Feehery: Why McCarthy shouldn’t fear the motion to vacate chair

It was on St. Patrick’s Day in 1910 when George Norris of Nebraska offered a resolution to strip Speaker Joe Cannon, the Czar from Illinois, of some of his dictatorial powers. Norris was a progressive Republican and he chafed at the conservative Cannon’s rule. Cannon not only had the power of recognition on just about every motion but also had complete power to appoint anybody he wanted to whatever committee he wanted and had total control of the Rules Committee. 

Because so many Republican members were out celebrating Ireland’s patron saint, Norris thought he could sneak through a resolution that would weaken Cannon’s iron grip, but the wily and shrewd Illinois congressman wasn’t about to allow the liberal Nebraskan a chance to diminish his power. 

Over the next several days, parliamentary motions filled the air, ending with the first and only time that the House would ever vote to vacate the chair. Cannon would survive the effort to oust him but, in the process of securing his position, he had to compromise with the insurgents and give up some of his power. 

A century later, my former boss, Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) would make a speech about the nature of the speakership, and in it, he would give some advice to future occupants of the office. Chief among them was an admonition to always seek to please a majority of the majority, because if a Speaker could do that, he would stay in power for as long as he (or she) kept the majority. 

The motion to vacate the chair is not used very often because it is an ineffective and silly way to keep a majority in the majority, and it is a waste of time for the minority to call for such a motion, because, well, they are in the minority and they don’t have the votes.

The first time I had even heard of the motion to vacate the chair was when I was working for House Majority Whip Tom DeLay (R-Texas). After a late night of plotting, DeLay had promised a small cohort of rebels — which included future stars of the party like Lindsay Graham (R-S.C.), Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) and Steve Largent (R-Okla.) — that he would support them in their efforts to send Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) a message that his leadership was not working for the bulk of the Republican Conference.

Gingrich put down the rebellion when he realized that he had the votes to stay as Speaker, and they didn’t have a viable alternate. 

I left my staff position in Congress in 2005 and I wasn’t around when Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) faced threats from Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) that he would call for a vote to vacate the chair. I never thought Boehner was in much trouble of losing such a vote because he was popular enough within his conference to survive against any challenger and Democrats certainly weren’t going to support any effort to replace him with a more conservative alternative.

Boehner also was pretty popular with the public at large, and no Republican was in danger of losing his seat to a Democrat because Boehner wielded the Speaker’s gavel.

When Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) became Speaker, she made it more difficult for a small group of members to call for a motion to vacate the chair for two reasons. First, unlike Boehner, she was toxic in swing seats, as witnessed by the fact that Republicans ran against her in several campaign cycles, which is unusual in congressional history. Most Speakers of the House aren’t that well known to most voters. Second, Pelosi had little patience for parliamentary tradition or minority rights, and she was brutal in her consolidation of power.

I understand why Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) is nervous about giving members back the right to a motion to vacate the chair but, in my opinion, he doesn’t have that much to worry about. He is not nearly as unpopular or as well-known as either Pelosi or Gingrich, and I don’t think there will be much political utility in running congressional campaigns targeting him specifically. And the motion to vacate the chair is overrated as a parliamentary tactic and won’t be invoked by most sane members unless things really go sideways in 2023.

Feehery is a partner at EFB Advocacy and blogs at thefeeherytheory.com. He served as spokesman to former House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.), as communications director to former House Majority Whip Tom DeLay (R-Texas) and as a speechwriter to former House Minority Leader Bob Michel (R-Ill.).