The U.S. House of Representatives voted to remove Speaker Kevin McCarthy of California in a history-making motion to vacate, initiated by Representative Matt Gaetz of Florida.  The motion was introduced just days after McCarthy devised bipartisan legislation to prevent a government shutdown.  It is the first time ever that a motion to vacate was successful.  The vote places the house without a speaker, and there is no plan by those who initiated the action to fill the top spot in the chamber.  By the way, the speaker is second in the Presidential Line of Succession.

The tactic to remove the speaker was successful, but there is no overall strategy to govern.  Most people want to see a government that runs, irrespective of political stripe, even if it means compromising with the opposing party.  The last thing the country needs is a leadership vacuum.  A recent Leadership Matrix post touched upon how Ronald Reagan and Tip O’Neal utilized a spirit of compromise to get things done, despite being on opposite ends of the political spectrum.

From a piece on the Constitution from the Library of Congress, The Constitution was the work of many minds and stands as a model of cooperative statesmanship and the art of compromise.  Well said.

The historic nature of this motion to vacate is fascinating- it was only the third time it was introduced on the house floor.  The speaker’s allies at the time first introduced the motion as a show of strength in 1910.  The motion was introduced the second time and subsequently withdrawn in 2015.

Here is a great write-up from the House Archives of the events while Illinois Speaker Joe Cannon was in power that led to the motion filed in 1910.  ‘His opponents called him a czar and a tyrant’- enjoy the piece and let me know what you think about this history-making event to remove a speaker of the house!  Click here to email me.

~ Brian Kasal- The Leadership Matrix

Click here- U.S. House Archives: “The Speaker Bluffed You” — Joe Cannon and the 1910 Motion to Vacate the Chair

P.S.- Did you see my last Leadership Matrix post? The Rise of Hydrogen

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