Matt Gaetz Is Half Right

In January, when GOP insurgents in the House first sharpened their swords against Kevin McCarthy, their goal was to weaken his power. They wanted a speaker with less control over committee assignments, and committees with real authority to hold hearings, mark up bills, and bring them to the floor; they made him agree to that pesky “motion to vacate,” allowing one member to call for a vote on removing him. “In the modern House, we’ve strayed far from [a] Member-driven process, and Regular Order is rarely followed,” argued the hard-right House Freedom Caucus, in a late 2022 letter from the group’s chair, Representative Scott Perry.

In ousting McCarthy from the speakership last week, Representative Matt Gaetz of Florida and several Freedom Caucus members still clamored for, a legislative process in which bills are deliberated on committees with input from various members before getting to the floor. But Gaetz and company were madder about something else—that the speaker they had purposefully weakened at the beginning of the year had gone ahead and compromised with Democrats to pass a spending bill.