Democratic leaders in Congress will soon face tactics and pressures from their left similar to what the Republican right used to bring down one speaker and make life hell for another, a former top GOP aide predicted.
Leganski's Warning for Democrats
“If Democrats take the House,” John Leganski said, of the midterm elections in November, “you see these socialist candidates rising. I saw a candidate in Colorado say, ‘I’m not voting for anyone for leadership that took corporate Pac money.’ I guarantee you, [minority leader] Hakeem Jeffries’ office is reading that comment and sweating, because that’s what we were doing in the lead up to the [2022 midterm] election as well. It’s just a tight margin, and every vote counts.”
Leganski watched from Washington as Colorado candidate Melat Kiros, a 29-year-old democratic socialist beat 15-term incumbent Diana DeGette last Tuesday in a primary shaped by surging opposition to Israel and support for universal healthcare, similar to the sweep of wins in New York the week before. He surmised candidates like Kiros may not vote Jeffries for speaker if Democrats win the majority in the House this November.
From McCarthy Aide to Author
From Illinois, Leganski was already a longtime aide to Kevin McCarthy when the California Republican, a relative moderate in a party marching right, was elected speaker in January 2023. Leganski became the youngest floor director in House history but all too soon he and his boss were out of a job. Now a lobbyist, Leganski has written Glory, Grief, and the Gavel, a book about how far-right Republicans first tortured McCarthy through 15 votes for the speakership, then brutally ejected him eight months later.
“My timeline is that Democrats are about 10 years behind Republicans in this evolution” of extremes gaining significant power, Leganski said. Saying “history doesn’t repeat itself, but it rhymes,” he cited an earlier earthshaking primary, Democratic caucus chair Joe Crowley’s loss to bartender Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in New York in 2018, as a harbinger of this summer.
Polling widely shows Democratic voters favoring a new generation of candidates; less so establishment-oriented politicians, partly fueled by the desire for the affordability agenda on which many democratic socialists have built their platforms.
Congress as a Pseudo-Parliamentary System
“I think Congress is turning into a pseudo-parliamentary system,” Leganski said, of two parties fracturing into factions. “The different groups are all under one or the other banner, but that’s really what I felt that 15 rounds of voting was about, was us trying to cobble together a governing majority, like you see in parliaments around the world.”
McCarthy’s successor, Mike Johnson of Louisiana, works under more favorable conditions. Chiefly, it now takes nine Republicans to introduce a motion to vacate the speakership, not one. But Johnson must also cope with the unpredictability of Donald Trump while keeping the right under some sort of control. Leganski spoke the morning after he failed to do so, members of the Freedom caucus, McCarthy’s antagonists, topping a chaotic few days by defeating a rules vote, leading Johnson to send the House home early.
Villain: Matt Gaetz
Leganski’s telling of what happened to McCarthy has a clear villain: the then Florida congressman Matt Gaetz, organizer of both agonizing election and brutal ejection, who Leganski calls a “cancer” needing to be cut out. Not a Freedom caucus member, Gaetz nonetheless guided the far-right group. Leganski’s catalogue of bad behavior is long, including machinations for committee roles Leganski says were meant to create “a taxpayer-subsidized legal defense fund” against an ethics investigation McCarthy wouldn’t block and which ultimately found Gaetz paid for sex with women including a minor and used illicit drugs, among other charges.
Leganski goes so far as to compare Gaetz to Syndrome, the supervillain in the Disney comedy The Incredibles. But Capitol Hill rivalries can be subtle too. Leganski’s portrait of Johnson is one of quiet ambition.
Mike Johnson's Quiet Ambition
“He was someone that got a vote in the internal conference balloting,” Leganski said. “He was someone that we learned had been approached by members of the Freedom caucus to consider running should Kevin not get there, or just should run regardless. I write in the book that I felt Johnson was paying attention.
“My line was, he was standing where he thought the bouquet might land. He didn’t orchestrate our ouster, he didn’t precipitate it or cheer for it, but he wasn’t at the bar and the bouquet just fell into his drink. He was, I think, positioned where he thought it might land. It showed me again that timing is everything in politics, and he had the right timing, he had the right cadence.”
In other words, Johnson, who succeeded after a succession of GOP leaders – “Scalise and Jordan and Emmer and McHenry” – failed to gain enough support, is as rightwing as the Freedom caucus but more polished in manner. For now, he holds the gavel.
After the episode, writing was therapy, in a way Leganski said, and McCarthy approved the manuscript.
The Nature of the Beast
Leganski said Johnson “has done a great job in the role, honestly. I empathize greatly. There might be different villains in his book one day than mine, but the central facet of the House that is inescapable, and I think will be inescapable for the time to come, for Republican or Democratic speakers, is the tight margins.
“So I watch what happened this week and I say, ‘I get it.’ I know a lot of people on Johnson’s team … I just tell them, ‘Hang in there, keep grinding, keep chipping away.’ This is the nature of the beast. It’s not just limited to Kevin. I don’t think it’ll be limited just to Mike.” Glory, Grief, and the Gavel: An Inside Guide to Running for Speaker of the House is out now.
