Politics, News, Republicans

Congress is Officially Lost in the Fun House

Who were the leaders of the McCarthy Speakership vote fiasco?

John Dean
6 min readJan 9, 2023

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Photo from Twitter via Wikimedia

The 15 rounds of voting that culminated in the election of Kevin McCarthy as Speaker of the House of Representatives were compelling television for some of us. Material for dozens of political science Ph.D. theses was created, but the brazen power grab by the right-wing Freedom Caucus was also fascinating as a study of the types of people being elected to Congress here in the second decade of the 21st century.

I watched several hours of the process over four days with Maria Grant, a fellow journalist with the Spy Newspapers on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. Ms. Grant shared her thoughts on the process in a column published in the Talbot Spy, Chestertown Spy, and Cambridge Spy this morning. I am reprinting it here with the permission of Ms. Grant and the Spy newspapers.

Congress is Officially Lost in the Fun House by Maria Grant

When I was a grad student at Georgetown, admittedly many years ago, it was easy to enter the House gallery and witness the proceedings. I spent many afternoons after class in the gallery watching bills become laws. I was in awe of the process and impressed by

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John Dean

Writing on politics, photography, nature, the environment, dogs, and, occasionally, humor. Editor of Dean’s List.