TPM Reader PK wonders if we’ve reached effective multi-party government on Capitol Hill …
I think more attention should be given to the repeated and consistent claim made by members of the “Freedom Caucus” that they can’t make a deal with Ryan unless 80% of their membership (of 40-odd) agree to it. I haven’t been counting, but it seems to me that at least nine of them have already indicated that they won’t agree to Ryan’s terms, which means that the Ryan speakership is already dead in the water, no?
Taking this seriously, if any nine members of the Freedom Caucus are determined not to make any deal with the Republican establishment, then they can block the Freedom Caucus from supporting a Republican speaker (other than Webster), which would in turn block the Republican majority from governing – as long as they proceed under the rule they have imposed on themselves, namely, to pretend that the Freedom Caucus members are Republicans and to resolve to elect a speaker with their support but not with the support of any Democrats.
A much more correct way to look at this is to conclude that we now have a multiparty legislature, like Israel or most European countries. The Freedom Caucus consider that their 80% unity oath takes precedence over any allegiance they might once have had to the Republican Party. The Republicans ought to take this seriously. They ought to declare that they won’t admit any group to the Republican Caucus who have constituted themselves in fact to be a small independently organized party, not responsible in any way to the discipline of the Republican Caucus but only to their own internal discipline. The Republicans could then decide to deal either with the Democrats or the Freedom Republicans depending on which would give them the best terms. Everything would be out in the open. At least this is what they would do if they actually cared about averting a shutdown, default, suspension of the operations of the House, etc.
By the way, the Democrats might want to think for a second about the following point: what center/right Democrat, or moderate Republican, could be a credible unity candidate for Speaker if the Republican and Democratic establishments decide to do a deal?
I think the next few days will show which of the Republicans in the House care about running the government, while hoping to convince their base that they are real bomb-throwing Tea Partiers, and which of them are happy to shut down the government and the economy, although they hope to convince their big-business backers that they are respectable conservatives who have been taken hostage by the ultra-right completely against their will.
