Washington Examiner senior columnist Salena Zito said the GOP’s fight over the speaker of the House should remind members that their “district should dictate how they vote” and that they weren’t sent to Washington to be “disruptors.”
“I think what we first need to think about is the House of Representatives is the body of government in Washington that is closest to who we are. So it shouldn’t be a surprise that it was all over the place. Because American politics is all over the place,” Zito said Saturday afternoon on Fox News Live.
“They have to make their mind up and they have to listen to their district. Their district should dictate how they vote. Because you’re supposed to represent the needs of your district,” she told host Arthel Neville.
SPEAKER MCCARTHY MAKES COSTLY CONCESSIONS TO LOCK DOWN THE GAVEL
Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) was elected House speaker early Saturday morning after 15 ballots were cast over four days. Many of his harshest GOP critics were members of the House Freedom Caucus and did not buckle until concessions were made.
Zito explained that McCarthy eventually gave up a lot of power as the “demands of the small” became more boisterous. Some voters in the party became frustrated as their needs were drowned out by infighting, she said.
“I went to Scott Perry of Pennsylvania’s district, and they were very frustrated with him — not all of them, but there were many voters who said, ‘Look, this is not why we sent you to Congress,” she said.
“I think where people began to lose their patience with this was when it became about getting positions of power and not about getting things done,” Zito added.
One of the most significant concessions McCarthy made to secure the votes he needed to secure the gavel was agreeing to allow just one member to call a vote to oust him. Zito agreed that the decision could make it hard for the speaker to govern.
“The speaker isn’t just the speaker for Republicans. He is the speaker of 435 people. And to always have this hung over your head. it’s going to make it very difficult to govern,” she said.
“That is the challenge that both of these parties always face when they win the majority: Can you govern? Can you get things done? Or do you just do things to showboat or do you just do things for your party? That is a challenge they face.”
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Zito said House Republicans, with such a small majority, will likely already find it difficult to pass legislation as Democrats continue to control the Senate and the White House.
“Voters really had a lot on their minds when they went to vote in November and I don’t think it was for them to send [people to] Congress and nothing gets done,” she said.
