The 118th Congress and the Cheney Gambit
House D’s won a few too few seats. House R’s have way too many problems.
For months I’ve been suggesting “Speaker Liz Cheney” as a situational prospect. The situation is here, and it’s time to put some flesh on these bones.
What would it take to assemble a patriotic fusion coalition with a ministerial Speaker and a “policy diet” agenda?
Forget doing it with a just a handful of Republican votes. Aim for a dozen (or two).
Assume, and make real, remarkable feats of political courage and political brokerage.
Shunt the Crazy Train onto a siding, and conduct the nation’s essential business under a stable House majority.
R’s have the numbers, with a little room to spare. They also have:
A slate of “leaders” provably lacking the leadership virtues of personal integrity and institutional commitment.
A cast of ideologues, showboats, obstructionists, insurrectionists, transactionalists, with an uncommonly broad lunatic fringe.
An unfinished multifactional blame game taking up half the conference room table.
Primary season (and endorsement season) looming only a year away.
Working a thin numerical edge into a durable governing instrument is a major challenge. Pelosi almost made it look easy — but with incomparable skills and better material.
It will not go well.
I believe a difficult bargain can be struck.
D’s must make concessions that include a limited “fiscal conservative” agenda and elevated roles for some of their usual adversaries. They’ll have to tone down their rhetorical performance on stuff they’d never get anyway through a hostile Rules Committee, deadlocked committees of jurisdiction, and an “own the libs” leadership.
Participating R’s (“R’efugees”), on the other hand, are looking at political suicide. It still might be their best option.
Many ran to “get things done”, not “own the libs”. Schooled on our nation’s idealized history, founding documents and principles, they cherish “the American Experiment” and its possibilities.
They are tired of riding the Crazy Train. Tired of huddling and grousing in the bar car … and nodding dutifully to abject nonsense when they’re on camera. Tired of “positioning” around each next new malignant conspiracy or theatrical pop-up.
They are angry at Trump, his mendacious enablers and his rabid supporters. And angry with themselves for biting their tongues as their “RINO” colleagues were taken out.
Some are also wise and worried that their party has lost its bearings. Reform or realignment or something is bound to happen, but it’s not clear how or when. Whatever comes next, rejection of madness and malice might be a start.
The Crazy Train makes a convenient stop the first week of January. People get off, people get on, people change places.
R’s who want to jump have no place to land … yet. To make a break for it, they need a leader and a destnation. Here’s where Cheney comes in. Uniquely qualified. Uniquely motivated.
She has stature, even in today’s GOP. Deep knowledge of House rules, traditions, and personalities. Knows the genuine “art of the deal”: making bargains and keeping them — even bargains that tie one’s own hands.
And she’s got nothing to lose. Can she win back the heart of her party? Only by saving it from itself. (So far, that’s not going well.)
If the Cheney Gambit works, the J6 investigation lives. We stand up to mobs and tyrants. We pay our debts. Voters decide elections. The American Experiment goes another round.
Handing the gavel to a hard-core conservative would be a powerful gesture of good faith on the part of a progressive near-majority. This (“and other valuable considerations”) could be indispensable in moving a dozen or more R’efugees to take existential risks and take the deal.
Bargains typically entail conditions and concessions on both sides. Some are essential. Others are bargaining chips. A few to consider:
Cheney cannot act as a policy-driver. She’d serve in the parliamentary tradition of a ministerial, ceremonial Speaker — despite her partisan roots and instincts.
She’d focus behind the scenes on balancing interests and keeping the deal intact.
When membership ratios and committee margins suffice, R’efugees wield a respectable share of gavels.
“Votes of conscience” (not whipped by leadership) would be common. Let the opposition whip their members, but at risk of further defections once the door is opened and their majority status is lost.
J6 investigations proceed. So does discussion of voting rights, ballot access, redistricting reform — elevating the core values of small-’r’ republican small-’d’ democracy.
The House might hold critical hearings into our exit from Afghanistan … pandemic preparedness … even the Hunter Biden story (broadened to cover Trump/Putin/Ukraine shenanigans?).
Fiscal policy tightens a notch or two, but debt ceilings are raised (or eliminated?). Must-pass legislation is not used to extort concessions on unrelated matters.
Major directional legislation is tabled, but suggestion-box items from bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus and Committee on Modernization might see light of day. Unshackled from their Freedom Caucus colleagues, R’efugees might discover their own greater flexibility on a host of issues.
One of the weightiest potential concessions is a grant of immunity — an agreement to refrain from contesting a R’efugee at their next election.
One note on timing. R’s must attempt to organize on opening day. D’s could sit back indefinitely as R’s struggle for footing in their own manure pit. The Cheney Gambit is always there for the taking, and might become easier as potential R’efugees experience more reasons to defect.
I’m no authority on what’s possible now in the Art of the Possible, but I don’t favor a waiting game. First, a coprophiliac pie-fight might not be good for the nation and the planet. Second, government scandal and ineptitude pushes casual voters to the right, and it sticks. The “party of government” spoils fertile ground even when they make the other party look bad!
In conclusion, “into this furnace I ask you now to venture, you whom I cannot betray”. Let the games begin!