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House Republicans, Do the Right Things
Vote for the best speaker, then sponsor repeals and summary impeachments.
James Anthony
December 30, 2022
On November 15, by secret ballot, Republicans in the current house voted 188 to 31 to nominate Kevin McCarthy as their candidate for speaker. On January 3, the entire house will vote on McCarthy. To be elected, he will need 218 votes.
The Wrong Thing
Marjorie Taylor Greene, Liberty Score 100% [1], and Jim Jordan, Liberty Score 94% [2], said they support McCarthy, Liberty Score 54% [3]. Greene, thinking strategically, said that if Republicans challenged McCarthy, Democrats and some Republicans might elect Liz Cheney [4].
But Greene and Jordan wouldn’t be responsible for that outcome, the Republican Progressives and the Democrats would be. And any failures to mitigate any resulting bad actions would be the responsibility of all the other people in government who have offsetting powers [5]: the people in state governments, the senators in simple majorities [6], presidents, and the judges in court majorities.
Greene and Jordan are responsible for their own votes. Politicians should always use their own votes to support what’s constitutionally best and let the chips fall as they may.
Here, if Liz Cheney was elected speaker, this Republican-majority house controlled by Republican Progressives plus Democrats would draw intense fire from Republican voters and from constitutionalist primary challengers. This intense pushback would bring faster, larger change for the better [7].
The Wrong Reasons
Greene also said that to be elected speaker, McCarthy would have to give her and others more power and leeway. For starters, Greene wanted an appointment to the judiciary committee or the oversight committee.
Here’s what constitutionally is a house legislator’s scope:
The Constitution’s rules, if followed, and its sanctions by offsetting powers, if used, ensure that every generally-applicable choice is made deliberatively by elected representatives.
The core focus of legislators who support the Constitution is on creating constitutional laws, which consist only of rules and sanctions.
Once legislatures pass such bills and executives sign these into law, all that’s left is for executives to enforce these laws and for judges to opine on cases. Legislators constitutionally enable these executive and judicial actions by making regulations for war and declaring war whenever war will be fought, by setting revenue sources and the total budget, and by impeaching wherever this will be wise to protect us.
The only committee work [17] that might make sense for legislators to do is draft bills. But current committees will never draft constitutional bills. The Constitution is defied by Progressives, and current committees include majorities of Progressives—Democrats who all are Progressive, plus Republicans who mostly are damagingly Progressive [18]. Also, much drafting is done by staffers, lobbyists, and professional drafters [19], who are decidedly Progressive. Further, current committees are quite effective at preventing or burying roll-call votes that would out Progressives.
To get to constitutional government will require not compromising with Progressives. It will require that constitutionalists themselves sponsor, cosponsor, and vote for constitutional bills [20].
This will require solo or committee work by constitutionalists only, not collaborations with Progressives on committees. Also, houses don’t advise and consent on judicial nominees, senates do. And the only constitutional legislative oversight is impeachment, which should be done summarily.
So when Greene seeks appointments to the next judiciary committee or oversight committee, she deprioritizes sponsoring, cosponsoring, and voting for constitutional bills, and instead prioritizes supporting the legislatively-controlled unconstitutional administrative state.
We need our house legislators to not do the wrong things on speakers and committees. And we need our house legislators to do the right things on repeals and new bills, war, revenues and budgets, and impeachments.
References
James Anthony is the author of The Constitution Needs a Good Party and rConstitution Papers, publishes rConstitution.us, and has written in Daily Caller, The Federalist, American Thinker, American Greatness, Mises Institute, and Foundation for Economic Education. Mr. Anthony is an experienced chemical engineer with a master’s in mechanical engineering.
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