Cannon resisted government regulation of business, supported protective tariffs and frowned upon change in general. It was said that had he been present at the Creation he would have voted against it.
For those following the continuing crisis on Capitol Hill that has the House Republican majority threatening to force a government shutdown, the term “the motion to vacate the chair” is no doubt familiar.
Vacating a chair may sound like the simple act of standing up. But in the specialized language of congressional procedure, it means standing up to the presiding officer — implicitly challenging that officer’s right to preside by threatening to replace the officer altogether.
The phrase, and the procedure, had been bandied about earlier this year in the January melee that finally elevated Speaker Kevin McCarthy to his present job. Rebels from the House Freedom Caucus did not want to allow the California Republican, their titular leader for the last four years, to grasp “the big gavel” unless promised a chance to force his removal.
They wanted any member of the House to be able to force a vote on the speaker’s continuation by making a simple “motion to vacate the chair.”
“Suicide,” said more than a few veterans of Capitol Hill. No speaker would allow that. But before he finally won his job on the 15th ballot, McCarthy had apparently assured his skeptics that the tool would be available as they wished.
And it has been a touchstone ever since for some of the most recalcitrant holdouts against McCarthy’s leadership. One of these, Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida, told Chad Pergram of FOX News the motion to vacate was “not something that we just put on a shelf to admire … we intend to use it.” Gaetz also told CNN that he would use the motion “over and over again until it works.”
Earlier, Gaetz had warned that any move by McCarthy to bring a short-term, stopgap spending measure to the floor to forestall a government shutdown at month’s end would trigger a motion to vacate immediately. He called it a case of “shot, chaser.”
Such talk has been heard throughout the session, including when McCarthy was negotiating with Senate leaders and President Biden over an increase in the national debt ceiling. Lifting that lid has been rather perfunctory in recent years, but it became a potential crisis point when a cadre of members in the House was willing to use it as a hostage in negotiations on spending.
McCarthy managed to outmaneuver that cadre on the debt ceiling, which was raised for two years in the spring. The resistance vowed to get payback in the fall. Their current refusal to vote with McCarthy gives him a choice: Yield to the hardest core within his own party, or try a work-around with at least a few votes from Democrats. It was clear that the latter option risked a motion to vacate the chair.
McCarthy thought he had the votes for a stopgap spending measure to keep the government open past Sept. 30. This week, it became apparent he did not. He had a meeting late Thursday with Gaetz to seek a way forward.
At week’s end, online news media were asking bluntly who was in charge. “How Matt Gaetz Seized the House,” blared the Friday morning headline in Politico.
The threat of a motion to vacate the chair was driving the drama once again.
Speakers have always struggled to keep their most aggressive ideologues in line, especially when their margin of majority control has been narrow. Right now McCarthy’s is in low single digits. On one procedural test vote this past week, the speaker thought he had corralled the last few strays.
