Speaker’s Choice

He doesn’t want the job—Paul Ry­an has made that abund­antly clear—but Re­pub­lic­ans still hope that the Ways and Means Com­mit­tee chair­man will change his mind and seek the House speak­er­ship. He is, after all, the only pos­sible can­did­ate who could plaus­ibly bridge the ideo­lo­gic­al, styl­ist­ic, and stra­tegic chasm between the main­stream, es­tab­lish­ment-friendly Re­pub­lic­ans and the 35 to 40 law­makers, mostly mem­bers of the Free­dom Caucus, that The Wall Street Journ­al has dubbed “the Re­fuseniks.” Even if Ry­an as­sents, however, the path to the speak­er­ship might re­quire con­ces­sions to the Re­fuseniks that he would be un­will­ing to make. One Free­dom Caucus de­mand is to co­di­fy the so-called Hastert Rule, re­quir­ing that a ma­jor­ity of the cham­ber’s Re­pub­lic­ans sup­port a meas­ure be­fore the full House can con­sider it. This would change the House to one in which a plur­al­ity, not a ma­jor­ity, rules. Noth­ing could pass the House without ap­prov­al from 124 Re­pub­lic­ans, the barest ma­jor­ity of the cham­ber’s 247 Re­pub­lic­ans, ef­fect­ively mov­ing the ideo­lo­gic­al cen­ter of grav­ity to the right. This would fur­ther mar­gin­al­ize the House, already the most ideo­lo­gic­al part