Go away, John Boehner
On October 14th, 2013, I used the pulpit afforded by Facebook to shout in frustration:
I strongly believed what I said then, and I strongly believe it now. (Though these days I might say "brinkmanship" instead of "brinksmanship". I might also do a better job of phrasing if I were planning for it to show up in the more august medium of The Blog.)
Part of the problem with the House of Representatives today is that John Boehner has very dutifully adhered to the "Hastert Rule" during his Speakership, except in times of desperation. For those who are unfamiliar with the Hastert Rule, and who don't like links, Dennis Hastert was the Speaker of the House from 1999 to 2007, and I didn't like him either. His rule states that a bill shall not be brought to the floor for a vote if it would not be supported by a majority of the representatives from the majority party, except in truly extraordinary circumstances. The rule wasn't derived from any existing House customs or rules, but it was a major part of Hastert's governing philosophy.
The majority party in the House is able to wield more power than would be implied by the raw number of seats they won; this is generally how republics work. Elections have consequences, and I don't have a problem with it as long as the majority party does not abuse its advantage. It is the Speaker's prerogative to generally control the flow of proposed legislation; however, strict adherence to the Hastert Rule constitutes abuse of power if it prevents or significantly delays the passage of important legislation. There were several instances where John Boehner's unwillingness to break the rule resulted in damage to the institution of the House of Representatives and to the government in general. In October 2013, when I made my frustrated Facebook post, the government was shut down for 16 days and the United States nearly defaulted on its debt obligations due to the exceedingly stupid behavior of many legislators, headlined by Mr. Boehner.
The link I provided on the Hastert Rule lists the six times that Speaker Boehner violated the rule thus far. It shows that Boehner is not a completely inflexible robot. In fact, Nancy Pelosi only violated the rule seven times in her four years as Speaker. But here's the difference: Boehner's fractured caucus has handcuffed him and made it much more difficult to stick to the Hastert Rule in the best of circumstances; if he were to actually work on bills that had a chance of passing through the Senate and obtaining the President's signature, the number of Hastert Rule violations would skyrocket. The fact that the number of violations is so low reflects how little the House has been able to accomplish in the past four years. A huge proportion of needed legislation of low/medium priority is shelved, while a despairing amount of high priority legislation is dealt with only after we've entered a crisis, caused by a refusal to compromise. Sometimes the crises aren't even resolved in time. Our sovereign debt rating has been downgraded; our government budget has been slashed in a uniform, efficiency-destroying "sequester"; we suffered that government shutdown I mentioned earlier. All of it has the imprimatur of John Boehner--not because he wanted these things to happen, but because he was unable or unwilling to face down with the Republican caucus and pass bipartisan solutions timelily.
If John Boehner truly respects the institutions that he's part of, he needs to be willing to resign his Speakership. This week's minor crisis to fund the Department of Homeland Security underscores the point that has been made over and over again to the point of absurdity: Speaker Boehner is an ineffective leader. If Boehner will try to continue to limp along, we need a coalition of Republicans and Democrats to elect a new speaker; one who's willing to deal with the unprecedentedly undisciplined Republican caucus by violating the Hastert Rule just a little more often. This won't solve the numerous problems in our government, but it sure would be a useful step.
I don't like making broad, unequivocal statements about serious business using big words. That being said, that's apparently my thing. That also being said, John Boehner has enabled and abetted an extraordinarily harmful and stupid run of pandering, demagoguery, and brinksmanship, and he should be removed from the office of Speaker of the House forthwith. I don't understand how someone who held such esteem for his own office could allow this. Big decisions are hard, especially in circumstances like these, but there are limits to how much can be tolerated. I do not respect this man.
I strongly believed what I said then, and I strongly believe it now. (Though these days I might say "brinkmanship" instead of "brinksmanship". I might also do a better job of phrasing if I were planning for it to show up in the more august medium of The Blog.)
Part of the problem with the House of Representatives today is that John Boehner has very dutifully adhered to the "Hastert Rule" during his Speakership, except in times of desperation. For those who are unfamiliar with the Hastert Rule, and who don't like links, Dennis Hastert was the Speaker of the House from 1999 to 2007, and I didn't like him either. His rule states that a bill shall not be brought to the floor for a vote if it would not be supported by a majority of the representatives from the majority party, except in truly extraordinary circumstances. The rule wasn't derived from any existing House customs or rules, but it was a major part of Hastert's governing philosophy.
The majority party in the House is able to wield more power than would be implied by the raw number of seats they won; this is generally how republics work. Elections have consequences, and I don't have a problem with it as long as the majority party does not abuse its advantage. It is the Speaker's prerogative to generally control the flow of proposed legislation; however, strict adherence to the Hastert Rule constitutes abuse of power if it prevents or significantly delays the passage of important legislation. There were several instances where John Boehner's unwillingness to break the rule resulted in damage to the institution of the House of Representatives and to the government in general. In October 2013, when I made my frustrated Facebook post, the government was shut down for 16 days and the United States nearly defaulted on its debt obligations due to the exceedingly stupid behavior of many legislators, headlined by Mr. Boehner.
The link I provided on the Hastert Rule lists the six times that Speaker Boehner violated the rule thus far. It shows that Boehner is not a completely inflexible robot. In fact, Nancy Pelosi only violated the rule seven times in her four years as Speaker. But here's the difference: Boehner's fractured caucus has handcuffed him and made it much more difficult to stick to the Hastert Rule in the best of circumstances; if he were to actually work on bills that had a chance of passing through the Senate and obtaining the President's signature, the number of Hastert Rule violations would skyrocket. The fact that the number of violations is so low reflects how little the House has been able to accomplish in the past four years. A huge proportion of needed legislation of low/medium priority is shelved, while a despairing amount of high priority legislation is dealt with only after we've entered a crisis, caused by a refusal to compromise. Sometimes the crises aren't even resolved in time. Our sovereign debt rating has been downgraded; our government budget has been slashed in a uniform, efficiency-destroying "sequester"; we suffered that government shutdown I mentioned earlier. All of it has the imprimatur of John Boehner--not because he wanted these things to happen, but because he was unable or unwilling to face down with the Republican caucus and pass bipartisan solutions timelily.
If John Boehner truly respects the institutions that he's part of, he needs to be willing to resign his Speakership. This week's minor crisis to fund the Department of Homeland Security underscores the point that has been made over and over again to the point of absurdity: Speaker Boehner is an ineffective leader. If Boehner will try to continue to limp along, we need a coalition of Republicans and Democrats to elect a new speaker; one who's willing to deal with the unprecedentedly undisciplined Republican caucus by violating the Hastert Rule just a little more often. This won't solve the numerous problems in our government, but it sure would be a useful step.
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