EDITORIAL: Republicans need to move on House leadership

The Republican drama in the House has become more than a sideshow.

The brutal Hamas terror attack on Israel raises the stakes. While several Republicans have come out strongly in favor of additional military aid for the Jewish state, any such proposal will remain on ice until the body elects a new leader. Without a speaker, the House can’t do much at all.

Under current House rules, the temporary speaker — Rep. Patrick T. McHenry, a North Carolina Republican — can preside only over a motion to elect a new speaker, Charles Johnson, the former parliamentarian for the House, told The Washington Post.

“Committees can probably continue holding hearings and votes without a speaker,” according to the Post. “But if they move legislation, there’s no one to bring it to the floor.”

On Monday night, scores of Republican House members met to begin the process of replacing Kevin McCarthy, who was ousted last week when eight members of his caucus sided with Democrats on a vote to remove him. The gathering, behind closed doors, allowed Republicans to “vent their frustrations over the party’s disarray,” The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday.

But disarray may be overstating it. Keep in mind that 213 Republicans lined up behind Mr. McCarthy, with only eight opposed. That was enough to doom the speaker, given the GOP’s tiny minority, but it also indicates that the vast majority of the caucus will line up behind whoever eventually takes up the gavel.

Given the importance of recent events and the inability of the House to act in response to them, the pressure will be immense on any holdouts — as it should be. Demanding ideological purity in the face of current events and the political reality of divided government is a fool’s errand.

Yet it remains unclear whether Republicans can move quickly on this matter. Recall in January that the election of Mr. McCarthy took 15 rounds of voting. “This is a hard conference to lead,” Rep. Steve Womack, R-Ark., told the Journal. “There’s a lot of free agents in there — a lot of people who are just not going to forfeit their individual voting card, and I understand that.”

Republicans are hoping for a Wednesday vote, most likely involving Reps. Jim Jordan of Ohio, Steve Scalise of Louisiana and even, believe it or not, Kevin McCarthy of California. Each of the candidates has strengths and weaknesses, but perfection is not an option at this point.

Further delays will only benefit Democrats and leave the lower chamber frozen in the face of a crisis in the Middle East. It’s vital that GOP members come together and move as quickly as possible to get the House running again.