Disorder in the House
By Sean Evans, Chair and Professor of Political Science
Oct 20, 2023 -
Former House Speaker Sam Rayburn used to say, “To get along, you have to go along.” Today, the most conservative House Republicans can’t get along with their Republican colleagues. Their disruptive behavior makes the House dysfunctional as seen in their ousting Kevin McCarthy as Speaker and the party’s inability to find a consensus replacement candidate.
This dysfunction is a result of weak parties and strong partisanship. When polarization is high, policy differences are so great that major bills pass on party-line votes. Yet, party leaders have lost the ability to reward and punish members to maintain party unity. Moreover, small majorities like the GOP’s five-vote advantage mean that a small, cohesive group can threaten to defect to extract concessions to maintain its support.
Since members of the far-right House Freedom Caucus have differing views on strategy, tactics, and governing philosophy from most other Republicans, they are using aggressive and ruthless tactics to advance their ideological interests at the party’s expense. These tactics include using the motion to vacate the Speakership to oust McCarthy, bullying Republicans to elect their Speaker candidate after refusing to support the party nominee, and opposing bills unless everyone adopts their ideological positions.
Congress has always had independent-minded members. The difference today is that there are more members more loyal to ideology than party and disdainful of the legislative norms necessary to run the institution. Historically, these types of members either lost reelection due to their ineffectiveness and difficulty raising money, learned to play by the rules of the game, or were punished with poor committee assignments. Now, there is a caucus, media environment, campaign finance system, and party culture that rewards rebellious behavior.
Republicans started to elect candidates with no political experience in the 1990s who copied Newt Gingrich’s aggressive strategies and directed them at party leaders. These members were eventually replaced with Tea Party members and Trump populists who hate the “establishment” as much as Democrats. These members founded the House Freedom Caucus in 2015 to push the Republican leadership further to the right. Consequently, Speakers Paul Ryan and Kevin McCarthy sought to coopt these members by including them in leadership strategy and policy meetings and rewarding them with better committee assignments.
The rise of the conservative media also gives Freedom Caucus members a megaphone to advance their positions and find new donors. Their extreme conservativism means they can’t pass laws, so they say outrageous things to raise their profile and get more media interviews and social media followers. While these members attack Democrats, they also attack fellow Republicans, especially during divided government. Divided government requires compromises with the other party which means less conservative policy. They then attack the leadership and other Republicans as Republicans in Name Only (RINO) for selling out conservatives. The conservative media amplifies these attacks which infuriates activists who pressure more Republicans to oppose compromises and help the extremists raise money.
Since these members traditionally struggled with fundraising, party leaders used fundraising help to make rebellious members more cooperative. However, campaign finance reform limited party fundraising and empowered ideological groups and donors. For example, in 2022, far-right Congressman Jim Jordan (R-OH), who has appeared on Fox News more than any other member, raised $14 million with 10% of his funds from explicit ideological sources and 85% of his money from out-of-state donors who usually give for ideological purposes. In contrast, West Tennessee’s David Kustoff raised $1.9 million with less than 1% from ideological sources and 85% of his money from in-state sources who are more focused on local needs.
Finally, since the GOP is a vehicle for conservative ideology, Republican supporters generally prefer Republicans to defend conservative principles and oppose compromising with Democrats. This focus on ideological purity means that Republican activists see any compromise as betrayal and lead conservatives to launch primary challenges to moderates and pragmatists for not being ideologically pure enough. The threat of a conservative challenge leads many Republicans to oppose compromises to keep their seat.
Unfortunately, these factors will not change anytime soon. The members of the GOP’s “chaos caucus” represent safe seats and are rewarded for their uncompromising attitude while moderates would pay a price for working with Democrats. Consequently, the House GOP will remain ungovernable until the GOP majority becomes larger and/or the Freedom Caucus becomes smaller.