Donald Trump will try to take credit for the election of Kevin McCarthy as Speaker of the House. If he will be correct in that (and he may be right), I will give him one more. Donald Trump can take credit for this post. For, after all, if McCarthy hadn’t been elected, undoubtedly I would have written something very different.

When Congress reconvenes on Monday, the House will try to pass the rules package that McCarthy had worked out with various members of his party. The rules of the Pelosi era have expired, and the House needs rules. The sessions leading to the election of the Speaker were governed by what I have heard referred to as general parliamentary rules, which are those the presiding officer declares under the advise of the House parliamentarian. Maybe those are still in force now. I don’t know.

I haven’t seen a draft of the rules, and don’t know if they are still being negotiated over the weekend, but some of them are rather problematic. Such as a rule that would permit any member of the House (that would include Democratic members, by the way, as I understand it) to call for a vote of confidence on the Speaker. This could cause chaos and make the passage of controversial legislation impossible, unless the rules themselves constrain this power somewhat. And it will make us come closer to a parliamentary system, where votes of confidence bring down governments all the time. Of course, the vote here won’t bring down the government and lead to new elections; it will simply partially paralyze the existing government.

It will also add an element to the tough negotiations that always occur when difficult legislative decisions must be made. Think, for example, as to what will happen when negotiations over an increased debt ceiling are required this summer. When debate can be cut off by a member of Congress requesting again and again a vote of confidence on the Speaker or, more likely, when the Speaker is told “if you don’t do what we want, we will move for a vote of no-confidence”. Remember there will always be 212 Democratic votes ready to vote against a Speaker who is not able to control his/her own party.

Another change will apparently drop the Pelosi proxy voting rules. In part because of Covid, and I assume also because the House was so close in recent years, the last Congress allowed members of vote by proxy. No more, I hear. Now, all 435 members will have to be present to cast a vote. It is true that they got all elected members to attend the hearings for election of the Speaker (with a few minor exceptions for one hearing), but they can’t do that throughout a two year term. Covid and other diseases are still going to be around – and I don’t think anyone wants a Covid positive member of Congress to come to a session in person to cast a vote, do they?

This also could slow down legislation. It certainly adds another element to the Speaker’s decision to have a vote on a bill. With a Congress with only a 4 vote separation by party, I can see votes canceled at the last minute because someone important to the vote will be absent. This also will give extraordinary leverage to Republicans who do not want to see a particular bill passed. Another way to keep a bill from the floor (and if the Speaker doesn’t remove the bill from the agenda, what then? A vote of no confidence once more.)

Other issues won’t necessarily involve the rules package. There will be questions about committee assignments – were deals made to put Matt Gaetz in charge of important military affairs, will Marjorie Taylor Greene be given important assignments, what will Jim Jordan be as head of the Judiciary Committee? The Democrats (for good reason in my mind) did set the stage for what might happen next. They took Marjorie Taylor Greene off all committees; they rejected people like election denier Jim Jordan from serving on the Jan 6 Special Committee. Who knows what McCarthy might do in retaliation?

And we know the Republicans are fond of investigations. Look at all the time they wasted, for example, on the Benghazi investigation. Now, they have a big list of investigations they want to take up. Afghanistan. Hunter Biden. The Border. Hunter Biden. Politicization of the Department of Justice. Hunter Biden.

So what kind of McCarthy will Speaker McCarthy be? Will he be a Joe McCarthy who sets out the dogs to rankle and destroy his political enemies? Will he be a Charlie McCarthy, who will just mouth the words of his right wing ventriloquists? We know he won’t be a Gene McCarthy.

I expect the next month will be terrible, as the foxes will circle the hen house readying their attack, staking out their territory. The Republican party is clearly not united on many issues – they have, to a large part, like Pogo, found their enemy to be themselves. But the Democratic party, and we the people, are also their enemies, it appears.

And Kevin McCarthy? Egotist, election denier and Trump sycophant. He his now the chief fox in charge of a fragile hen house. We can only wait to see how this plays out.

And will Donald Trump play a role? That too remains to be seen.

One digression: This is now Day 6 of my head cold, and I am sick, sick, sick of it. Will you let whoever is in charge my head cold know, so they can do something about it? Thanks.