GOP senators: McCarthy’s collapse will lead to turmoil, shutdown

Republican senators are shocked and unnerved by the sudden collapse of Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s (R-Calif.) career in leadership and fear the turmoil in the House will put Congress on the path to a government shutdown.

Senators are worried about who will succeed McCarthy and whether that successor will be so beholden to a small group of conservatives that it will be close to impossible to pass spending legislation before government funding runs out before Thanksgiving.

While GOP senators occasionally criticized some of McCarthy’s moves, especially his decision to give the green light for an impeachment inquiry into President Biden, they saw him as allied with their desire to keep the government funded and to show voters their party can govern.

They’re hoping that whoever replaces McCarthy is willing to do what it takes to avoid a government shutdown.

“There are clearly a few choices that they could make that make it almost certain we go into a shutdown posture,” Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) said of the race to become the next Speaker.

He said that House Republicans need to change the rule that allowed Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) to offer a motion to boot McCarthy out of his job. It passed when only eight Republicans joined 208 Democrats in voting to end McCarthy’s tenure as leader.

“Quite honestly, they got to figure how to change the rules and pull the motion to vacate. I don’t know why anybody would pursue that job with that hanging over their head,” Tillis said of the rule giving any single disgruntled member of the GOP conference the power to call a snap referendum on the Speakership.

“If it is hanging over their head, then you can almost be certain that the odds are higher that we go into a shutdown,” he warned.

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) this week also urged the new Speaker, whomever it is, to jettison the ability of a single lawmaker to call for a snap leadership election — known as a motion to recommit — as Gaetz did Tuesday.

“I hope whoever the next Speaker is gets rid of the motion to vacate. I think it makes the Speaker’s job impossible,” McConnell said. “The American people expect us to have a functioning government.”

Asked about the prospect that a prolonged battle over the Speaker’s gavel could put Congress on the path of a government shutdown, McConnell said, “We need to get a Speaker, and hopefully we’ll get one by next week.”

He warned that keeping in place the rule that gave a handful of conservatives huge political leverage over McCarthy would put “whoever the Speaker is in a hammerlock of dysfunction, potential dysfunction.”

Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (W.Va.), the vice chairwoman of the Senate Republican Conference, said she hopes House Republicans “can come to a resolution on a Speaker quickly.”

“You can’t drag it out, because that just signals more unrest,” she said. “I do think it’s going to impact appropriations.”

Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) described the lack of a clear plan to replace McCarthy as “chaos” and predicted it would delay Congress’s work by “a lot.”

“The timeline is very, very, very challenging, even for the House, who can do things quickly,” he said. “I regret that we’re not on our minibus [appropriations package] now.”

Republican senators are breathing a sigh of relief the government didn’t shut down last weekend but are worried the chances of a shutdown in November or December are now higher because of McCarthy’s sudden ouster.

“We kind of dodged that bullet; it doesn’t mean we’re out of the woods yet,” said Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska). “We’re not in the clear. We have a lot of work to do.”

She said it’s a troubling sign that a group of House conservatives voted to strip McCarthy of his job after he brought a bill to the floor to keep the government open that passed with Democratic votes.

“We all need to ensure that we’re putting our country, we’re putting the people that we represent before our party or our title. I think Kevin McCarthy did what he had to do, I think he did the responsible thing,” she said. “What I think was perhaps irresponsible was the actions of those within his own party who sought to oust him.

“There was a small group who unfortunately put themselves and perhaps their own personal ambitions or perhaps their own ego. … They put that ahead of their responsibility as a lawmaker to govern and governing means keeping the government operational,” she added.

Even Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), one of McCarthy’s loudest Democratic critics, conceded that the former Speaker did what he had to get must-pass bills to President Biden’s desk.

“To his credit, I will say this, Speaker McCarthy — on both on shutting down the government and default of the debt — at the end of the day realized he had to work in a bipartisan way to do what’s right for America,” he said.

GOP senators are growing alarmed about the low number of full legislative days left in Washington until government funding expires in mid-November.

“Maybe five in October and five in November. That makes it impossible,” Capito said, not counting Mondays, when senators travel to Washington and don’t show up for votes until 5:30 p.m.

Thirteen Republican senators, led by Sen. Pete Ricketts (R-Neb.), signed a letter to Schumer urging him to cancel the October recess and to work full weeks in Washington to give lawmakers more time to work through the backlog of spending bills.

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