House Speaker Kevin McCarthy pulled the trigger on an impeachment inquiry yesterday — and may have ended up hitting himself with the bullet.
McCarthy eschewed the traditional approach of holding a full House vote on the impeachment inquiry issue and simply declared the inquiry into existence. He designated three committees — Oversight, Judiciary, and Ways and Means — to conduct the inquiry.
In the impeachment inquiry of President Clinton and the first impeachment inquiry into Donald Trump, a vote by the full House triggered the investigation. However, the second Trump impeachment saw Democrats unilaterally declaring the inquiry open.
The reason McCarthy didn’t want to hold a full House vote is that it was by no means assured that he would get a majority. Republicans from districts that Biden won in 2020 are a little gun shy about impeachment without more evidence.
The reality is the impeachment issue has bled into the government shutdown issue. And McCarthy now finds himself between a rock and a hard place. He has at least a dozen members of the Freedom Caucus gunning for him, itching to hold a vote to “vacate the chair” and hold another election for Speaker of the House.
The issue they plan to hang him on is whether McCarthy will go to the mattresses on spending limits the Freedom Caucus is proposing.
“I rise today to serve notice, Mr. Speaker, that you are out of compliance with the agreement that allowed you to assume this role,” Rep.Matt Gaetz, one of McCarthy’s most vocal critics, said. “The path forward for the House of Representatives is to either bring you into total, immediate compliance or remove you.”
Gaetz referred to McCarthy’s talk of impeachment as “baby steps” and pledged to force a vote to remove McCarthy if he tried to get a short-term continuing resolution to pass.
“If Kevin McCarthy puts a continuing resolution on the floor, it is going to be shot, chaser, continuing resolution, motion to vacate,” Mr. Gaetz said.
His broadside illustrated the precarious position Mr. McCarthy finds himself in as he seeks to placate his far right while finding some spending accommodation with the Democratic-controlled Senate and the White House that avoids a politically dangerous shutdown. The Senate was set on Tuesday to begin working its way through a series of bipartisan spending bills, but with time running short before government funding is exhausted on Sept. 30, House Republicans have managed to pass only one — on a party-line vote — and are in deep turmoil over how to proceed in meeting the basic obligations of the government.
It won’t take much for McCarthy to find himself kicked out of the Speaker’s office. The 15 ballots to elect him demonstrate his precarious position and how much his speakership sits on a knife’s edge.
The Freedom Caucus made three demands of McCarthy to include in the short-term funding bill that he can’t possibly meet.
Specifically, the conservative House Freedom Caucus wants any potential continuing resolution to include a border security bill that was passed in the House in May with only Republican support, steps to address what they call the weaponization of the Justice Department and FBI and an end to “woke” policies at the Pentagon.
Senate Democrats will never pass a GOP border bill or rein in the Justice Department. The Freedom Caucus knows this. They want a government shutdown. And it looks like they’re going to get it.
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As for McCarthy, he’s almost certainly toast. Who would replace him? Rep. Steve Scalise, the majority leader, is the obvious choice. But nothing is certain or assumed on the Hill during the drama about to take place.
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