With the election of Mike Johnson of Louisiana as the new House speaker, the US has now got its federal government back. Without a speaker, Congress cannot function. For the past four weeks, the House of Representatives has been a phantom legislature. It has been absent without leave at a time of global crisis. The return to business is therefore better than a continuation of the paralysis on Capitol Hill.
But it has been obtained at a very high price. In September, the former speaker Kevin McCarthy made a deal with House Democrats to avoid a government shutdown. In revenge, eight implacable Republicans voted for Congressman Matt Gaetz’s motion to oust him, which passed with Democrat support. The Republican caucus then immobilised Congress through several failed attempts to elect a new speaker. Mr Johnson has now succeeded as he has accumulated fewer enemies, because pragmatists want an end to the impasse and because the right thinks that he is their man.
