FairVote analysis: THE “MOTION TO VACATE” AND ELECTORAL INCENTIVES
By Rachel Hutchinson, October 4, 2023
HOW ELECTORAL INCENTIVES LED TO KEVIN MCCARTHY’S REMOVAL, AND HOW RANKED CHOICE VOTING COULD HELP CONGRESS FUNCTION
INTRODUCTION
The House of Representatives is without a speaker, and Congress is at a standstill. Yesterday, eight House Republicans and all House Democrats voted to remove Kevin McCarthy from his speakership. The effort was spearheaded by Florida Republican Matt Gaetz, days after McCarthy brokered a bipartisan deal to delay a government shutdown by at least 45 days. Political commentators suspect that Gaetz and company essentially wanted a shutdown.
Some may attribute government dysfunction to strong personalities or ideological purity. However, many scholars agree that legislators are driven by re-election prospects. The circumstances under which Matt Gaetz and his flank were elected support this theory. Gaetz and his colleagues were elected with pluralities of votes in Republican primaries in hyper-partisan districts, and are therefore accountable to just small thresholds of voters. Notably, Gaetz won just 36,000 votes (or 36%) in his first Republican primary in 2016; seven years later, he has led the House into unprecedented chaos.
Voting reforms like ranked choice voting (RCV) and the Fair Representation Act (FRA) could hold representatives accountable to more voters, and incentivize productive legislative behavior.
MEMBERS ELECTED BY A “FRACTION OF A FRACTION” REMOVED MCCARTHY
Less than a year after he won the speakership, McCarthy was faced with the prospect of a government shutdown. When several hard-liners repeatedly refused to sign onto McCarthy’s plans (saying the significant budget cuts he proposed didn’t go far enough), McCarthy went to the Democrats instead and passed a resolution to temporarily keep the government open. As a result, Gaetz motioned to remove McCarthy as speaker and was successful.
Six of the eight Republicans that voted against McCarthy were first elected with a minority of primary votes in safely Republican districts. Those six representatives were chosen by only 284,774 primary voters. Just a few hundred thousand primary voters propelled this faction to derail the work of the entire U.S. House of Representatives.
In their crowded primaries, the nomination of these candidates may have been a function of how votes were split (or each candidate’s ability to rev up a narrow base), rather than who best represented the primary electorate. And if a representative can successfully target a certain flank and win with fewer votes rather than more, why not use the same tactics in Congress?
If Republicans used a majoritarian system like ranked choice voting in more primary elections, their House members would be accountable to a majority of the party, and perhaps less likely to act against its interests in Congress.
RANKED CHOICE VOTING FOR THE SPEAKER'S RACE
In addition to the incentives driving congressional primaries, the incentives behind the House speaker’s race also contributed to this week’s chaos.
This January, McCarthy infamously became speaker after five days and fifteen rounds of voting – unprecedented in the modern era. In circumstances similar to the recent shutdown debate and “motion to vacate,” 20 hard-liners aligned with the House Freedom Caucus effectively commandeered the speaker vote. McCarthy made concessions that resulted in a deal with the caucus, and was sworn in as speaker.
Arguably the most crucial concession was allowing one member to bring a motion to vacate – a vote to remove the speaker. Traditionally, this power has been reserved to members of House leadership. Before yesterday, there had not been a motion to vacate since 1910; this rule change allowed Representative Gaetz and his seven allies to topple McCarthy.
RCV presents an obvious solution from a practical standpoint. Instead of repeated, indefinite rounds of voting, House members could have ranked their choices in order of preference. When no representative won a majority of votes, the vote would have proceeded to an instant runoff. Candidates for speaker would have been eliminated successively until one emerged with a majority of votes.
If a representative’s preferred speaker was eliminated, their vote would count towards their next choice. In other words, the House could elect a consensus speaker with just one round of voting (or perhaps, there could be three “traditional” votes and then RCV could be used if no speaker had been elected by that point).
The governing party would not emerge looking divided and ineffective as the GOP did in January, even if they could not agree on a speaker in the first round. In Congresses where one party has a slim majority (like the current one), potential speakers could also reach across the aisle for backup support.
And just like the eight Republicans who voted for the motion to vacate yesterday, most Republicans that voted against McCarthy in January won their initial primary election with a plurality of votes in safely Republican districts. These representatives have little accountability to the interests of the general electorate.
If parties employed RCV for more primary elections, candidates in safe districts would at least be accountable to the majority of their primary electorates. Legislators would more likely act in their party’s broader interests rather than for just a narrow segment.
CONCLUSION
Congress is certainly a cast of characters; it wouldn’t be a representative body otherwise. The way the system is structured – not any individual or group of representatives – is what enables dysfunction. Congress is only as effective as its incentive structure. When the incentives are broken, there are major real-world impacts – like America’s first credit downgrade in over a decade, or the fact that just 1 in 10 Americans give high ratings to our democracy.
Single-choice voting and safely-partisan House districts enable representatives like Gaetz to keep their jobs by appealing to core primary voters. (Of course, this is not solely a GOP problem; not a single Democrat voted to keep McCarthy as speaker.) McCarthy’s removal is a milestone for congressional dysfunction, and the time is ripe for systemic change.
RCV primaries would hold representatives accountable to their party and the electorate’s broader interests, as would RCV in future speaker’s races.
The Fair Representation Act is a more comprehensive solution that would hold representatives accountable to the general electorate and create opportunities for cross-partisan collaboration.
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