The Real House Leadership Crisis
The big news of the past few weeks is the House Republicans’ revolt against John Boehner, who is being forced out as Speaker of the House, setting off an odd scramble over who can avoid taking his place. (The latest person to not want to be Speaker is Paul Ryan.) On social media, the running joke is to compare Speaker of the House to other jobs nobody seems to be able to hold: number two man in al-Qaeda, Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher at Hogwarts, drummer for Spinal Tap.
The leadership battle is driven by a sense of inchoate frustration at the House leadership’s inability to achieve much of the right’s agenda, despite being given majorities in both houses of Congress. That’s why one of the chief demand of the Freedom Caucus—a subset of more radical House Republicans—is a program of procedural reforms that would decentralize power and give individual members a greater ability to shape legislation.
Read the article “The Real House Leadership Crisis” on thefederalist.com.