Once his nomination comes to the House floor, Mr. Scalise will likely require 217 votes to win the speakership. In a GOP-only vote, he earned the support of 113 Republican House members on Wednesday to clinch his nomination, while Rep. Jim Jordan (Ohio) got 99 votes. Though Mr. Jordan now pledges to support to Mr. Scalise on the floor, Mr. Scalise will need nearly double the votes he got among Republicans on Wednesday. In January, it took Mr. McCarthy 15 rounds of voting and some desperate bargaining with the far right to persuade a majority of House members to vote for him.
The danger for Mr. Scalise — indeed for the country — is that he might promise too much to the ultra-right in pursuit of the speakership. The gavel is not worth taking if it comes with the conditions Mr. McCarthy accepted, including a rule that allowed just one representative to force a House vote on whether to remove him. This concession doomed Mr. McCarthy, who had to operate in constant fear that a few extremists could depose him, which, indeed, they eventually did. The result was too often — and, if Mr. Scalise mismanages the succession, could continue to be — gridlock.
Gridlock is especially dangerous now, when Congress confronts multiple crises. The most obvious is another potential government shutdown after a 45-day continuing resolution expires in mid-November. Mr. McCarthy lost his job after he agreed, with good reason, to this stopgap continuing resolution; now, a longer-term agreement is necessary. The best path forward is clear. Mr. McCarthy already negotiated a long-term spending plan with President Biden in the spring, as part of the deal to avert a government default. The next speaker should keep that deal.
Then there are calls for emergency military support for Israel following last weekend’s surprise Hamas attack. Republicans broadly support such a measure. They’re more skeptical of providing continued assistance to Ukraine in the war against Russia — but those dollars, too, are vital to providing an embattled pro-U.S. nation with the weapons, materiel and intelligence it needs to ensure its sovereignty and survival, as well as for humanitarian relief.
Meanwhile, an uptick in crossings along the U.S. southern border has prompted members of both parties to call for action. Major cities in Democratic-run states — such as New York, Chicago, Boston, San Diego and Denver — are struggling to support the thousands of migrants who have suddenly arrived. They want more funding and organizational aid from the federal government. Money to speed asylum processing would help. Border security funding, meanwhile, would satisfy demands for better enforcement.
Reports indicate that the White House is weighing a supplemental funding package that would group together these issues — Israel, Ukraine and the border. Such a deal should be a top priority for the next speaker, along with funding the rest of the government’s operations. It would represent a thoughtful balancing of the parties’ priorities.
This kind of necessary compromise is the model the next speaker should follow in the coming weeks. He will face the same fundamental situation as his predecessor: governing alongside a Democratic Senate and a Democratic president. The country would benefit if the next speaker worked more closely with Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) than Mr. McCarthy did. Mr. Jeffries, in turn, should be open to protecting the speaker’s office from assault by radical House right-wingers. If enough House Democrats declined to vote in a future leadership challenge, the voting math would change and the handful of Republicans who ousted Mr. McCarthy would be sidelined. In exchange, Democrats should seek not a pound of flesh but realistic concessions to the minority.
Mr. Scalise is perhaps best known for surviving a mass shooting at a congressional baseball practice six years ago. Back then, the nation rallied around him, putting country over party and uniting against extremism. Those are the same values Mr. Scalise should champion now.
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