LaHood on Speaker Fight: "We Look Foolish"
Congressman Darin LaHood (R-Peoria) speaks during a House Intelligence Committee hearing in March.
NOTE: This story was originally posted for subscribers only. To receive subscriber-only newsletters and content, click here.
Fresh off a plane in Washington Sunday evening as the House GOP’s inability to choose a Speaker of the House slides into a third week, Illinois Congressman Darin LaHood (R-Peoria) is frank about the Republican Party’s predicament.
“[Removing former Speaker Kevin McCarthy] was a real tragedy for our Republican Party, for the House, and for democracy. The fact that we, in our Republican Party, allowed eight people to partner with 208 Democrats, less than four percent of our Republican conference, to take down Speaker McCarthy, was absolutely wrong,” LaHood said. It has led to chaos and our conference to be paralyzed and to dysfunction. We look foolish as Republicans. We need to be leading right now.”
It has led to a House that can’t act on legislation and remains unable to function.
“We look dysfunctional, we look chaotic, and we need to get beyond that,” said LaHood.
The next Speaker will be LaHood’s fifth since entering the House in 2015.
LaHood supported McCarthy and then Louisiana’s Steve Scalise in the first ballot for a new speaker, but endorsed Ohio’s Jim Jordan, the Freedom Caucus firebrand, when it became clear Jordan was the next in line.
LaHood’s endorsement raised a few eyebrows in mainstream GOP circles.
“I gave Jim Jordan a chance. I think you’ve seen a transformation in him, particularly as Judiciary [Committee] Chairman, helping McCarthy. He has kind of separated himself a little bit from the Freedom Caucus, but still maintained his principles,” LaHood said. “[Jordan] argued he could bring the far right together to unite our party. Obviously, he wasn’t able to do that on the floor last week, but I think he deserved a chance just like McCarthy and Scalise deserved a chance.”
Now, Republicans are tasked with finding a new nominee, again.
“I think what we found, in some ways, our conference now is ungovernable because of that paralyzation,” he said. “This is when leaders have to step up. Make no mistakes about it, there are deep divisions and anger and bitterness within our conference. But we have to unite for the betterment of our party to move forward. Hopefully we can find somebody to do that.”
Nine Republicans are in the mix for the Speaker’s gavel in the latest go-around.
LaHood isn’t endorsing a candidate, but specifically mentioned Rep. Tom Emmer of Minnesota, Rep. Byron Donalds of Florida, and Rep. Kevin Hern of Oklahoma as candidates he considers “tier one.”
But, LaHood says he has made removing the “motion to vacate” from House Rules as a condition of his endorsement.
“This is a rule that causes complete dysfunction, as we’ve seen for the last three weeks,” he said. “You can’t let a small percentage put a gun at your head on every single decision. That’s, frankly, what happened to Kevin McCarthy.”
If Republicans' can’t get their act together this week with a looming government shutdown and ongoing conflicts in Israel and Ukraine, LaHood doesn’t see a bipartisan group of Republicans and Democrats advancing a Speaker, as some Democrats have suggested they’re open to.
“I don’t think there’s broad support for a coalition government with Democrats. We have to decide this on our own,” he said. “If, for some reason, we can’t find that person this week, yeah, I think all options [for empowering a temporary speaker] have to be on the table.”
But, can Republicans figure it out?
“I think we can regroup,” he said. “That’s part of what we’ve been trying to do the last couple of weeks, and we haven’t had much success. But, we’re going to go back [Monday], back to square one. I’m hopeful at the end of this week we’re going to have a new Speaker of the House.”
