For the first time in history, the Speakers of the Canadian House of Commons and the US House of Representatives faced existential crises at the same time.
Here in Canada, former Speaker Anthony Rota decided to resign on September 26, shortly after news broke that he had invited a former member of the Nazi Waffen-SS to sit in the gallery and receive a standing ovation, on the occasion of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s visit.
Days later, in the US capital of Washington DC, former Republican Speaker Kevin McCarthy did not quit. On October 3, he lost his job when a majority of House members voted to vacate the Speaker’s chair.
Canada’s Rota had, at first, tried to apologize for his unfortunate invitation.
But when a number of MPs of all parties, as well as senior cabinet ministers and more than one opposition party leader called for him to leave, Rota had no choice but to resign.
McCarthy met his fate after he made a deal with President Joe Biden and House Democrats to keep funding the government, on an interim basis, for 45 days.
Congress must regularly raise the debt ceiling
McCarthy’s deal meant the US postal service would continue delivering mail, US officials would continue to issue social assistance cheques, and the US government would continue to pay members of the military and other public servants.
Such a deal was necessary because the US Congress has an arcane institution known as the debt ceiling.
In most other countries when parliaments pass legislation which entails government spending, no further action is necessary. The spending takes place. Alone among advanced economies, the US has a legal limit on total debt, which it must periodically raise through legislative action.
If the two houses of the US Congress – the Senate, and the House of Representatives – fail to pass debt-raising legislation when necessary (which the President then signs), the US government virtually shuts down.
That happened twice in the 1990s. At that time, the Republicans, who controlled both houses of Congress, were at loggerheads with Democratic president Bill Clinton.
During Barack Obama’s time as President, and earlier in Joe Biden’s current term, the Republicans pushed negotiations on the debt ceiling to the edge, but not over.
President Donald Trump holds the ignominious distinction of presiding over the longest government shutdown in the nation’s history. Despite the Republicans controlling the White House, Senate, and House of Representatives, they were unable to pass legislation to raise the debt ceiling for more than a month, until the Democrats took over the House in January 2019.
More recently, however, Kevin McCarthy could not get the most radical right-wing members of his own party to agree to any debt ceiling measure the Democratically-controlled Senate and President Biden would accept.
And so, at the 11th hour, McCarthy came up with his short-term, 45-day fix. That measure passed the House with the support of only a bit more than half of McCarthy’s fellow Republicans, but almost all the Democrats.
It seemed, briefly, like something of a triumph for Speaker McCarthy, but that did not last.
In the eyes of the most hardline of his Republican colleagues, McCarthy’s willingness to cooperate, in any way, with the other party was an entirely unforgivable sin.
Those far-right members of Congress are small in number, but wield disproportionate power because of a concession McCarthy made to them nine months ago in order to secure the Speaker job in the first place.
Back in January of this year, at the outset of the current session of Congress, it took multiple days and 15 ballots for House Republicans to elect McCarthy as Speaker.
In the process, McCarthy had to bow to the wishes of a handful of hard right members on a number of key issues. The concession that came back to bite him was a rule change. It allows a single member – just one – to get a motion onto the floor to vacate the Speaker’s chair.
A few days ago, in the wake of the 45-day debt-ceiling deal, Florida Republican Matt Gaetz – an ardent Donald Trump supporter who describes himself as a populist libertarian – moved a motion to oust McCarthy. And that motion passed.
The Democrats in the House offered to support McCarthy and vote against Gaetz’s motion, if he would agree to help enact some their policy priorities. McCarthy summarily rebuffed them.
As a consequence, Democrats voted for Gaetz’s motion. Their votes, along with that of Gaetz and seven other far-right Republicans, were sufficient to doom McCarthy’s speakership.
Partisan U.S. vs non-partisan Canadian process
This coming week, the US House will vote on a new Speaker. It will almost certainly be a messy process, marked by politics, intrigue, deal-making, and über-partisanship.
Contrast that with Canada.
Here, days after Rota stepped down, the House of Commons convened serenely and politely to choose its first-ever Black Speaker.
The new House of Commons Speaker is Greg Fergus, a Liberal MP who represents Hull-Aylmer in Quebec, just across the river from Ottawa.
There was no partisanship in the Canadian selection process, which was carried out by a secret, ranked ballot.
The MPs from all parties were not seeking a Speaker who would offer them political favours. Unlike the US version, the Canadian Speaker has no such favours to offer.
What MPs saw in Fergus was a bilingual MP, who has good relations with all members, of all parties, and who would be firm but fair-minded in keeping order in the House.
The Canadian Speaker is Parliament’s neutral referee, and as such is not an active, partisan participant in political affairs. Speakers do not even attend caucus meetings of their own party.
The role of the Speaker in Canada, as in most other similar democracies, is deliberately designed to be entirely above the rough-and-tumble political fray.
As in so many other political matters, the US is an outlier in this regard.
US Speakers are not only responsible for assuring fair and respectful debate in the House of Representatives. They are also the de facto political leaders of their own party, the majority party, in the House.
Indeed, the Speaker has been, historically, going back to the rule of Speaker Henry Clay in the early 19th century, one of the most powerful political figures in Washington.
Speakers dispense committee assignments, determine what legislation the House can consider, and provide strategic political leadership to their own party.
In modern times, Speakers routinely take part actively in election campaigns.
At times, Speakers, or aspirants to the Speaker position, promote a partisan, ideological agenda. In the mid-term US election of 1994, Republican Newt Gingrich presented a detailed tax-and-spending-cutting policy document he called the Contract with America.
This admixture of partisan and non-partisan roles is a disquieting feature of the US political system, and it is not limited to the role of the House Speaker.
Take elections, for example.
Unlike almost every other advanced democracy, the US entrusts the administration of elections to partisan politicians. Elected state legislatures – not neutral bodies on the model of Elections Canada – draw congressional district boundaries and set the rules for voting.
This foxes-in-charge-of-the-henhouse approach has resulted in widespread gerrymandering – the drawing of electoral boundaries to favour one party or the other – and rules that make it harder for the poor, the young, and members of minority groups to vote.
Canada is no paragon of virtue. Injustices of a great many kinds are tightly woven into the fabric of our political life.
But, whether by dint of good planning or simply good luck, we have come up with a governance system where, for the most part, we keep the referee and partisan political functions separate.
Our neighbours to the south were not too happy, this past summer when we (unintentionally) sent billows of wildfire smoke their way.
Many in the US might be happier, today, if we could blow at least a whiff of our non-partisan, good governance principles their way.
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Nick Seebruch, editor
