>
<p>So brace for numerous short-run continuing resolutions. But, ultimately, I expect at least a partial government shutdown. I even wouldn’t rule out a much longer shutdown of a couple of months that exceeds the record 35 days during the Trump administration.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/212520/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Raymond Scheppach does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Lawmakers have given themselves a virtually impossible task – and the stakes are high.Raymond Scheppach, Professor of Public Policy, University of VirginiaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2086312023-07-24T12:16:22Z2023-07-24T12:16:22ZTaylor Swift: Person of the year and political influencer<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/538543/original/file-20230720-29-90pi0e.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=14%2C14%2C3273%2C2430&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">That's a lot of potential voters behind Swift at her Denver concert on July 14, 2023.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/taylor-swift-performs-onstage-during-taylor-swift-the-news-photo/1544910187?adppopup=true">Tom Cooper/TAS23/Getty Images for TAS Rights Management</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Even before Taylor Swift was named “<a href="https://time.com/6342806/person-of-the-year-2023-taylor-swift/">person of the year” by Time magazine</a>, politicians courted Swiftie voters.</p>
<p>Call me a Swiftie, too. Like any millennial pop music fan active on social media, I followed Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour – the <a href="https://variety.com/2023/music/news/taylor-swift-eras-tour-surprise-songs-list-1235578714/">surprise songs</a>, the <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-are-taylor-swift-tickets-so-hard-to-get-the-economics-are-complicated-208567">scramble to get tickets</a>, her <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/danidiplacido/2023/05/24/taylor-swifts-matty-healy-controversy-explained/?sh=1a46afdb26bc">brief romance</a> with that guy from The 1975 with a history of racist comments.</p>
<p>But as a political scientist, I was intrigued by something else: reaction to the tour by government officials. New Jersey <a href="https://www.foodnetwork.com/fn-dish/news/new-jersey-taylor-swift-ham-egg-cheese-sandwich">renamed</a> the state’s famed Taylor ham, egg and cheese in her honor – it’s now the “Taylor Swift Ham, Egg, and Cheese” <a href="https://pub.njleg.gov/bills/2016/A4000/3667_I1.HTM">official state sandwich</a>. </p>
<p>Pittsburgh’s <a href="https://www.wpxi.com/news/local/mayor-ed-gainey-renames-pittsburgh-swiftsburgh-friday-saturday-honor-eras-tour/ZEVOJJKUDJH5ND2EE7EYIKRCCY/">mayor briefly renamed</a> the city “Swiftsburgh” when her tour hit town. </p>
<p>And in my neck of the woods, Swift Street in North Kansas City <a href="https://www.kmbc.com/article/north-kansas-city-temporarily-renames-street-in-honor-of-taylor-swift/44309042">was temporarily rebranded</a> “Swift Street (Taylor’s Version).” </p>
<p>Local or state governments have lauded Swift in some way at virtually every stop on her tour. While these honors make for great photo opportunities for Swifties, the politics of these moves is worth examining. Do politicians have something to gain in appealing to Swift’s fans?</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1669754533444984832"}"></div></p>
<h2>Celebrities can help politicians</h2>
<p>Unlike many celebrities, Swift does not involve herself much in politics. One particular tool of politicians looking to boost their numbers is to get celebrity endorsements. But Swift’s use of endorsements has been limited, <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/10/07/taylor-swift-endorses-democrats-bredesen-cooper-in-instagram-post.html">save for backing</a> two Democrats in her adopted home state of Tennessee: Phil Bredesen in his Senate race and U.S. Rep. Jim Cooper in his 2018 reelection campaign. Swift also endorsed <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/07/entertainment/taylor-swift-joe-biden/index.html">Joe Biden in 2020</a>.</p>
<p>Bredesen’s <a href="https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=2010-01-01%202023-07-20&geo=US&q=phil%20bredesen&hl=en">peak</a> in Google search interest from 2010 to the present coincided with Swift’s endorsement in October 2018. Cooper saw <a href="https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=2010-01-01%202023-07-20&geo=US&q=%2Fm%2F03tm2p&hl=en">more Google search traffic</a> with Swift’s endorsement than at any point since his vote for the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act in March 2010.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/538748/original/file-20230721-19-5kqtg1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A chart shows the Google search interest in Phil Bredesen and Jim Cooper peaking with Swift's endorsement" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/538748/original/file-20230721-19-5kqtg1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/538748/original/file-20230721-19-5kqtg1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=361&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/538748/original/file-20230721-19-5kqtg1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=361&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/538748/original/file-20230721-19-5kqtg1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=361&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/538748/original/file-20230721-19-5kqtg1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=453&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/538748/original/file-20230721-19-5kqtg1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=453&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/538748/original/file-20230721-19-5kqtg1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=453&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Google search interest in Phil Bredesen and Jim Cooper peaked with Swift’s endorsement.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=2010-01-01%202023-07-21&geo=US&q=%2Fm%2F03tm2p,%2Fm%2F02655s&hl=en">Matt Harris</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>While the specific impact of Swift’s endorsements is difficult to assess, an <a href="https://www.tennessean.com/story/entertainment/music/2018/11/07/taylor-swift-bredesen-endorsement-tennessee-senate-race-political-post/1918440002/">Emerson College poll</a> of Tennesseans in 2018 found that 11.7% of those surveyed said Swift’s endorsement would make them more likely to support Bredesen – a number unlikely to make a difference in a race Bredesen lost by nearly 11 points despite Swift’s support. Cooper easily won reelection in his heavily Democratic Nashville-based district.</p>
<p>Although Swift’s endorsements likely did not sway these particular races, celebrity endorsements can matter in close races, particularly when the celebrity making the endorsement is viewed favorably – a likely scenario in Swift’s case. </p>
<h2>Fawning = attention</h2>
<p>A <a href="https://pro.morningconsult.com/instant-intel/taylor-swift-fandom-demographic">slight majority</a> of Americans consider themselves at least something of a fan of Swift’s music – that includes me – and a June 2023 Echelon Insights <a href="https://echelonin.wpenginepowered.com/wp-content/uploads/June-2023-Omnibus-Crosstabs-EXTERNAL.pdf">poll</a> showed 50% of likely voters view Swift at least somewhat favorably. This is a higher favorability rating than Joe Biden, Donald Trump and both major political parties.</p>
<p>We’re not talking about endorsements here, though – we’re talking about politicians aligning themselves with Swift with no reciprocity. One clear benefit to public officials fawning over Swift? Attention – not unlike that seen for Bredesen and Cooper in 2018. </p>
<p>New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy’s <a href="https://twitter.com/GovMurphy/status/1661761816588955648?s=20">tweet</a> declaring the “Taylor Swift ham, egg, and cheese” garnered 5,700 likes; his next unrelated tweet had fewer than 100. </p>
<p>A cursory analysis of social media data seems to support the idea that the use of Swift’s name in honorary government actions produces a result similar to that of Swift’s endorsements: it drives engagement. Murphy’s Instagram post lauding Swift garnered the most likes on any post of his in 2023, with the exception of an early June post on the state’s <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/CtMi_8KMA0Q/">air-quality crisis</a>.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1661761816588955648"}"></div></p>
<p>OK, so politicians need publicity, and they can use Taylor Swift’s name to get it. But what about Swifties as a voting bloc? </p>
<p>The idea that Swifties might be a key demographic in future elections is not far-fetched given their <a href="https://pro.morningconsult.com/instant-intel/taylor-swift-fandom-demographic">location and age</a>. A majority of Swift’s fans live in the suburbs, the <a href="https://www.politico.com/f/?id=0000017f-bcf4-d17b-a1ff-bef5e8a70000">swing territory</a> of American politics. Further, most are Gen Zers or Millennials. These groups encompass an increasing share of the electorate with each passing year – up to <a href="https://time.com/6049270/2020-election-young-voters/">31% in 2020</a>. Swift’s favorability among those ages 18 to 29 <a href="http://echelonin.wpenginepowered.com/wp-content/uploads/June-2023-Omnibus-Crosstabs-EXTERNAL.pdf">stands at 72%</a>, and by one poll’s estimate, 21% in that age cohort say they would vote for Swift over Trump and Biden.</p>
<h2>Taylor Swift Post Office?</h2>
<p>World leaders from numerous countries have <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/hughmcintyre/2023/07/08/world-leaders-keep-asking-taylor-swift-to-bring-the-eras-tour-to-their-countries/?sh=3a7d6ff3415c">taken to social media</a> to ask Swift to bring her tour to their countries. There’s an economic angle to this, of course, as a Swift tour stop can <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/hughmcintyre/2023/06/09/taylor-swifts-the-eras-tour-could-generate-46-billion-for-local-economies/?sh=176cec68442d">generate huge sums</a> in consumer spending. In the U.S., however, the honorifics bestowed upon Swift have come since her tour dates were confirmed. </p>
<p>There is a question of whether these Swift-adjacent stunts boil down to campaigning thinly disguised as official government action. This is perhaps best demonstrated in Canada, where a member of Parliament <a href="https://www.thestar.com/politics/federal/after-taylor-swift-snubs-canada-mp-files-a-parliamentary-grievance/article_aefb1060-63da-58a3-b790-2e65a51d6696.html?">filed a parliamentary grievance</a> over the singer’s lack of Canadian tour dates. </p>
<p>Such behavior is perhaps analogous to, on a larger scale, the <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/04/the-crackdown-on-naming-post-offices/452544/">renaming of post offices</a> in the U.S. Congress. While generally innocuous and locally meaningful, these moves still require government resources and staffers to put their attention toward them as opposed to substantive policy matters.</p>
<p>Taylor Swift is an enormously popular figure, particularly among demographic groups that will be increasingly important in future American elections. In close races, voices such as Swift’s could prove critical – not necessarily because she influences how fans vote, but because her voice provides <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/1940161208321948?casa_token=FqVHkgX13GQAAAAA:8D39zHPXgQcumJ9DdrnYmjACC2c8j7diH0oSQXqQ-BqqDKU0_FoozCAA08TKUf-UsItfKby-AnSz">attention and credibility</a> to candidates.</p>
<p><em>This is an update to a story originally published on July 24, 2023, to reflect Swift being named Time magazine’s Person of the Year.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/208631/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Matt Harris does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Pittsburgh’s mayor renamed the city ‘Swiftsburgh’ when the singer’s tour hit town. He’s not the only politician who has publicly fawned over the star.Matt Harris, Associate Professor of Political Science, Park UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2098472023-07-20T12:29:59Z2023-07-20T12:29:59ZThis year’s debate over defense spending threatens to disrupt a tradition of bipartisan consensus-building over funding the military<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/538105/original/file-20230718-27-y980og.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=8%2C34%2C5710%2C3752&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Members of the House Freedom Caucus speak to reporters on July 14, 2023, hours before the House passed its version of the National Defense Authorization Act.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/rep-lauren-boebert-speaks-during-a-press-conference-on-the-news-photo/1543094372?adppopup=true">Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images News/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Each year for the past six decades, congressional representatives from both sides of the aisle have come together to pass the National Defense Authorization Act. Because the bill involves the military – <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/1597/confidence-institutions.aspx">a traditionally popular institution</a> – it has historically received bipartisan support. </p>
<p>But that record was threatened in the Republican-led House of Representatives on July 14, 2023, when <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2023/07/14/house-passes-defense-bill-despite-controversial-abortion-transgender-policies-00106373">members passed the US$886 billion bill by a 219-210 mostly party-line vote</a>. Reflecting the current polarized politics of the U.S., the bill stands virtually no chance of passing in the Democratic-controlled Senate without major modifications. </p>
<p>The measure lacked full support in the House not because of differences over military funding itself, but because it included Republican amendments that <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/07/14/politics/house-ndaa-vote-amendments/index.html">put restrictions on diversity training</a>, abortion access and medical care for transgender troops.</p>
<p>Just after the bill’s passage, <a href="https://twitter.com/SpeakerMcCarthy/status/1679890062148874241">House Speaker Kevin McCarthy tweeted</a>, “We don’t want Disneyland to train our military,” and “House Republicans just passed the bill that ENDS the wokism in the military and gives our troops the biggest pay raise in decades.”</p>
<p>As <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=6P3QreQAAAAJ">scholars of American politics</a>, we study Congress and <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=lQycyuAAAAAJ">believe that this unusual politicization of the defense budget</a> could affect other important legislation in Washington.</p>
<h2>A look at the National Defense Authorization Act and what’s happening in 2023</h2>
<p>Since 1961, <a href="https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF10515">Congress has approved defense spending</a> annually using a two-step process. The first and current step, the National Defense Authorization Act, sets defense policies and provides guidance on how money can be spent. In the second step, which will come after the Senate votes on its version of the bill and the two chambers reach a compromise version, the House and Senate Appropriations Committees approve the spending. </p>
<p>But <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2022/03/10/the-polarization-in-todays-congress-has-roots-that-go-back-decades/">Congress has become increasingly polarized</a> over the years. Congressional Republicans have grown more conservative, congressional Democrats have become more liberal, and <a href="https://www.axios.com/2022/03/17/polarization-congress-democrats-republicans-house-senate-data">members of the two parties agree on less and less</a>. </p>
<p>In the first year of the Biden administration, <a href="https://rollcall.com/2021/09/23/house-nears-vote-on-final-passage-of-defense-policy-bill/">the House approved the National Defense Authorization Act</a> by a 316-113 margin. In 2022, the act <a href="https://www.defensenews.com/congress/budget/2022/12/08/house-passes-defense-bill-with-more-taiwan-ukraine-security-aid/">passed the House by a 350-80 margin</a>. As points of comparison, the <a href="https://clerk.house.gov/Votes/2002158">2002 version of the bill passed 359-58 in the House</a>, and the <a href="https://clerk.house.gov/Votes/2003221">2003 version passed 361-68 in the House</a>. The reauthorization process happens the year before the act goes into effect.</p>
<p>During the 2023 reauthorization process, the bill included amendments from the most conservative members of the Republican Party, many of them from the House Freedom Caucus, who, according to their Twitter profile, support, in part, <a href="https://twitter.com/freedomcaucus?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor">open, accountable and limited government</a>. The amendments seek to <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/house-passage-defense-bill-question-gop-abortion-transgender-surgery-a-rcna94196">ban the Department of Defense from paying</a> <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/4100215-mccaul-very-confident-ndaa-will-be-a-bipartisan-bill/">travel expense reimbursements</a> for service members getting an abortion or transgender surgeries and hormone treatments. </p>
<p>The debates over the amendments were particularly heated. As just one example, <a href="https://twitter.com/RepRosendale/status/1679603332732669952">House Freedom Caucus member Matt Rosendale tweeted</a>, “If someone does not know if they are a man or a woman, they should not be having their hand on a missile launch button.” </p>
<p>Democrats like Rep. Jim McGovern decried House Freedom Caucus tactics: “It’s outrageous that a small <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/mccarthy-working-satisfy-gop-hard-liners-demanding-culture/story?id=101170953">minority of MAGA extremists is dictating</a> how we’ll proceed.” </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/538170/original/file-20230719-23-drknta.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A suited man holds his hands parallel and chest-height as speaks from behind a lectern. American flags stand behind him." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/538170/original/file-20230719-23-drknta.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/538170/original/file-20230719-23-drknta.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/538170/original/file-20230719-23-drknta.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/538170/original/file-20230719-23-drknta.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/538170/original/file-20230719-23-drknta.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/538170/original/file-20230719-23-drknta.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/538170/original/file-20230719-23-drknta.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Democratic House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries speaks about amendments to the National Defense Authorization Act during a July 14, 2023, news conference.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/collaboration/boards/5WSzd8tLIECJ7OsnBsq1Mg">Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images News/Getty Image</a></span>
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<p>For the <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/legislative-hardball/37488C1E94117DFBFF924E5B67188E07">House Freedom Caucus</a>, this was an opportunity to advance its conservative agenda and try to reverse the policies of the Democratic administration. At the same time, these types of amendments decreased the odds that the bill would receive bipartisan support. </p>
<h2>Previous defense spending bills have addressed social policy, too</h2>
<p>This is not the first version of the defense authorization bill that included language about social issues. One reporter wrote in 2022 that the National Defense Authorization Act’s record of bipartisan support “has also made the bill a popular vehicle <a href="https://www.investopedia.com/national-defense-authorization-act-5113289">for tacking on legislation that</a> has little to do with defense.”</p>
<p>In one notable example, the <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/102nd-congress/house-bill/5006/text">1993 National Defense Authorization Act</a> included the infamous “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” compromise, which allowed gay and lesbian citizens to serve in the military if they did not make their sexual orientation public. The measure <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7249/mg1056osd.10?seq=4">stemmed from President Bill Clinton’s campaign pledge</a> to lift the ban on gay people serving in the military. But once in office, Clinton met substantial opposition to his proposal from military leaders and their congressional allies. </p>
<p>The stalemate could have been resolved only by an executive order, which Congress opposed, or legislation, which Clinton opposed. “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” <a href="https://time.com/5339634/dont-ask-dont-tell-25-year-anniversary/">was middle ground</a>. Seventeen years later, Democratic President Barack Obama <a href="https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/blog/2010/12/22/president-signs-repeal-dont-ask-dont-tell-out-many-we-are-one">signed a bill ending Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell</a>. </p>
<p>Another example of social policy’s being embedded in the National Defense Authorization Act occurred in 2009, when Senate Democrats attached <a href="https://www.justice.gov/crt/matthew-shepard-and-james-byrd-jr-hate-crimes-prevention-act-2009-0">the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act</a>, which strengthened federal protections against crimes based on race, religion or nationality and added protections against crimes based on gender, disability, gender identity or sexual orientation, to the annual defense authorization bill. It <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2009/10/senate-passes-hate-crimes-bill-028640">passed by a 68-29 vote in the Senate</a>, but since the House and Senate had different versions of the bill, a conference committee reconciled the differences. The hate crimes provision remained, and the legislation <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/10/28/hate.crimes/">was signed by President Obama</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A smiling man speaks while standing at a lectern in a room full of smiling people." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/538354/original/file-20230719-17-ijicx8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/538354/original/file-20230719-17-ijicx8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/538354/original/file-20230719-17-ijicx8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/538354/original/file-20230719-17-ijicx8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/538354/original/file-20230719-17-ijicx8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/538354/original/file-20230719-17-ijicx8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/538354/original/file-20230719-17-ijicx8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">President Obama speaks in 2009 about the enactment of the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/surrounded-by-human-rights-supporters-u-s-president-barack-news-photo/92430581?adppopup=true">Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>The 2013 National Defense Authorization Act included several provisions added by the Democratic-controlled Senate addressing the equitable treatment of women in the military. Among them: <a href="https://www.motherjones.com/crime-justice/2012/12/women-military-defense-authorization-bill/">insurance coverage for abortions in cases of rape and incest</a>; mandatory discharge of convicted sex offenders; and mandatory sexual assault prevention training. The Senate version of the bill <a href="https://thehill.com/policy/defense/136164-senate-passes-631b-defense-policy-bill-98-0/">passed 98-0</a>. The provisions remained after the House and Senate reconciled their versions and were <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/112th-congress/house-bill/4310/text">part of the bill President Obama signed</a>. </p>
<p>More recently, the <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2021/01/05/pentagon-confederate-name-bases-455180">2021 National Defense Authorization Act included a provision to remove</a> Confederate names, symbols and monuments from Department of Defense property. <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/07/23/senate-defense-bill-ndaa-bases-trump-380362">Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren sponsored</a> the measure in the Senate, and <a href="https://www.militarytimes.com/news/pentagon-congress/2020/06/11/congress-could-force-name-change-at-military-bases-honoring-confederate-generals/">Rep. Anthony Brown, Democrat from Maryland, and Rep. Don Bacon, Republican from Nebraska</a>, sponsored it in the House. There was enough bipartisan support for that legislation that the House and Senate <a href="https://www.npr.org/2021/01/01/952450018/congress-overturns-trump-veto-on-defense-bill-after-political-detour">overrode President Donald Trump’s veto</a>.</p>
<h2>What each party stands to gain or lose from this fight</h2>
<p>The narrow House victory will represent a policy win for the House Freedom Caucus, help members raise money for future election cycles and lessen the likelihood that members will be <a href="https://www.press.umich.edu/5181079/getting_primaried">challenged in a primary</a> from the right flank of their party. </p>
<p>At the same time, these tactics may make it easier for Democrats to win in crucial <a href="https://www.cookpolitical.com/cook-pvi/2023-partisan-voting-index/118-district-map-and-list">swing districts</a> during the 2024 election cycle. Likely providing a preview of talking points Democrats will use against Republicans in swing districts, <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/07/14/1187660777/house-passes-defense-bill-mostly-along-party-lines-with-culture-war-measures-att">Democratic House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said</a>, “Extreme MAGA Republicans have chosen to hijack the historically bipartisan National Defense Authorization Act to continue attacking reproductive freedom and jamming the right-wing ideology down the throats of the American people.” </p>
<p>Defense reauthorization was once considered a rare policy issue on which the parties could agree. But, the Republican-led House’s passage of a bill with little Democratic support most likely renders the bill dead on arrival in the Senate, where Democrats are in the majority. </p>
<p>It’s an important sign that there’s no longer an issue that’s immune from the hyperpolarization that defines today’s American politics.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/209847/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The National Defense Authorization Act has long had bipartisan support in both houses of Congress. But that died in the House this year.Gibbs Knotts, Professor of Political Science, College of CharlestonChristopher A. Cooper, Professor of Political Science, Western Carolina UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2061742023-05-28T17:15:23Z2023-05-28T17:15:23ZDebt ceiling negotiators reach a deal: 5 essential reads about the tentative accord, brinkmanship and the danger of default<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/528698/original/file-20230528-145930-1dir73.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=49%2C437%2C7766%2C4957&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Biden speaks to reporters about the tentative accord. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/DebtLimit/5f4e2743ebcf4b4795d386cd54ea90d4/photo?Query=debt%20ceiling&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=1041&currentItemNo=0">AP Photo/Susan Walsh</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy on May 27, 2023, <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-05-28/white-house-republicans-reach-deal-to-avert-historic-us-default">agreed in principle to a tentative deal</a> that would raise the debt ceiling while capping some federal spending at current levels.</p>
<p>The accord, if approved by both houses of Congress, would avert an unprecedented default that threatens to derail the economy and put hundreds of thousands of Americans out of work. Negotiators agreed to lift the ceiling for two years – past the 2024 presidential election – while putting a temporary cap on most nondefense spending at 2023 levels. It would also reduce planned funding for the IRS, impose new work requirements on some people who receive benefits from the federal program known as SNAP and claw back billions of unspent funds from pandemic relief programs.</p>
<p>The Conversation has been covering the debt ceiling drama since January, when Republicans took over the House, raising fears that brinkmanship would lead to an economic catastrophe. Here are five articles from our archive to help you make sense of a couple key aspects of the tentative deal and provide context on the debt ceiling fight.</p>
<h2>1. What is the debt ceiling?</h2>
<p>First some basics. The debt ceiling was established by the U.S. Congress in 1917. It limits the total national debt by setting out a maximum amount that the government can borrow.</p>
<p>Steven Pressman, an <a href="https://ww4.newschool.edu/nssr/faculty/steven-pressman/">economist at The New School</a>, explained the original aim was “to let then-President Woodrow Wilson spend the money he deemed necessary to fight World War I without waiting for often-absent lawmakers to act. Congress, however, did not want to write the president a blank check, so it limited borrowing to US$11.5 billion and required legislation for any increase.”</p>
<p>Since then, the debt ceiling has <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-america-has-a-debt-ceiling-5-questions-answered-164977">been increased dozens of times</a>. It currently stands at $31.4 trillion – a figure reached in January. The Treasury has taken “extraordinary measures” to enable the government to keep borrowing without breaching the ceiling. Such measures, however, can only be temporary – meaning at one point Congress will have to act to lift the ceiling or default on its debt obligations, which is expected to happen by June 5, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/markets/us/yellen-moves-forecast-earliest-potential-us-default-date-june-5-2023-05-26/">according to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen</a>, if the deal isn’t approved in time.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-america-has-a-debt-ceiling-5-questions-answered-164977">Why America has a debt ceiling: 5 questions answered</a>
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<h2>2. The trouble with work requirements</h2>
<p>One of the biggest sticking points toward the end of negotiations was work requirements for recipients of government aid. The tentative deal would raise the age for existing work requirements from 49 to 54 years on able-bodied adults who have no children. This is less than what Republicans had earlier sought. There are exceptions for veterans and the homeless. </p>
<p>But if the goal is to help people find jobs and make more money, work requirements <a href="https://theconversation.com/snap-work-requirements-dont-actually-get-more-people-working-but-they-do-drastically-limit-the-availability-of-food-aid-204257">don’t actually do the job</a>, wrote <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=Zoc5_aMAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">Kelsey Pukelis</a>, a doctoral student in public policy at Harvard Kennedy School who has studied the issue. Rather, they make it much harder for people who need food aid to get it. </p>
<p>“Our findings do suggest that work requirements restrain federal spending by reducing the number of people getting SNAP benefits,” she explained. “But our work also indicates that in today’s context, these savings would be at the expense of already vulnerable people facing additional economic hardship at a time when a new recession could be around the corner.”</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/snap-work-requirements-dont-actually-get-more-people-working-but-they-do-drastically-limit-the-availability-of-food-aid-204257">SNAP work requirements don’t actually get more people working – but they do drastically limit the availability of food aid</a>
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<h2>3. IRS funding takes a hit</h2>
<p>The deal also takes aim at a big boost in spending Congress gave the Internal Revenue Service beginning in 2022 to crack down on tax cheats and upgrade its software. Democrats agreed to a Republican demand to cut the extra IRS funding from $80 billion to $70 billion. </p>
<p>Back in August 2022, <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=J_S5pkkAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">Nirupama Rao</a>, an economist at the University of Michigan, <a href="https://theconversation.com/will-the-inflation-reduction-act-actually-reduce-inflation-how-will-the-corporate-minimum-tax-work-an-economist-has-answers-188786">explained why Democrats included all that funding</a> in their Inflation Reduction Act and how it would help the IRS collect more tax revenue, since the agency does not fully collect all the taxes that are owed.</p>
<p>“The main target of this spending is the so-called tax gap, which is currently estimated at about $600 billion a year,” she wrote. “While an $80 billion investment that returns $204 billion already sounds pretty impressive, it may be possible that it’s a conservative estimate.”</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/will-the-inflation-reduction-act-actually-reduce-inflation-how-will-the-corporate-minimum-tax-work-an-economist-has-answers-188786">Will the Inflation Reduction Act actually reduce inflation? How will the corporate minimum tax work? An economist has answers</a>
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<h2>4. The hard road to compromise</h2>
<p>It took a long time for Republicans and Democrats to get the current agreement. </p>
<p>Yellen warned in January that the government was about to hit the debt limit and would be unable to pay all its bills by May or June. McCarthy and House Republicans, who hold a razor-thin majority, appeared unwilling to raise the debt ceiling unless they could extract <a href="https://apnews.com/article/debt-limit-bill-house-republicans-kevin-mccarthy-f73e6c2fce8abdfab4973c727ea79517">deep spending cuts</a>. Meanwhile, Biden <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/us/biden-will-talk-budget-wont-negotiate-debt-ceiling-congress-meeting-white-house-2023-05-02/">refused to negotiate</a>, insisting on a clean debt ceiling bill. Both of those positions were dropped during negotiations. </p>
<p>Why did it take so long for them to reach a compromise? </p>
<p>Blame political trends that have been accelerating for decades, explained <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=cfH3-8sAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">Laurel Harbridge-Yong</a>, a specialist in partisan conflict and the lack of bipartisan agreement in American politics at Northwestern University. Many Republicans come from very safe districts, which means their primary against other conservatives is more important than the general election. <a href="https://theconversation.com/most-voters-want-compromise-in-congress-so-why-the-brinkmanship-over-the-debt-limit-206465">This makes it more important to stand firm</a> and fight until the bitter end. </p>
<p>“So you now have many Republicans who are more willing to fight quite hard against the Democrats because they don’t want to give a win to Biden,” she wrote. “Democrats are also resistant to compromising, both because they don’t want to gut programs that they put in place and also because they don’t want to make this look like a win for Republicans, who were able to play chicken and get what they wanted.”</p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/voters-want-compromise-in-congress-so-why-the-brinkmanship-over-the-debt-ceiling-206465">Voters want compromise in Congress -- so why the brinkmanship over the debt ceiling?</a>
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<h2>5. Latest in a long line of fiscal crises</h2>
<p>This was hardly the first fiscal crisis the U.S. government has faced. In fact, there have been many – including 22 government shutdowns since just 1976. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/raymond-scheppach-19b98536">Raymond Scheppach</a>, a professor of public policy at University of Virginia, <a href="https://theconversation.com/link-205178">offered a brief history</a> of recent crises and the damage they’ve caused – and why a default would be far more consequential than past crises.</p>
<p>“While these were very disruptive and damaged the economy and employment, they pale in comparison to the potential effects of failing to lift the debt ceiling, which could be catastrophic,” he wrote. “It could bring down the entire international financial system. This in turn could devastate the world gross domestic product and create mass unemployment.”</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/a-brief-history-of-debt-ceiling-crises-and-the-political-chaos-theyve-unleashed-205178">A brief history of debt ceiling crises and the political chaos they've unleashed</a>
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<p><em>Editor’s note: This story is a roundup of articles from The Conversation’s archives. Portions of this article originally appeared in <a href="https://theconversation.com/yellen-puts-congress-on-notice-over-impending-debt-default-date-5-essential-reads-on-whats-at-stake-204863">a previous article</a> published on May 2, 2023.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/206174/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
The deal would raise the ceiling for two years, cap some federal spending and impose new work requirements on certain federal benefits. It still needs the blessing of Congress.Bryan Keogh, Managing EditorMatt Williams, Senior International EditorLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2051782023-05-12T12:20:16Z2023-05-12T12:20:16ZA brief history of debt ceiling crises and the political chaos they’ve unleashed<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/525714/original/file-20230511-17-v7jrtw.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=5%2C5%2C3988%2C2850&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">With the House GOP and President Joe Biden locked in a struggle over the debt limit, it's dark times in the U.S. Capitol.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/dramatic-clouds-over-the-u-s-capitol-as-the-congress-faces-news-photo/1246606510?adppopup=true">Bill O'Leary/The Washington Post via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>A draft agreement to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/05/27/debt-ceiling-talks/">raise the debt limit, cap federal spending and stave off a default</a> has been announced by Republican and White House negotiators.</p>
<p>Republicans and Democrats in the House now must review the deal. How they <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/27/us/politics/debt-limit-deal.html">vote on it</a> will determine whether there will be a resolution to the long-running standoff, or the U.S. will plunge into an unprecedented fiscal crisis. </p>
<p>There have been numerous fiscal crises in the United States where Congress has either failed to pass a budget on time or there were doubts that the federal debt ceiling would be raised, which could cause the U.S. to default on its debt. </p>
<p>These two kinds of crises can sometimes play out at the same time. A federal budget was not adopted in time, for example, and there were threats of not increasing the debt ceiling.</p>
<p><a href="https://millercenter.org/sites/default/files/2017-01/CV%20Scheppach.pdf">I worked as</a> the deputy director of the Congressional Budget Office and the executive director of the National Governors Association, and I witnessed firsthand much of the wrangling in Congress during these crises. </p>
<p>Since 1976, there have been <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/blog/fixgov/2023/04/27/why-is-federal-spending-so-hard-to-cut-recurring-debt-ceiling-fights-will-only-be-solved-by-budget-reform/">22 shutdowns of the federal government</a> due to lack of a federal budget. </p>
<p>While these were very disruptive and damaged <a href="https://policyinstitute.iu.edu/doc/mpi/insight/2013-03.pdf">the economy and employment</a>, they pale in comparison to the potential effects of failing to lift the debt ceiling, which could be <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/05/08/1174853895/what-happens-if-the-government-defaults-a-former-federal-reserve-economist-expla">catastrophic</a>. It could bring down the entire international financial system. This in turn could devastate the world gross domestic product and create mass unemployment. </p>
<p>Fortunately, the U.S. has never experienced a default. The <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/04/29/1172894580/congress-has-revised-the-debt-ceiling-78-times-since-1960-a-financial-historian-">debt ceiling has been raised 78 times since 1917</a> and currently stands at US$31.4 trillion. </p>
<p>Here are three debt-limit crises I watched play out - which not only had economic consequences, but political ones as well.</p>
<h2>1995: A GOP revolution – and blunder</h2>
<p>Often, a debt-limit crisis is preceded by an election that produces a major shift in who controls Congress. In the 1994 midterm election, during President Bill Clinton’s first term, <a href="https://library.cqpress.com/cqalmanac/document.php?id=cqal94-1102765">the Republicans gained eight Senate seats and 54 seats in the House</a>, flipping both chambers. The election was seen as a Republican revolution. Bob Dole became the majority leader in the Senate, and Newt Gingrich became the speaker of the House.</p>
<p>GOP lawmakers pledged to pass a balanced budget as part of what they named their “Contract with America.” House Republicans sent Clinton a budget that <a href="https://millercenter.org/1995-96-government-shutdown">cut spending on domestic programs</a>, which he vetoed. This in turn led to a <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/how-long-will-government-shutdown-last-2018-1">five-day shutdown of the federal government</a>. </p>
<p>Gingrich then threatened not to increase the debt limit. A Washington Post story described the House leader’s actions as “House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1995/09/22/gingrich-vows-no-retreat-on-debt-ceiling-increase/9f7c9620-e6aa-489e-8ace-3ebb27e349bc/">threatened yesterday to take the government into default</a> for the first time in history unless President Clinton bows to Republican demands for a balanced budget.” Clinton responded to the latest GOP budget offer with a second veto, which led to a longer government shutdown of 21 days.</p>
<p>In the end, the Republicans <a href="https://www.govexec.com/management/2023/02/i-helped-balance-federal-budget-1990s-heres-just-how-hard-it-will-be-gop-achieve-same-rare-feat/382443/">passed a budget offered by Clinton</a> and also lifted the debt ceiling.</p>
<p>There were unique aspects to this standoff. Dole was not interested in continuing the negotiation, as he was running for president. Gingrich made <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1995/11/16/underlying-gingrichs-stance-is-his-pique-about-president/cc78a470-7093-48ba-b2d0-386e0ede1372/">comments about being snubbed</a> by the president while traveling with him on Air Force One, and the press had a field day with those comments, <a href="https://apnews.com/article/a6b650344d947fc019f12343c63de231">linking the shutdown to the snub</a>. Polling increasingly showed that the <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/voters-blamed-gop-for-1995-shutdown_n_842769">Republicans were getting blamed</a> for the shutdown – a 1995 ABC poll <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/voters-blamed-gop-for-1995-shutdown_n_842769">indicated 46% blamed the Republicans</a> and only 27% blamed the Democrats. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/rszHuvq4C5E?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The press and Democratic lawmakers made fun of House Speaker Newt Gingrich’s pique at what he said was a presidential snub.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>2011: Budget reductions and reforms, with a side of financial chaos</h2>
<p>As in 1995, the 2011 crisis happened after an election and a major power shift on Capitol Hill. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/nov/03/us-midterm-election-results-tea-party">The election of 2010</a>, in the middle of President Barack Obama’s first term, saw the Republicans gain seven Senate seats, but not yet a majority, and a net gain of 63 House seats, making the GOP the majority. <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2011/POLITICS/07/25/debt.talks.timeline/index.html">The House then demanded</a> that Obama negotiate a deficit reduction package in exchange for raising the debt ceiling.</p>
<p>As the deadline for increasing the debt limit approached, both the U.S. domestic and even international <a href="https://home.treasury.gov/system/files/276/POTENTIAL-MACROECONOMIC-IMPACT-OF-DEBT-CEILING-BRINKMANSHIP.pdf">financial markets became chaotic</a>. The <a href="https://www.reuters.com/markets/us/us-debt-ceiling-markets-gauging-fallout-2023-02-16/">S&P 500 fell by 17%</a> and bond rates spiked. On Aug. 5, 2011, the Standard and Poor’s rating agency <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/06/business/us-debt-downgraded-by-sp.html">reduced the rating for long-term U.S government debt</a>, which could result in higher interest rates on that debt. </p>
<p>On July 31, 2011, only two days before the U.S. government ran out of money, an agreement was reached between Congress and Obama that, once enacted, became the <a href="https://sgp.fas.org/crs/misc/R41965.pdf">Budget Control Act of 2011</a>. It reduced spending over the following 10 years by US$917 billion and authorized raising the debt ceiling to $2.1 trillion. </p>
<p>The act also included several budget reforms – a concession to Republicans by Obama and the Democrats – including creating a congressional joint select committee to make recommendations on deficit reduction. It also included an automatic provision to cut the budget should Congress fail to act.</p>
<h2>2013: ‘We got nothing’</h2>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/525718/original/file-20230511-29-qusgiv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A middle-aged man in a suit, standing in front of several US flags with his eyes closed, looking glum." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/525718/original/file-20230511-29-qusgiv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/525718/original/file-20230511-29-qusgiv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/525718/original/file-20230511-29-qusgiv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/525718/original/file-20230511-29-qusgiv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/525718/original/file-20230511-29-qusgiv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/525718/original/file-20230511-29-qusgiv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/525718/original/file-20230511-29-qusgiv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">U.S. House Speaker John Boehner, a Republican, on Oct. 8, 2013, the eighth day of a government shutdown over the debt limit crisis.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/speaker-of-the-house-john-boehner-speaks-at-the-us-capitol-news-photo/183655358?adppopup=true">Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In January 2013, the debt ceiling that was established in 2011 was hit and the Treasury Department began extraordinary actions to continue funding necessary spending. </p>
<p>This included not paying into retirement funds of federal workers and borrowing from trust funds such as Social Security.</p>
<p>Treasury told Congress that those extraordinary measures to avoid default would be exhausted by mid-October 2013, and <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20131017174553/http://www.treasury.gov/initiatives/Documents/082613%20Debt%20Limit%20Letter%20to%20Congress.pdf">the debt limit would be reached then</a>, meaning the U.S. could not borrow any more money to pay its bills.</p>
<p>At the same time, Republicans, who controlled the House, had demanded budget cuts <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/17/us/congress-budget-debate.html">as well as policy changes</a>. They wanted Obama to <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2013/09/20/224422562/house-gop-votes-to-fund-government-kill-obamacare">eliminate the funding for</a> his Affordable Care Act, which was considered his major legislative achievement. </p>
<p>The government was shut down once more, for 16 days. Again, public support for the Republican approach <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/oct/16/senate-leaders-strike-debt-ceiling-deal-shutdown">began to erode</a>. That led the GOP to capitulate and adopt a budget that did not include significant cuts, and raised the debt ceiling, all in a vote the day before the government was slated to run out of money. </p>
<p>“<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/oct/16/senate-leaders-strike-debt-ceiling-deal-shutdown">We got nothing</a>,” said conservative Republican Rep. Thomas Massie from Kentucky.</p>
<h2>Risks to both sides</h2>
<p>Each crisis is unique and depends on the specific leaders on both sides as well as how the public reacts to the crisis.</p>
<p>History indicates there are substantial risks to both parties as well as their respective leaders in such fiscal showdowns. The 1995 crisis <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/voters-blamed-gop-for-1995-shutdown_n_842769">did not benefit Republicans</a>, and some even argue it contributed to Clinton winning reelection. </p>
<p>In 2011, I would argue that the Republicans gained substantial budget reduction and budget reform concessions from Democrats. But lack of support for the Republican position in 2013 saw them concede. </p>
<p>The 2023 crisis is like 1995 and 2011 in that it was preceded by an election that flipped the House majority. But it differs substantially in the size of that majority. With only a four-seat majority, the risks to the Republican leadership have been high. </p>
<p>As House members determine whether they will accept the deal their negotiators have settled on, the stakes for the two parties and their respective two leaders are huge. This could well affect President Joe Biden’s reelection and the longevity of the current Speaker of the House, Kevin McCarthy.</p>
<p><em>This story has been updated to reflect the draft deal announced on the evening of May 27, 2023.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/205178/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Raymond Scheppach does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>How will the House vote on the deal negotiated by the White House and GOP leaders? If they reject it, there are political as well as huge economic risks to debt standoffs in Congress.Raymond Scheppach, Professor of Public Policy, University of VirginiaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1973952023-05-04T12:12:28Z2023-05-04T12:12:28ZCan Biden and McCarthy avert a calamitous debt default? 3 evidence-backed leadership strategies that might help<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/523318/original/file-20230427-22-l2gfdz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=30%2C14%2C1167%2C783&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Whether or not the U.S. defaults on its debt may depend on the leadership of Joe Biden and Kevin McCarthy.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/BidenIreland/008d696c1da94f00b79de33c01a6c4f8/photo?Query=Kevin%20mccarthy&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=4749&currentItemNo=40">AP Photo/Mariam Zuhaib</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The U.S. <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/22/politics/debt-limit-standoff-congress-white-house/index.html">is teetering toward</a> an unprecedented debt default that <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/01/us/politics/debt-limit-date-janet-yellen.html">could come as soon as June 1, 2023</a>. </p>
<p>In order for the U.S. to borrow more money, Congress <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-america-has-a-debt-ceiling-5-questions-answered-164977">needs to raise the debt ceiling</a> – currently US$31.4 trillion. President Joe Biden has <a href="https://www.axios.com/2023/04/20/democrats-biden-debt-ceiling-negotiate">refused to negotiate</a> with House Republicans over spending, demanding instead that Congress pass a stand-alone bill to increase the debt limit. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy won a small victory on April 26 by <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/live/2023/04/26/us/debt-ceiling-vote-news">narrowly passing a more complex bill</a> with GOP support that would raise the debt ceiling but also slash spending and roll back Biden’s policy agenda.</p>
<p>Biden recently <a href="https://www.reuters.com/markets/us/us-may-run-short-cash-after-june-1-without-debt-limit-hike-treasury-2023-05-01/">invited congressional leaders</a>, including GOP leader McCarthy, to the White House on May 9 to discuss the situation but insisted he isn’t willing to negotiate. </p>
<p>Rather than leading the nation, Biden and McCarthy seem to be waging a partisan <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/27/us/politics/biden-debt-ceiling.html">political war</a>. Biden likely doesn’t want to be seen as giving in to Repubicans’ demands and diminishing legislative wins for his liberal constituency. McCarthy, with his slim majority in the House, needs to appease even the most <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2023/04/26/mccarthy-debt-plan-gop-00094065">hard-line members of his party</a>.</p>
<p>Having <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=uM0ynrcAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">studied leadership</a> for over 25 years, I would suggest that their leadership styles are polarized, oppositional, short-term and highly ineffective. Such combative leadership risks a debt default that <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/07/us/politics/debt-default-economy.html">could send the U.S. into recession</a> and potentially lead to a global economic and financial crisis.</p>
<p>While it may seem almost impossible in the current political climate, Biden and McCarthy have an opportunity to turn around this crisis and leave a positive and lasting legacy of courageous leadership. To do so, they need to put aside partisanship and adopt a different approach. Here are a few evidence-backed strategies to get them started.</p>
<h2>1. Moving from a zero-sum game to a more holistic approach</h2>
<p>Political leaders often risk being hijacked by members of their own party. McCarthy faces a direct threat by hard-line conservative members of his coalition.</p>
<p>For example, back in January, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/06/us/politics/house-speaker-vote-mccarthy.html">McCarthy agreed to let a single lawmaker</a> force a vote for his ouster to win enough votes from ultraconservative lawmakers to become speaker. That and other concessions give the most extreme members of his party a lot of control over his agenda and limit McCarthy’s ability to make a compromise deal with the president.</p>
<p>Biden, who just <a href="https://apnews.com/article/joe-biden-election-2024-president-democrats-trump-9c72115656855da89a41cac3f79aa65b">announced he’s running for reelection in 2024</a>, is betting his first-term accomplishments – such as <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2022/08/24/fact-sheet-president-biden-announces-student-loan-relief-for-borrowers-who-need-it-most/">unprecedented climate investments and student loan forgiveness</a> – will help him keep the White House. Negotiating any of that away could cost him the support of key parts of his base.</p>
<p>My research partner <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=Gs-m4_oAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">Marianne W. Lewis</a> and I label this kind of short-term, one-sided leadership as “either/or” thinking. That is, this approach assumes that leadership decisions are a zero-sum game – every inch you give is a loss to your side. We argue that this kind of leadership is <a href="https://store.hbr.org/product/both-and-thinking-embracing-creative-tensions-to-solve-your-toughest-problems/10481">limited at best and detrimental at worst</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="a Black man and a white man stand next to each other holding Nobel Peace prize folders and medals" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/523905/original/file-20230502-22-kwfxh5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/523905/original/file-20230502-22-kwfxh5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=467&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523905/original/file-20230502-22-kwfxh5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=467&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523905/original/file-20230502-22-kwfxh5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=467&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523905/original/file-20230502-22-kwfxh5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=587&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523905/original/file-20230502-22-kwfxh5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=587&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523905/original/file-20230502-22-kwfxh5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=587&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Nelson Mandela, left, and F.W. de Klerk won the Nobel Peace Prize for helping end apartheid in South Africa.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/ObitFWdeKlerk/f808d2c7d2294a13ab6821a7eaa730ae/photo?Query=de%20klerk%20mandela&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=160&currentItemNo=33">Jon Eeg/Pool photo via AP</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Instead, we find that great leadership involves what we call “both/and” thinking, which involves seeking integration and unity across opposing perspectives. History offers examples of how this more holistic leadership style has achieved substantial achievements. </p>
<p>President Lyndon B. Johnson and fellow Democrats <a href="https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/common/generic/CivilRightsAct1964.htm">were struggling to get a Senate vote</a> on the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and needed Republican support. Despite his initial opposition, Republican Sen. Everett McKinley Dirksen – then the minority leader and a staunch conservative – led colleagues in crossing party lines and joining Democrats to pass the historic legislation.</p>
<p>Another example came in 1990, when South Africa’s then-President Frederik Willem de Klerk <a href="https://thunderbird.asu.edu/thought-leadership/insights/fw-de-klerk-man-who-ended-apartheid-freed-mandela-and-honored-his">freed opponent Nelson Mandela from prison</a>. The two erstwhile political enemies agreed to a deal that ended apartheid and paved the way for a democratic government – which <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/1993/summary/">won them both the Nobel Peace Prize</a>. Mandela became president four years later.</p>
<p>This integrative leadership approach starts with a shift of mindset that moves away from seeing opposing sides as conflicting and instead values them as generative of new possibilities. So in the case of the debt ceiling situation, holistic leadership means, at the least, Biden would not simply put up his hands and refuse to negotiate over spending. He could acknowledge that Republicans <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/15/business/national-debt-biden.html">have a point about the nation’s soaring debt load</a>. McCarthy and his party might recognize they cannot just <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2023/04/26/mccarthy-debt-plan-gop-00094065">slash spending</a>. Together they could achieve greater success by developing an integrative plan that cuts costs, increases taxes and raises the debt ceiling. </p>
<h2>2. Champion a long-term vision over short-term goals</h2>
<p><a href="https://heinonline.org/HOL/Page?handle=hein.journals/jcorl37&div=13&g_sent=1&casa_token=nuOoHSOf8WQAAAAA:7WunxXp3VpouwosDM-mbyu2w_yTxronnybSfNjtD-9kxGYQR3feeJ67kWXRLCyA_Z1yHyX8&collection=journals">What we call “short-termism” plagues America’s politics</a>. Leaders face pressure to demonstrate immediate results to voters. Biden and McCarthy both have strong incentives to focus on a short-term victory for their side with the presidential and congressional elections coming soon. Instead, <a href="https://doi.org/10.5465/amr.2022.0251">long-term thinking</a> can help leaders with competing agendas.</p>
<p>In a 2015 study, <a href="https://research.monash.edu/en/publications/short-on-time-intertemporal-tensions-in-business-sustainability">Natalie Slawinski and Pratima Bansal</a> studied executives at five Canadian oil companies who were dealing with tensions between keeping costs low in the short term while making investments that could mitigate their industry’s environmental impact over the long run. The two scholars found that those who focused on the short term struggled to reconcile the two competing forces, while long-term thinkers managed to find more creative solutions that kept costs down but also allowed them to do more to fight climate change. </p>
<p>Likewise, if Biden and McCarthy want to avert a financial crisis and leave a lasting legacy, they would benefit from focusing on the long term. Finding points of connection in this shared long-term goal, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/27/us/politics/biden-debt-ceiling.html">rather than stressing their significant differences about how to get there</a>, can help shift away from their standoff and toward a solution. </p>
<h2>3. Be adaptive, not assured</h2>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1617711114">Voters often praise political leaders</a> who act swiftly and with confidence and self-assurance, particularly at a moment of economic uncertainty. </p>
<p>Yet finding a creative solution to America’s greatest challenges often requires leaders to put aside the swagger and adapt, meaning they take small steps to listen to one another, experiment with solutions, evaluate these outcomes and adjust their approach as needed. </p>
<p>In a study of business decisions at a Fortune 500 technology company, I spent a year <a href="https://doi.org/10.5465/amj.2011.0932">following the senior management teams</a> in charge of six units – each of which had revenues of over $1 billion. I found that the team leaders who were most innovative tended to be good at adaptation. They constantly explored whether they had made the right investment and made changes if needed. </p>
<p>Small steps are also necessary to build unlikely relationships with political foes. In his 2017 book, “<a href="https://reospartners.com/publications/introduction-collaborating-enemy/">Collaborating With the Enemy</a>,” organizational consultant Adam Kahane describes how he facilitated workshops to help former enemies take small steps toward reconciliation, such as in South Africa at the end of apartheid and in Colombia amid the drug wars. Such efforts helped South Africa <a href="https://origins.osu.edu/article/south-africa-mandela-apartheid-ramaphosa-zuma-corruption?language_content_entity=en">become a successful multiracial democracy</a> and Colombia <a href="https://www.wola.org/program/colombia/the-colombian-peace-process/">end decades of war with a guerrilla insurgency</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="two white men are seen shaking hands and smiling with other people who's backs are turned" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/524207/original/file-20230503-27-ygagfw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/524207/original/file-20230503-27-ygagfw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/524207/original/file-20230503-27-ygagfw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/524207/original/file-20230503-27-ygagfw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/524207/original/file-20230503-27-ygagfw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/524207/original/file-20230503-27-ygagfw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/524207/original/file-20230503-27-ygagfw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Former Democratic Gov. Phil Bredesen, second from left, and former Republican Gov. Bill Haslam, right, have built a good relationship since leaving office despite their political differences.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/FormerGovernorsTennessee/5a99d137162a498caec7ee02a95cfe95/photo?Query=Phil%20Bredesen%20and%20Bill%20Haslam&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=15&currentItemNo=0">AP Photo/Mark Humphrey</a></span>
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<p>This kind of leadership requires small steps toward connection rather than large political leaps. It also requires that both sides let go of their positions and consider where they are willing to compromise. </p>
<p>Biden and McCarthy could learn from two former Tennessee governors, Democrat Phil Bredesen and Republican Bill Haslam. Though they <a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/opinion/we-re-a-democrat-and-a-republican-here-s-how-both-parties-can-start-on-gun-reform-together/ar-AA19nbb7">oppose each other on almost every political issue</a>, including gun control, the two former leaders have built a constructive relationship over the years. Rather than tackle the big divisive issues, they started with identifying the small points where they agreed with each other. Doing so led them to build greater trust and continue to look for connections. </p>
<p>So when a gunman <a href="https://theconversation.com/nashville-attack-renews-calls-for-assault-weapons-ban-data-shows-there-were-fewer-mass-shooting-deaths-during-an-earlier-10-year-prohibition-202886">killed six people at a school in Nashville</a> recently, the two former governors were able to move beyond political finger-pointing and focus on how their respective parties could work together on meaningful gun reform.</p>
<p>Of course, it’s easier to do this once you’re out of office and the pressure from voters and parties goes away. And although current Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2023/04/11/tennessee-governor-bill-lee-red-flag-law-background-checks-00091404">agreed on the need for gun reform</a>, his fellow Republicans in the state Legislature balked.</p>
<h2>A long shot, but …</h2>
<p>And that’s why I know this is a long shot. The two main political <a href="https://www.vox.com/podcasts/2020/1/23/21077236/ezra-klein-show-book-why-were-polarized-identity-politics">parties are as polarized as ever</a>. The odds of a breakthrough that leads to anything more than a last-second deal that kicks the debt ceiling can down the road remain pretty low – and <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/31/economy/default-debt-ceiling/index.html">even that seems in doubt</a>.</p>
<p>But this is about more than the debt ceiling. The U.S. faces a long list of problems big and small, from <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/topics/inflation-645">high inflation</a> and a <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/topics/2023-bank-crisis-135462">banking crisis</a> to the <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/topics/ukraine-12-months-at-war-134215">war in Ukraine</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/topics/climate-change-27">climate change</a>. </p>
<p>Americans need and deserve leaders who will tackle these issues by working together toward a more creative outcomes.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/197395/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Wendy K. Smith does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Research shows that leaders who can embrace competing demands and focus on the long term are more likely to succeed.Wendy K. Smith, Professor of Business and Leadership, University of DelawareLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2048632023-05-02T17:23:54Z2023-05-02T17:23:54ZYellen puts Congress on notice over impending debt default date: 5 essential reads on what’s at stake<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/523872/original/file-20230502-28-3tukkp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=12%2C38%2C4230%2C2723&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen doesn't want to look back in anger over a debt deadline missed.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/secretary-janet-yellen-leaves-after-an-open-session-of-a-news-photo/1483917268?adppopup=true">Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Lawmakers have been <a href="https://apnews.com/article/x-date-debt-ceiling-yellen-treasury-borrowing-f726fd88a9bb7f72e50f0b948731ac57">given notice of a new deadline</a> if they are to avoid a damaging default on U.S. debt: June 1, 2023.</p>
<p>If Congress fails to raise the nation’s borrowing limit by that date, <a href="https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/jy1454">Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen warned</a>, then the federal government risks being “unable to continue to satisfy all of the government’s obligations.”</p>
<p>Giving herself a little wiggle room by saying that it is pretty hard to work out the exact date of default, Yellen was clear on the potential impact: “If Congress fails to increase the debt limit, it would cause severe hardship to American families, harm our global leadership position, and raise questions about our ability to defend our national security interests.”</p>
<p>Yikes!</p>
<p>The warning may spur leaders in Congress into action. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy <a href="https://apnews.com/article/speaker-kevin-mccarty-debt-ceiling-biden-1dd542c6c7acfc2287e68e6facae2be4">fired the starting pistol on negotiations</a> over the debt ceiling in April, laying out the criteria under which Republicans would accept an increase. But McCarthy’s proposals – which have since passed <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/apr/26/us-house-debt-ceiling-bill-passed-kevin-mccarthy">a narrow vote in the House</a> – have been shot down by the Biden administration for <a href="https://theconversation.com/snap-work-requirements-dont-actually-get-more-people-working-but-they-do-drastically-limit-the-availability-of-food-aid-204257">having strings attached</a> that Democrats deemed unacceptable.</p>
<p>Explaining why the U.S. has a debt ceiling in the first place – and why it is a constant source of political wrangling – is a complicated matter. Here are five articles from The Conversation’s archive that provide some of the answers.</p>
<h2>1. What exactly is the debt ceiling?</h2>
<p>So, some basics. The debt ceiling was established by the U.S. Congress in 1917. It limits the total national debt by setting out a maximum amount that the government can borrow.</p>
<p>Steven Pressman, an <a href="https://ww4.newschool.edu/nssr/faculty/steven-pressman/">economist at The New School</a>, explained the original aim was “to let then-President Woodrow Wilson spend the money he deemed necessary to fight World War I without waiting for often-absent lawmakers to act. Congress, however, did not want to write the president a blank check, so it limited borrowing to US$11.5 billion and required legislation for any increase.”</p>
<p>Since then, the debt ceiling has <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-america-has-a-debt-ceiling-5-questions-answered-164977">been increased dozens of times</a>. It currently stands at $31.4 trillion – a figure already reached. As a result, the Treasury has taken “extraordinary measures” to enable it to keep borrowing without breaching the ceiling. Such measures, however, can only be temporary – meaning at one point Congress will have to act to lift the ceiling or default on its debt obligations, which <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/18/business/debt-limit-wall-street.html">is expected to happen in July</a> or August.</p>
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<em>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-america-has-a-debt-ceiling-5-questions-answered-164977">Why America has a debt ceiling: 5 questions answered</a>
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</em>
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<h2>2. ‘Catastrophic’ consequences</h2>
<p>How bad could it be if the U.S. does default on its debt obligations? Well, <a href="https://theconversation.com/if-the-us-defaults-on-debt-expect-the-dollar-to-fall-and-with-it-americans-standard-of-living-169079">pretty bad</a>, according to Michael Humphries, <a href="https://tci.touro.edu/academics/faculty/">deputy chair of business administration at Touro University</a>, who wrote two articles on the consequences. </p>
<p>“The knock-on effect of the U.S. defaulting would be catastrophic. Investors such as pension funds and banks holding U.S. debt could fail. Tens of millions of Americans and thousands of companies that depend on government support could suffer. The dollar’s value could collapse, and the U.S. economy would most likely sink back into recession,” he wrote.</p>
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<em>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/if-the-us-defaults-on-debt-expect-the-dollar-to-fall-and-with-it-americans-standard-of-living-169079">If the US defaults on debt, expect the dollar to fall – and with it, Americans' standard of living</a>
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<h2>3. Undermining the dollar</h2>
<p>And that’s not all. </p>
<p>Such a default could undermine the U.S. dollar’s position as a “unit of account,” which makes it a widely used currency in global finance and trade. Loss of this status would be a <a href="https://theconversation.com/us-debt-default-could-trigger-dollars-collapse-and-severely-erode-americas-political-and-economic-might-198395">severe economic and political blow</a> to the U.S. But Humphries conceded that putting a dollar value on the price of a default is hard: </p>
<p>“The truth is, we really don’t know what will happen or how bad it will get. The scale of the damage caused by a U.S. default is hard to calculate in advance because it has never happened before.”</p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/us-debt-default-could-trigger-dollars-collapse-and-severely-erode-americas-political-and-economic-might-198395">US debt default could trigger dollar’s collapse – and severely erode America’s political and economic might</a>
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<h2>4. Can McCarthy make a deal?</h2>
<p>Many of these concessions are known, such as allowing a single member of the House to call for a vote to remove him as speaker. But there many be others that remain secret and <a href="https://theconversation.com/house-speaker-mccarthys-powers-are-still-strong-but-hell-be-fighting-against-new-rules-that-could-prevent-anything-from-getting-done-197391">could be influencing McCarthy’s decision-making</a>, argued <a href="https://pennstatelaw.psu.edu/faculty/brand">Stanley M. Brand</a>, a law professor at Penn State and former general counsel for the House. These could make it much harder to reach a deal with Biden over the debt ceiling.</p>
<p>“Some of the new rules spawned by McCarthy’s concessions may appear to democratize the procedures for considering and passing legislation. But they are likely to make it difficult for members to get the working majority necessary to pass legislation,” Brand explained. “That could make things such as raising the statutory debt ceiling, which is necessary to avert a government shutdown and financial crisis, and passing legislation to fund the government, difficult.”</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/house-speaker-mccarthys-powers-are-still-strong-but-hell-be-fighting-against-new-rules-that-could-prevent-anything-from-getting-done-197391">House Speaker McCarthy's powers are still strong – but he'll be fighting against new rules that could prevent anything from getting done</a>
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<h2>5. The GOP endgame: A balanced budget</h2>
<p>Another condition McCarthy agreed to in January is to push for a “balanced budget” within 10 years.</p>
<p>The U.S. government hasn’t had a balanced budget since 2001, the year President Bill Clinton left office. <a href="https://www.hks.harvard.edu/faculty/linda-bilmes">Linda J. Bilmes</a>, a senior lecturer in public policy and public finance at Harvard Kennedy School who worked in the Clinton administration from 1997 to 2001, explained how they achieved that rare feat and <a href="https://theconversation.com/i-helped-balance-the-federal-budget-in-the-1990s-heres-just-how-hard-it-will-be-for-the-gop-to-achieve-that-same-rare-feat-198363">why it’s unlikely to be repeated today</a>. </p>
<p>“Back in 1997, after the smoke cleared, both the Clinton administration and the Republicans in Congress were able to claim some political credit for the resulting budget surpluses,” she wrote. “But – crucially – both parties recognized that a deal was in the best interest of the country and were able to line up their respective members to get the votes in Congress needed to approve it. The contrast with the current political landscape is stark.”</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/i-helped-balance-the-federal-budget-in-the-1990s-heres-just-how-hard-it-will-be-for-the-gop-to-achieve-that-same-rare-feat-198363">I helped balance the federal budget in the 1990s – here's just how hard it will be for the GOP to achieve that same rare feat</a>
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<p><em>Editor’s note: This story is a roundup of articles from The Conversation’s archives. Sections of this article appeared in a <a href="https://theconversation.com/speaker-mccarthy-lays-out-initial-cards-in-debt-ceiling-debate-5-essential-reads-on-why-its-a-high-stakes-game-204079">previous article</a> published on April 19, 2023.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/204863/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
If the US fails to increase its debt ceiling by June 1, it could be forced into an embarrassing – and hugely costly – default on its obligations.Matt Williams, Senior International EditorLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2041452023-04-20T13:40:33Z2023-04-20T13:40:33ZUS faces $31.4 trillion national debt crisis – and Republican divisions could make it harder to solve than ever<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/521929/original/file-20230419-24-e4x5wt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>US federal debt currently stands at a <a href="https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2023/03/politics/government-spending-explainer/">staggering US$31.4 trillion</a> (£25.2 trillion), the highest it’s ever been. That matters because it’s approaching the <a href="https://home.treasury.gov/policy-issues/financial-markets-financial-institutions-and-fiscal-service/debt-limit">maximum limit</a> that the government is legally allowed to borrow. </p>
<p>This is why Republican House speaker Kevin McCarthy recently <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/04/17/debt-ceiling-crisis-kevin-mccarthy/">delivered a speech</a> at the New York Stock Exchange where he outlined his plan to address the concerns over this “debt ceiling”. </p>
<p>This isn’t the first time the US has been on the verge of reaching the debt limit. It’s been raised many times before, often through a compromise between Democrats and Republicans. But on this occasion, divisions in the Republican party could make it harder than ever for lawmakers to agree how to proceed – risking a government shutdown or default. Plus the national debt is nearly twice what it was the last time there was a debt ceiling crisis in 2013.</p>
<p>Right now, the cost of buying insurance against a federal default has <a href="https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/stock-market-news-today-03-20-2023/card/cost-to-insure-ubs-debt-against-default-hits-decade-plus-high-after-credit-suisse-deal-LC2YTqrRGi8M616dgWWA">reached its biggest number in over a decade</a>. The US treasury is already deploying <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-could-default-as-soon-as-july-if-debt-ceiling-standoff-isnt-resolved-662b6807">creative accounting</a> to ensure that it can meet its fiscal obligations. </p>
<p>But that can only last for so long. By <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/us-debt-ceiling-deadline-july-september-cbo-rcna70673">roughly July this year</a>, according to the Congressional Budget Office, the federal government could run out of money — and Uncle Sam wouldn’t be able to pay his bills.</p>
<p>Doomsday scenarios have become ubiquitous. Treasury secretary Janet Yellen has <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/0ffc5460-09b8-4d0f-9f52-66337916cac4">warned</a> that failing to raise the debt ceiling would result in “catastrophe”. Mark Zandi, chief economist at US credit rating company Moody’s, has <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/07/economy/debt-default-warning-moodys/index.html%23:%7E:text=check%2520back%2520later.-,Debt%2520default%2520would%2520be%2520'catastrophic'%2520event%2520that%2520could%2520kill%2520millions,of%2520American%2520jobs,%2520Moody's%2520warns&text=A%2520breach%2520of%2520the%2520US,Moody's%2520Analytics%2520warned%2520on%2520Tuesday.">cautioned</a> that inaction poses an “immediate threat” and could trigger a 2008-esque financial crisis.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/oct/16/senate-leaders-strike-debt-ceiling-deal-shutdown">most recent showdown</a> over the debt ceiling in 2013 resulted in a government closure for over two weeks, with hundreds of thousands of federal employees unable to work.</p>
<h2>Who wins?</h2>
<p>Both political parties are weighing in with the solutions they want. With a 2024 election on the horizon, both sides seem to want to fight and neither will be quick to give ground. </p>
<p>Republicans view the debt ceiling debate as an opportunity to strong-arm Democrats into <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2023/01/19/what-the-debt-ceiling-could-mean-for-social-security-medicare.html">rolling back spending</a>, which some say could endanger <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/02/11/1156132516/republicans-say-they-wont-cut-social-security-so-why-does-it-keep-coming-up">Medicare and social security</a>. Meanwhile, Democrats simply want to raise the debt ceiling, with a loose promise to revisit spending cuts later.</p>
<p>Republicans perceive this as a chance to paint Democrats as engaged in perennial reckless spending. A “deficits-don’t-matter” mentality <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-voters-want-limited-government-republican-democratic-party-policy-working-class-voters-economic-guns-abortion-mitt-romney-barack-obama-2dce4e5e">won’t play in a general election</a>, they’re betting. Democrats, by contrast, see an opening to assail Republicans as risking the stability and trust of the federal government. That fits into their larger criticism that “blow-up-the system” populists have <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/pelosi-says-gop-hijacked-by-cult-capitol-riot-2021-9">highjacked the conservative movement</a>.</p>
<h2>Who’s running the show?</h2>
<p>In the debt-ceiling debate, Democrat House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/01/27/1151537063/hakeem-jeffries-democrats-house-debt-ceiling">insists</a> that his colleagues are “not going to pay a ransom note to extremists in the other party”. Any lift to the debt ceiling would need to pass both the Republican-controlled House and the Democrat-controlled Senate. That makes compromise inevitable. </p>
<p>Yet the big question is what Republicans will accept. The answer will depend on who’s running the show: McCarthy or a band of Trump-supporting rebels determined to drain “<a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2017/10/19/trump-drain-swamp-promises-243924">the Washington swamp</a>” of supposedly profligate officials and lobbyists.</p>
<p>McCarthy <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/kevin-mccarthy-debt-ceiling-negotiations-house-republicans-biden-democrats-default-congress-spending-84c2a5ce">wants</a> to reduce spending down to the same amount as in 2022, then curtail the growth in domestic spending at 1% per year over the next decade. </p>
<p>Yet McCarthy will be negotiating as much with the <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/chip-roy-pivotal-in-house-speaker-talks-braces-for-fight-on-debt-ceiling-d8675955">right flank of his party</a> as with Democrats. He’s not in an enviable position. </p>
<p><strong>US federal debt: 1900 to 2050 (projected)</strong></p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A graph showing national debt in the US." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/522114/original/file-20230420-14-yrfinj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/522114/original/file-20230420-14-yrfinj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=386&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522114/original/file-20230420-14-yrfinj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=386&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522114/original/file-20230420-14-yrfinj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=386&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522114/original/file-20230420-14-yrfinj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=485&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522114/original/file-20230420-14-yrfinj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=485&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522114/original/file-20230420-14-yrfinj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=485&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="attribution"><span class="source">https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=94328027</span></span>
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<p>Fiscal hawks want big cuts to discretionary outlays. Even <a href="https://thehill.com/opinion/national-security/3872431-debt-ceiling-brinksmanship-weakens-us-national-security/">defense expenditures</a> could be on the chopping block. That places McCarthy in a tough spot as he tries to reassure more mainstream Republicans that America’s commitment to Ukraine isn’t waning. </p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/debt-ceiling-impasse-fed-rate-hikes-are-already-forcing-us-to-spend-record-amounts-on-interest-payments-and-its-going-to-keep-getting-worse-198280">Debt ceiling impasse: Fed rate hikes are already forcing US to spend record amounts on interest payments – and it’s going to keep getting worse</a>
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<p>In the coming weeks and months, we can expect lots of back-door wrangling among Republicans before McCarthy even gets to the bargaining table with Democrats. Hardliners have leverage precisely because the GOP majority in the House is so razor-thin. </p>
<p>McCarthy has already been <a href="https://theconversation.com/house-speaker-election-fight-over-kevin-mccarthys-leadership-has-exposed-limits-of-trumps-power-197322">sapped of much of his power</a> because of all the concessions he had to make just to get the speakership. The concern is that some of his Republican counterparts will bind his hand so much that compromising across the aisle will be impossible.</p>
<p>Republicans have a point that Washington keeps kicking the can down the road on the debt. At the same time, they’ve also been <a href="https://www.rollcall.com/2021/04/19/republicans-lack-credibility-on-deficit/">guilty of fattening the deficit</a> when they’ve controlled both Congress and the White House. </p>
<p>Democrats are right that risking default could be calamitous. Yet the Biden administration has also hastened the budget crunch by pushing through huge spending initiatives, including the <a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/restoring-america/faith-freedom-self-reliance/house-republicans-unspent-pandemic-funds">US$1.9 trillion COVID-19 rescue bill</a>.</p>
<p>In light of the risks, it’s likely that the two parties will ultimately meet in the middle before default. But given the hyper-polarised climate in Washington, that’s not a foregone conclusion. And even if an agreement is reached, it’s likely to be pushed back to the eleventh hour. McCarthy thought that the <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-64193932">15 rounds it took him</a> to secure the speaker’s gavel was tough. Getting to “yes” on the debt ceiling might make that look like a cakewalk.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/204145/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Thomas Gift does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Republicans and Democrats may find it harder than ever to reach an agreement on how to tackle the enormous national debt before July.Thomas Gift, Associate Professor and Director of the Centre on US Politics, UCLLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2040792023-04-19T12:45:41Z2023-04-19T12:45:41ZSpeaker McCarthy lays out initial cards in debt ceiling debate: 5 essential reads on why it’s a high-stakes game<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/521699/original/file-20230418-26-iftz44.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=16%2C5%2C3673%2C2458&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Speaker Kevin McCarthy said the House would vote on a debt ceiling bill 'within weeks.'</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/c33e956e6b474714aaf9a87409ddb852?ext=true">AP Photo/Seth Wenig</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has <a href="https://apnews.com/article/speaker-kevin-mccarty-debt-ceiling-biden-1dd542c6c7acfc2287e68e6facae2be4">laid out an opening gambit</a> in what is likely to be a lengthy battle over the debt ceiling, suggesting that Republicans are open to a deal – but at a very high price.</p>
<p>On April 17, 2023, McCarthy <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/17/us/politics/mccarthy-debt-ceiling-increase.html">told a gathering</a> at the New York Stock Exchange that the Republican-controlled House would vote “in the coming weeks” on a bill to “lift the debt ceiling into the next year.” The catch? The Democrats would have to agree to freeze spending at 2022 levels and roll back regulations, among other conditions.</p>
<p>It is unlikely that such a bargain would get through the Democratic-controlled Senate or get the signature of President Joe Biden. As such, McCarthy’s comments might best be viewed as an early salvo in what could be protracted negotiations to avert a debt ceiling crisis.</p>
<p>Explaining why the U.S. has a debt ceiling in the first place – and why it is a constant source of political wrangling – is a complicated matter. Here are five articles from The Conversation’s archive that provide some of the answers.</p>
<h2>1. What exactly is the debt ceiling?</h2>
<p>So, some basics. The debt ceiling was established by the U.S. Congress in 1917. It limits the total national debt by setting out a maximum amount that the government can borrow.</p>
<p>Steven Pressman, an <a href="https://ww4.newschool.edu/nssr/faculty/steven-pressman/">economist at The New School</a>, explained the original aim was “to let then-President Woodrow Wilson spend the money he deemed necessary to fight World War I without waiting for often-absent lawmakers to act. Congress, however, did not want to write the president a blank check, so it limited borrowing to $11.5 billion and required legislation for any increase.”</p>
<p>Since then, the debt ceiling has <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-america-has-a-debt-ceiling-5-questions-answered-164977">been increased dozens of times</a>. It currently stands at US$31.4 trillion – a figure already reached. As a result, the Treasury has taken “extraordinary measures” to enable it to keep borrowing without breaching the ceiling. Such measures, however, can only be temporary – meaning at one point Congress will have to act to lift the ceiling or default on its debt obligations, which <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/18/business/debt-limit-wall-street.html">is expected to happen in July</a> or August.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-america-has-a-debt-ceiling-5-questions-answered-164977">Why America has a debt ceiling: 5 questions answered</a>
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<h2>2. ‘Catastrophic’ consequences</h2>
<p>How bad could it be if the U.S. does default on its debt obligations? Well, <a href="https://theconversation.com/if-the-us-defaults-on-debt-expect-the-dollar-to-fall-and-with-it-americans-standard-of-living-169079">pretty bad</a>, according to Michael Humphries, <a href="https://tci.touro.edu/academics/faculty/">deputy chair of business administration at Touro University</a>, who wrote two articles on the consequences. </p>
<p>“The knock-on effect of the U.S. defaulting would be catastrophic. Investors such as pension funds and banks holding U.S. debt could fail. Tens of millions of Americans and thousands of companies that depend on government support could suffer. The dollar’s value could collapse, and the U.S. economy would most likely sink back into recession,” he wrote.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/if-the-us-defaults-on-debt-expect-the-dollar-to-fall-and-with-it-americans-standard-of-living-169079">If the US defaults on debt, expect the dollar to fall – and with it, Americans' standard of living</a>
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<h2>3. Undermining the dollar</h2>
<p>And that’s not all. </p>
<p>Such a default could undermine the U.S. dollar’s position as a “unit of account,” which makes it a widely used currency in global finance and trade. Loss of this status would be a <a href="https://theconversation.com/us-debt-default-could-trigger-dollars-collapse-and-severely-erode-americas-political-and-economic-might-198395">severe economic and political blow</a> to the U.S. But Humphries conceded that putting a dollar value on the price of a default is hard: </p>
<p>“The truth is, we really don’t know what will happen or how bad it will get. The scale of the damage caused by a U.S. default is hard to calculate in advance because it has never happened before.”</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/us-debt-default-could-trigger-dollars-collapse-and-severely-erode-americas-political-and-economic-might-198395">US debt default could trigger dollar’s collapse – and severely erode America’s political and economic might</a>
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<h2>4. Can McCarthy make a deal?</h2>
<p>Many of these concessions are known, such as allowing a single member of the House to call for a vote to remove him as speaker. But there many be others that remain secret and <a href="https://theconversation.com/house-speaker-mccarthys-powers-are-still-strong-but-hell-be-fighting-against-new-rules-that-could-prevent-anything-from-getting-done-197391">could be influencing McCarthy’s decision-making</a>, argued <a href="https://pennstatelaw.psu.edu/faculty/brand">Stanley M. Brand</a>, a law professor at Penn State and former general counsel for the House. These could make it much harder to reach a deal with Biden over the debt ceiling.</p>
<p>“Some of the new rules spawned by McCarthy’s concessions may appear to democratize the procedures for considering and passing legislation. But they are likely to make it difficult for members to get the working majority necessary to pass legislation,” Brand explained. “That could make things such as raising the statutory debt ceiling, which is necessary to avert a government shutdown and financial crisis, and passing legislation to fund the government, difficult.”</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/house-speaker-mccarthys-powers-are-still-strong-but-hell-be-fighting-against-new-rules-that-could-prevent-anything-from-getting-done-197391">House Speaker McCarthy's powers are still strong – but he'll be fighting against new rules that could prevent anything from getting done</a>
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<h2>5. The GOP endgame: A balanced budget</h2>
<p>Another condition McCarthy agreed to in January is to push for a “balanced budget” within 10 years. His most recent speech on the debt ceiling made no mention of this, but it’s likely hardliners within his party will continue to demand it – putting his ability to negotiate a compromise in jeopardy. </p>
<p>The U.S. government hasn’t had a balanced budget since 2001, the year President Bill Clinton left office. <a href="https://www.hks.harvard.edu/faculty/linda-bilmes">Linda J. Bilmes</a>, a senior lecturer in public policy and public finance at Harvard Kennedy School who worked in the Clinton administration from 1997 to 2001, explained how they achieved that rare feat and <a href="https://theconversation.com/i-helped-balance-the-federal-budget-in-the-1990s-heres-just-how-hard-it-will-be-for-the-gop-to-achieve-that-same-rare-feat-198363">why it’s unlikely to be repeated today</a>. </p>
<p>“Back in 1997, after the smoke cleared, both the Clinton administration and the Republicans in Congress were able to claim some political credit for the resulting budget surpluses,” she wrote. “But – crucially – both parties recognized that a deal was in the best interest of the country and were able to line up their respective members to get the votes in Congress needed to approve it. The contrast with the current political landscape is stark.”</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/i-helped-balance-the-federal-budget-in-the-1990s-heres-just-how-hard-it-will-be-for-the-gop-to-achieve-that-same-rare-feat-198363">I helped balance the federal budget in the 1990s – here's just how hard it will be for the GOP to achieve that same rare feat</a>
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<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/204079/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy agreed to raise the debt ceiling – and avoid an unprecedented US default – but only if Democrats agree to freeze spending and agree to several other demands.Bryan Keogh, Managing EditorMatt Williams, Senior International EditorLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.