On October 3rd, The United States House of Representatives, by a vote of 216 to 210 removed House Speaker, Kevin McCarthy from his position of power; marking the first time in history that the House has successfully removed its Speaker.

 This motion was put forth by Representative Matt Gaetz as retaliation against former Speaker McCarthy’s complicity in, What Gaetz argues is, sending more money to Ukraine, enabling runaway spending, and going back on the deal that both he and Gaetz agreed to back in January. “Speaker McCarthy made an agreement with House conservatives in January. And, since then, he has been gnawed brazen, repeated material breach of that agreement,” Gaetz said in an interview on CNN’s ‘State of the Union’. 

Two weeks later, the House of Representatives held an election for the right to hold the gavel, and the candidates were slimmed down. Ohio Representative Jim Jordan was held up for candidacy against New York Representative Hakeem Jeffries, the Democratic candidate, but the election didn’t go as planned. With only 200 Representatives in the first round and 199 in the second round with more than 20 Republicans fraying from their party’s plan. Jim Jordan failed to make it past the 218 mark that would land him the seat of Speaker. 

According to CNN, After the third failed vote, he was officially voted out of the race as the nominee in a secret ballot held by the GOP. Leaving the race wide open again for Republicans like Majority Whip, Tom Emmer and Rep. Austin Scott. “The House, which has been without a speaker for more than two weeks after Kevin McCarthy’s historic ouster, remains effectively frozen” reported CNN.

Then, After weeks of Republican infighting about who will sit in the same seat as 55 other House Majority Leaders have over the span of the last 234 years, republicans finally voted—in a vote of 220 to 209— to elect Louisiana representative Mike Johnson as the 56th speaker of the House of Representatives. “His election ends three weeks of leaderless chaos in the House after conservatives ousted Kevin McCarthy” reported NBC News.

These Speakership elections feel more like a political stunt by a bunch of partisans rather than an actual call for change or action. The fact that they kicked McCarthy out for having to work with Democrats, which is usually how bipartisanship works in Washington, and for not fulfilling all of his colleagues’ wishes, which was never really going to happen seeing as how both the Senate and Presidency are run by Democrats, is a very naive and impulsive move. 

We have a national debt that we need to take care of, we have the ongoing war in Ukraine, and we have a crisis and possible war brewing in the Middle East, so this was not a time for the United States House of Representatives to be hung up in an election for the Speaker of the House.

In a free society, there needs to be cooperation and sometimes a compromise of ideas between one another. Even if we all don’t believe in the same thing, that doesn’t mean that we should tear each other down in the name of our beliefs. Until the House Republicans, especially Matt Gaetz, realize that it’s not about trying to get your way through partisan politics, none of the country’s problems will be solved.