The House is in disarray after Rep. Steve Scalise dropped his bid to become speaker Thursday, lacking enough support. And the potential candidates for the position seem to shift and change by the hour.
In the meantime, Congress has been frozen for nine days.
Jack Pitney, a local political analyst, says this is not a constitutional crisis. He tells KNX News’ Rob Archer and Karen Adams there is a short term fix to this chaos: the House could appoint Rep. Patrick McHenry, who is currently serving as speaker pro tem.
“That would solve the problem for the short term in terms of organizing the house, moving legislation, and so on,” he says. “But eventually they have to elect the real speaker, and that’s the hard part.”
A long term fix could happen in one of two ways.
There could be a candidate who gets support from the entire Republican conference, including those who’ve come out against Rep. Kevin McCarthy and Scalise. The other way includes an agreement with Democrats, Pitney says.
Democrats might support a Republican candidate for speaker in return for some sort of favor. But Pitney says this would be difficult because there are members of the Republican conference who wouldn’t support an agreement like this.
“The House is in really a position we haven’t seen in our lifetimes and it’s impossible to know for sure how it’s going to play out,” Pitney says.
As the Republicans face difficulty to unite around a candidate, some support the idea of giving McHenry more power in his temporary role.
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