Bring It On

Last night, Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R–Calif.) was ousted as speaker of the House by a coalition comprised of Democrats and a faction of far-right Republicans, led by Rep. Matt Gaetz (R–Fl.), breaking with their party. In other words, this—tweeted in response to Gaetz's threats—didn't age well:

The final vote was 216-210, and the House floor was a chaotic mess for much of yesterday, plagued by Republican-on-Republican fighting. Now, the chamber is technically leaderless, and any election to replace McCarthy—who served as speaker for only 269 days, the shortest term in 140 years, and was the first in history to be involuntarily removed—will probably waste valuable time that could be spent legislating. The stopgap measure that was just passed this past weekend to avoid a government shutdown is only good until mid-November, at which point longer-term spending bills will need to be passed to keep the government funded (ugh) in fiscal year 2024.

On one level, the fact that this Gaetz-led faction is animated about reining in government spending is actually heartening. On another, it's unclear what good, exactly, will come from this. "In many ways, this is a referendum on whether the House is going to try regular order or not, because the next speaker…is not going to say 'oh, if only we had tried more regular order, this could have worked out,'" Rep. Thomas Massie (R–Ky.) told Reason's Eric Boehm. "The next speaker is going to go back to the Old Testament…and we're going to devolve to the former method, which was an omnibus bill every year and gang warfare to try and get your thing in the omnibus bill." 

Regular order, in Boehm's words, "means that Congress should bring each of its 12 annual spending bills to the floor via the process that everyone learns in civics class: with committees voting on what to include in each, then amendments, and debate on the House floor before a final vote." Congress hasn't successfully done this on time in my lifetime (literally), but McCarthy agreed to return to that system, under pressure from the House Freedom Caucus.

"Regular order is not only a process, it is also a state of mind," wrote NPR's Ron Elving back in 2017. "It implies not only procedures but also a presumption of at least some degree of bipartisanship."

On the other hand, popular consensus is that McCarthy was a weak and ineffective leader. If his own party finds the compromises he brokered to be intolerable, and has greater ambitions to cut wasteful or excessive government programs, maybe it's fair to get him the heck out of dodge.

Meanwhile, the infighting will live on to see another day:

McCarthy said late Tuesday that he wouldn't run for speaker again. As of now, the post is vacant, and it's unclear who may seek to fill it. Rep. Patrick T. McHenry (R–N.C.) will preside over the next speaker election. Some names have come up as possible contenders: Oklahoma's Tom Cole, Louisiana's Steve Scalise, and Minnesota's Tom Emmer, as well as McHenry. Since the speaker does not need to be a member of the body, some members of Congress have proposed the maximally chaotic option: appointing Donald Trump to the position.

Are we becoming France? Or Finland? (I can't imagine a worse fate.)

More than 75,000 health care workers are planning to walk off the job after negotiations with Kaiser Permanente failed to achieve the gains they had hoped for. This will be the largest strike of health care workers in U.S. history. (For those keeping track: actors are still striking, Hollywood writers just finished, autoworkers are still going, pharmacists in Kansas City just won't come to work, and Las Vegas hospitality workers have had enough.)

An observation: Lots of publications will mention a laundry list of things picketers are demanding, with "higher wages" thrown in there almost as an afterthought, and very little detail about how high workers want those wages to go. But I doubt wages are an afterthought, I bet they're the crux of most negotiations—whether or not those striking care to admit it—and journalists reporting on union activity should be very clear about facts and figures.

In keeping with that: The unionized Kaiser employees are looking for a four-year contract with pay hikes of 7 percent during the first two years and 6.25 percent in subsequent years, with bonuses (of up to 3 percent of their wages) each year.

Don't get incensed! Today, the October Synod commences. Bishops from around the world will meet in the Vatican, where Pope Francis will allow discussion of contentious issues within the Roman Catholic Church, including celibacy and marriage for priests, whether female deacons ought to be permitted, the blessing of gay couples, and whether divorced people should receive the sacraments. 

For the first time ever, 70 lay people—including women—will cast votes on the direction of the Church alongside the bishops. The New York Times calls this "a concrete shift toward the democratization of the church, a central tenet of the Francis papacy that views the abuse of power in an aloof hierarchy as the cause of many of the church's problems."

Scenes from New York: 

QUICK HITS

• I'm just grateful I don't have that tattoo! 

• I recommend this episode of Blocked and Reported: "An introduction to cripplepunk, which is totally different from and exactly the same as every other online social justice community."

• Really good thread on restaurant economics and the tips-as-wages system.

• A quick history of the way going to war with Mexican cartels evolved from a Donald Trump pipedream to standard debate-stage fare.

• This is actually adorable:

• Reason's Stephanie Slade went on Ezra Klein's show (which David French hosted) to talk about the "new right."

• Per Axios: "Hunter Biden pleaded not guilty Tuesday in a federal court in Wilmington, Delaware to three counts related to his alleged illegal possession of a firearm."

• How productive are employees who work from home? Really productive, actually, and even more firms and workers are gravitating toward WFH or hybrid-work permanence: "Despite a rocky start, work from home appears to have stabilized at around 25% of work days overall and stunningly, nearly 40% of work days for college educated workers!" writes Alex Tabarrok at Marginal Revolution. "Work from home thus appears to be a permanent and beneficial change in how work is structured."

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