Gingrich: Messy McCarthy House speaker vote is good for America

Kevin McCarthy's road to becoming speaker of the House was long and contentious, but offered a transparency that is good for America.

Newly installed House Speaker Kevin McCarthy is wasting no time in making legislative moves. He’s already led Republicans in a vote to slash $114 billion in funding for the IRS, a mostly symbolic move since the Senate is expected to strike down the bill. McCarthy’s historic difficulty in gaining the speaker’s gavel – it took 15 ballots for the California lawmaker to get the necessary votes, and numerous concessions – was viewed by many as signs of Washington dysfunction. Straight Arrow News contributor and former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich says the messy McCarthy vote is actually a good thing for America because it offers a transparent view of Congress in action.

It’s good for America to see these debates. It’s good for America to have these debates. We’re faced with huge challenges, huge difficulties and we need to find a way to bring people together. And I think that requires talking and listening. I don’t think you can do it in secret. I don’t think you can do it by running a machine.

Now, I also believe because I’m an idealist, I believe in the American system. I believe in our Constitution. I believe that freedom matters. I believe, as Lincoln put it, in “government of the people, by the people and for the people.” What does that mean? That means the people have to have information, the people have to have input. And results have to be measured by the people.

And I think that what we saw this week in many ways was a nice, powerful step in the right direction, moving us back towards government of the people, rather than government of the lobbyists or government of the staffs, or governments of the bureaucrats.

You know, I think Kevin McCarthy is going to have a challenge as speaker. He’s going to have every single day, he’s going to have to try to find his 218 votes. And I think that it’s going to be fascinating to watch as America wrestles at a time of enormous change, to see whether or not the political system can take on understanding, thinking through, finding solutions and actually passing on solutions. But this was a pretty good start.

Well, I can’t let the speaker’s election go without chatting with you about what it means, and about how amazing it was, you know, I got elected speaker on the first vote. But that was a different time and place. Kevin McCarthy ended up with a very narrow margin. And a number of his colleagues thought, well, here’s an opportunity to do a little bargaining a little blackmailing, see what we can get done. And so you ended up with the longest number of ballots 15, since 1855, when it took 133 ballots, and two months to pick a speaker. So however boring on however long it seems, and I have to tell you, even though I was once a creature, the house, watching C span as they went person, by person by person, first time is semi interesting. By the fourth or fifth time, it’s like going to the dentist. By the 15th. Time exhaustion has set in imagine how the people sitting on the floor felt, how many hours they had put in and how tired they were. But it was also freedom and action. You know, Nancy Pelosi ran a dictatorship and she rented efficiently. It’s a very impressive performance on her part. But very few members had any real authority. Very few members got him much input, they produced 4000 Page bills. Two days later, they passed them, nobody read it. Now you’re seeing what it’s like in a free society, when you have the power of television, and the Internet and the ability to take that and show everybody what a legislative body is like. And I think in the long run is healthy. It’s good for America to see these debates. It’s good for America to have these debates. We’re faced with huge challenges, huge difficulties. And we need to find a way to bring people together. And I think that requires talking and listening. I don’t think you can do it in secret. I don’t think you can do it by running a machine. Now, I also believe because I’m an idealist. I believe in the American system. I believe in our Constitution. I believe that freedom matters. I believe, as Lincoln put it, in government of the people, by the people and for the people. What does that mean? That means the people have to have information, the people have to have input. And results have to be measured by the people. And I think that what we saw this week, in many ways was a nice powerful step in the right direction, moving us back towards government of the people, rather than government of the lobbyist or government of the staffs, or governments or the bureaucrats. You know, I think Kevin McCarthy is going to have a challenge as Speaker he’s going to have every single day, he’s gonna have to try to find his 218 votes. And I think that it’s going to be fascinating to watch as America wrestles at a time of enormous change, to see whether or not the political system can take on understanding thinking through finding solutions and actually passing on solutions. But this was a pretty good start.