Lesley Stahl’s Curious Comments on the Speakership Election

By Dominic Pino

Monday, January 09, 2023

 

Lesley Stahl concluded 60 Minutes yesterday with some curious comments on the House’s speakership election. She said:

 

The historic chaos in the House of Representatives this past week embarrassed not only a party, but an entire nation. A small minority blocked the House from electing a leader, or even swearing in its own members.

 

But it was a majority that blocked the House from electing McCarthy on the first 14 ballots. The group of Republicans who initially did not support McCarthy were joined by all 212 Democrats. If it was truly so important to elect a speaker quickly, some of those Democrats could have voted for McCarthy or voted “present” to speed the process along. But they didn’t, because they didn’t want McCarthy to be speaker, either.

 

Stahl continued:

 

Vote after vote, a would-be speaker could not bring himself to stand aside in favor of a colleague.

 

Which colleague? No Republican other than McCarthy wanted the job. If Stahl would have preferred a Democrat be speaker of a majority-Republican chamber, that would contradict her apparent concern for majority rule expressed earlier.

 

Stahl concluded:

 

Yes, it was only for a few days in January, but if members of the incoming majority party can’t bring themselves to support a new leader – then one wonders what happens when Congress faces tough decisions on budgets, taxes, defense or raising the debt ceiling – actually governing.

 

Hopefully, Congress will have raucous and lively debates on those topics as well.