On April 11, 2018
Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (R-WI) announced he would leave Congress at the
end of his term in January 2019.
"I did not seek
this job. I took it reluctantly. But I have given this job everything I
have," Ryan said. "To be clear, I am not resigning. I will serve my
full term as I was elected to do."
Ryan was cast to the
country as the champion of bipartisan cooperation to solve the debt crisis and the
protection of the makers from the predations of the takers.
While Ryan ostensibly attributes
his decision to step down to wanting to spend more time with his family, he
leaves behind a House that has lost institutional capacity and public respect.
He leaves behind a conference that is divided and ineffective, one that may
well spend much of the rest of this year deciding who might next inherit the speakership.
The absence of a strong
Speaker of the House has greatly diminished the GOP advantage in that body.
Congress is always an extraordinarily difficult institution. By design, it is
does not move speedily and it creates innumerable ways to block progress. With
an Executive Branch that has vastly expanded in power since the early 20th
century, and an electorate that is increasingly divided along party lines,
effective governance requires some sort of centralizing force that can help to
bring about compromise and push back against the more destructive forces in the
House and the Senate.
A strong speaker is an
important part of the solution to America’s illnesses. The steady erosion of
the speakership (Hastert, Boehner and Ryan) is not healthy for the institution.
Someone has to take charge in an increasingly dysfunctional Capitol Hill.
Yesterday Ryan lectured
young congressional aides on civility in public discourse and on social media. "These
days, we don’t even really set out to persuade anymore. We just hit each over
the head until the music stops."
"Here is the way I
see this: it is no longer just that our passions are getting the best of us.
More and more, our politics is enabling the worst in us. We no longer see our opponents as ‘the other
side,’ but simply as ‘the others’. As someone not fundamentally like
us. The more politics preys on our divisions, the more we become defined
by them. It leads to a view of life and society as a zero-sum game where
one group has to win at the expense of the other."
Ryan warned against
retreating "to the comfort, and conformity, of our tribes," as
"this blinds us to the perspectives that others bring to the table."
"In turn, we
ourselves don’t reach out, don’t offer our time and energy. And social media
just amplifies all of these trends. It is an industry where you can make money
feeding fear and resentment. We are
caught in this paradox where we are more connected than ever, but we could not
feel more disconnected or more alienated. We just cannot let our divisions
overtake our basic respect for another. We need to recognize that we are
all less-than-perfect. We all fall short, we all struggle. We all want to be
heard, and to be needed. Our humanity spurs us to find perspective, to
listen, and to lend a hand. This is without question the greatest antidote, the
greatest antibody, we have against the forces of alienation."
He even produced a
lame-ass video in which he read mean tweets:
When a resolution was issued to impeach Deputy Attorney General Rod
Rosenstein late last night accusing him of thwarting congressional oversight
and obstruction by defying congressional subpoenas in the Mueller Russia
investigation, Ryan opposed the move saying the “accusations don’t rise to the
necessary level of high crimes and misdemeanors.”
According to The
Washington Examiner, the resolution was filed as a nonprivileged motion,
meaning Ryan would have to approve it for a vote on the House floor. Freedom
Caucus member Mark Meadows (R-NC) said he could instead file it as a privileged
motion, requiring a vote on the House floor within two days.
“We hope that it
doesn’t have to come to that but starting tomorrow we can bring it up as a
privileged motion. That’s something that
any member of Congress, Jim [Jordan R-OH] or I can do. And quite frankly, it’s
either we hold him in contempt or we get the documents, or we impeach him.”
On Rosenstein's watch,
the Justice Department has "made every effort to obstruct legitimate
attempts of congressional oversight," Meadows said. "The stonewalling
over this last year has been just as bad or worse than under the Obama Administration."
He added, "This
level of conduct, paired with the failure to even feign an interest in
transparency, is reprehensible. And whether you're a Republican or a Democrat,
this kind of obstruction is wrong — period."
In the end, Meadows
decided not to carry out that threat for now. He did not file a privileged
motion for impeachment, and House Republicans announced this morning they would
not vote on the matter before they leave for their August recess.
Meadows is “tabling” his
efforts to impeach pursuing instead contempt if the Justice Department does not
turn over the documents Congress has demanded.
Ryan must, as Speaker, partner with the Freedom Caucus.
Ryan discovered long ago that the Freedom Caucus buried his family
jewels in the same graveyard where they buried John Boehner’s.
