The delay in the effort to get 217 Republicans to back anyone for speaker is leading some House members to start reconsidering the idea that Speaker Pro Tempore Patrick T. McHenry is little more than a placeholder.
Rep. David Joyce said Thursday that he has had discussions about the possible mechanics of granting additional powers to an interim speaker, perhaps for a limited period.
“From my understanding, going back and forth and parliamentarian and Rules … the possibility exists to give somebody … full duties, excuse me, for a limited period of time,” the Ohio Republican said.
Joyce suggested that such an action could be taken through adoption of a privileged resolution.
McHenry, R-N.C., assumed the gavel under an unprecedented process after former speaker Kevin McCarthy lost the speakership, has been operating under the view that the job is limited to overseeing the process of finding a new speaker. But because McCarthy’s removal never happened before, there’s debate about what happens next.
Rep. Steve Womack, R-Ark., told reporters one option could be the House voting to empower the speaker pro tempore.
“There’s not a playbook here,” Womack said. “We’ve not been down this particular road. So we’re going to be testing some of the legal authorities of the speaker pro tem if we go in that direction.”
The Constitution says that “Each House may determine the Rules of its Proceedings,” so the precise powers of a pro tem speaker may well be whatever can get a majority vote.
Among the questions being asked is whether a speaker pro tempore could be granted new authorities for a period of 45 or 60 days, which could be enough time to process spending bills, including anticipated emergency aid to Israel.
Former Illinois Rep. Rodney Davis, who led Republicans on the House Administration Committee, highlighted the vagaries of the role that McHenry now holds. McHenry assumed the post after McCarthy’s removal because his name was atop a hitherto secret list McCarthy had filed with the clerk under a succession rule adopted following the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.
“There hasn’t been any precedents that have been set about what power he or she would have. So Democrats, and rightfully so, are chirping in the parliamentarian’s ear basically saying, Speaker Pro Tem McHenry is just a figurehead, he can’t do anything. And Republicans are saying conversely, he ought to be able to run very important pieces of legislation through,” Davis said at a Wednesday event hosted by the Bipartisan Policy Center. “Hopefully there can be a compromise.”
It’s become generally accepted that the designated speaker pro tempore is weak, even though the plain language of the rules change was left vague.
Molly Reynolds at the Brookings Institution is among the congressional scholars to have pointed out in recent days that such a narrow reading of McHenry’s authority could defeat the purpose of having a speaker pro tempore succession in the first place.
“Abstracting from the immediate situation to the kind of scenario that the rule was originally envisioned to address, the narrow reading is normatively troubling,” Reynolds said in a conversation with other scholars for Good Authority. “If Congress had in fact just faced an actual mass incapacitating event, which the rule was designed for, I think we would want a speaker pro tem who’s more than just a clerk – certainly one who could put measures on the floor to address whatever brought on the crisis in question!”
Florida GOP Rep. Carlos Gimenez said that there may need to be legislation to resolve these questions going forward.
“One thing we do need to do is we need to to put legislation in place that the speaker pro tem has powers not only for this situation, but for situations in the future. …If you have a speaker who has some kind of illness, incapacitated a month, two months in a hospital and a ventilator, etc. in a coma, etc.,” Gimenez said.
There’s a small but growing list of powers and responsibilities that McHenry appears to be accumulating. Shortly after his appointment, McHenry reclaimed office space that had been occupied by the former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Maryland Democratic Rep. Steny H. Hoyer, the former majority leader.
He also has recessed the House subject to the call of the chair while Republicans meet behind closed doors to try to find a candidate — whether it is Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., or someone else, who can reach 217 votes on the floor.
On Thursday, the White House transmitted a letter notifying the House of a continuing national emergency with respect to Syria to McHenry, a signal that the Biden administration currently views him as the correct House recipient of such executive branch correspondence.
Asked Wednesday whether McHenry was receiving access to the “Gang of Eight” intelligence materials that are shared with the top congressional leaders in each party, as well as the chairs and ranking members of the Intelligence committees, White House Press Secretary Karine-Jean Pierre directed the question to McHenry’s office, which did not immediately respond.
“We are regularly updating Congress based on the latest developments in Israel, and Speaker Pro Tempore McHenry is receiving updates along with the rest of the House and Senate leadership,” a White House spokesperson told CQ Roll Call after Wednesday’s briefing.
One option that’s reportedly being discussed is whether to grant McHenry less ambiguous authority by electing him speaker pro tempore, maybe for a specific amount of time. Under House rules and precedents, an elected speaker pro tempore would likely have more authority than a “designated” speaker pro tempore.
“I do think there is a sense of urgency of getting this thing open,” Womack said. “What’s going on in Israel, and there were a couple of points made in our conference [Thursday] about what else would it take before we recognize that we can no longer keep the lights off in the House chamber. We’ve got to get back to work.”
Mary Ellen McIntire and Laura Weiss contributed to this report.
The post House members discuss lifting limits on speaker pro tem power appeared first on Roll Call.
