The House of Representatives just elected Kevin McCarthy as Speaker following a contentious election which lasted 15 ballots.
Political commentators are now shifting through the historic concessions which McCarthy agreed to.
And one shocking victory for conservatives can all be chalked up to one Congressman the media tried to ignore.
After the House of Representatives failed to elect a speaker on the first ballot of voting for the first time in 100 years, a dramatic process played out on the floor of Congress as 15 rounds of voting were needed before Kevin McCarthy could finally muster the votes needed to take the Speaker’s gavel.
While McCarthy had repeatedly won the majority of votes from within the Republican caucus within the House of Representatives, he found himself coming shy of the necessary threshold to win because a group of 20 Republican holdouts refused to blindly vote for him without a series of concessions.
And despite all the criticisms directed at the leader of the Freedom Caucus’ efforts to use the Speakership election as a mechanism to score major wins for conservatives, the gambit worked perfectly.
And now, some of the policy wins that Freedom Caucus ring-leader Chip Roy managed to win from McCarthy could change the way Congress operates in a major way.
CBS reports, “To win enough support, McCarthy had to make a number of concessions he had said he wouldn’t consider earlier this week. He agreed to allow a single member to call for a vote of no confidence in the speaker, and he agreed to give the House Freedom Caucus three seats on the House Rules Committee, a key panel that shapes legislation before it receives a vote on the floor.”
Most Americans do not know that for years, almost every member of Congress was little more than a puppet for the leadership of both parties.
Under Paul Ryan and Nancy Pelosi, almost all power in Congress had been consolidated into the hands of the Speaker of the House, and a handful of high-ranking members of leadership.
For years, floor amendments were virtually outlawed in Congress.
After centuries of allowing individual members to offer amendments to bills before they are voted on, Nancy Pelosi kept that power away from everyone in order to hoard more authority for herself.
And now, Chip Roy managed to restore that longstanding power back in the hands of the people’s elected representatives.
But that wasn’t all.
Not only did Roy manage to bring back the ability for individual members of Congress to actually show up to work and do their job by offering changes to a bill before voting on it, but Congress will actually now have the time to sort through legislation before voting on it.
“Under the rules plan put forth by Republicans, bills must be released 72 hours before a vote on the House floor,” adds CBS.
And perhaps even more importantly, it only takes a single member to make a motion of no confidence to dethrone the Speaker of the House in the event that McCarthy attempts to roll back this major policy win for conservatives.