Let's appreciate Congressional history as Republican standoff continues in the House
The situation in the House this week has been embarrassing and chaotic but it's not unprecedented
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}With House Republicans’ new majority failing, after over ten ballots, to elect a Speaker – the first time in 100 years that such a vote has gone into extra rounds to do so – many in the media and lawmakers from both parties are rightly describing this moment as chaotic, dysfunctional and embarrassing.
They are certainly correct, and it falls on the House Republican members to resolve this deadlock one way or another – and fast – to restore faith in their leadership and get down to the business of governing as a functioning majority.
As embarrassing as this impasse stands for the GOP and Congress as a whole, it is indeed rare, but not unprecedented, in the history of both chambers of the legislative branch. Many have pointed to the last time an election for Speaker extended beyond a first ballot exactly a century ago, in 1923.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}That year, 26 House Republicans, led by 17 known as "the La Follette insurgents" failed to join 195 of their party colleagues in backing the front-runner at the time, incumbent Speaker Rep. Frederick Gillett, R-Mass., also in a dispute over House rules.
MCCARTHY HINTS HOUSE MAY CONTINUE VOTES THROUGH WEEKEND
The standoff took three days and nine ballots to resolve, when Republicans fell into line and re-elected Gillett as Speaker, in a deal negotiated by Ohio GOP member Nicholas Longworth, who became Speaker himself two years later. Close to 70 years before that, the House took some three months and more than 100 votes to elect Rep. Nathaniel Banks as Speaker in February 1856 during the acrimonious leadup to the Civil War.
But perhaps the most striking – literally – display of legislative chaos in history occurred just over three months later, when, once again in a dispute over slavery, a member of the House reacted to a famously heated debate by senators across the Capitol by racing across the Rotunda into the upper Chamber, to beat one of those senators, Massachusetts antislavery Republican Charles Sumner, over the head and nearly to death with a cane.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}THE VOTE FOR HOUSE SPEAKER: LIVE UPDATES
In that debate, the rhetorical master Sumner taunted two of his pro-slavery Democrat colleagues, Stephen Douglas of Illinois and Andrew Butler of South Carolina, with famous words, calling senator Douglas across from him in the chamber, a "noise-some, squat, and nameless animal… not a proper model for an American senator."
Then, without missing a beat, Sumner charged that senator Butler, in supporting slavery was courting "a mistress… who, though ugly to others, is always lovely to him; though polluted in the sight of the world, is chaste in his sight – I mean the harlot, Slavery."
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}CLICK HERE TO GET THE OPINION NEWSLETTER
Learning of those words across the Capitol in the House chamber, South Carolina Democrat Preston Brooks, a loyal ally of Butler, grabbed a cane, made his way rapidly over to the upper chamber and, according to Senate historians, "slammed his metal-topped cane onto the unsuspecting Sumner's head.
As Brooks struck again and again, Sumner rose and lurched blindly about the chamber, futilely attempting to protect himself. After a very long minute, it ended…Bleeding profusely, Sumner was carried away. Brooks walked calmly out of the chamber without being detained by the stunned onlookers.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Overnight, both men became heroes in their respective regions." Brooks was censured by his colleagues, resigned his seat and was promptly re-elected. Sumner took some three years to recover from his wounds, returned to the Senate, and served almost 18 years from the date of the attack.
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
This week’s spectacle of a GOP impasse is indeed embarrassing and demands a quick resolution so members from both parties can return to doing their job for the Americans who elected them.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}No matter how heated this week’s machinations have become among Republicans, it is important to keep in mind the at-times-checkered history of our first branch of government and resolve that both intraparty and partisan rhetoric remain just that going forward. The duties and responsibilities of our elected representatives in Congress demand no less.
Thomas Grant is a Senior Fellow, Wolfson College, University of Cambridge, and a former senior official at the State Department.