GOP learns the hard way: Turning the base up too high blows out your Speaker

Lee Drutman wrote about Republicans' inability to elect a House Speaker in Undercurrent Events.

Lots is being written about the blow-by-blow of Republicans' inability to choose a House Speaker. Since this newsletter looks under current events at the broad undercurrents that brought us here, I’m taking a step back to think about the institutions and history that brought Kevin McCarthy and Republicans to this mess. I have three big thoughts here.

Thought #1 — The two-party system limits the potential for governing coalitions

When I explain the differences between two-party and multi-party systems, I often describe them in terms of when governing coalitions form. In two-party systems, governing coalitions form before the election. In multi-party systems, governing coalitions form after the election. That is, in the two-party system, Democrats and Republicans are both broad coalitions. Voters’ expectation is that if Democrats win the majority, Democrats will govern. If Republicans win the majority, Republicans will govern. By contrast, in a multi-party system, it is extremely rare for a single party to get a majority of seats in a legislature. Rather, parties have to form majority coalitions after the election, with the plurality party getting the first shot at leading the coalition. The long-standing argument for a two-party system is that voters know what kind of government they are voting for because they know what kind of coalition will govern if their preferred party wins. They also can hold the party in charge accountable.

Of course, this theory assumes a unified government and unified parties. Divided government, however, has been the norm in the United States for more than a half century. And US political parties are not very unified, as the current conflict between McCarthy and a faction of his own party makes clear. If the US elected a multi-party Congress, no party would have a majority of seats. Instead, party leaders would need to work out a governing agreement. That governing agreement would almost certainly have to include a broad political center. A far-right or far-left faction would have very little leverage, because a potential House speaker would have different possible coalitions to choose from. This is how it works in mult-iparty legislatures around the world.

By contrast, here in the US, Kevin McCarthy — or any Republican Speaker — has only one coalition to choose from. It involves winning 218 of 222 Republican votes. That limits his options tremendously and gives leverage to the far-right faction. McCarthy has no potential support outside his coalition. That is why he already had to concede so much to them.

Still… for those who would argue that the two-party system makes governing coalition formation clear, I give you… current events.

I also give you the reality of divided government. By selecting a Democratic Senate, a Democratic president, and a Republican House, all by narrow margins, and overwhelmingly re-electing incumbents, voters made nothing clear. And whatever the US government does over the next two years, it will be unclear who to hold accountable. The US governing system is not designed to deliver clear mandates for one party to govern. It is designed to make governing broad-based, which doesn’t work at all under our current narrowly hyper-polarized system.