By Michael Shepherd - Oct. 4, 2023
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The House speaker's ouster caused "chaos." Here's the Maine fallout. It happened, folks. On Tuesday, Kevin McCarthy became the first House speaker ousted by his members. No clear successor has emerged to inherit the difficult task of presiding over a narrow and unruly Republican majority.

It only took a handful of Republicans led by Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida to seal McCarthy's fate over the spending deal he inked over the weekend with Democrats to avoid a government shutdown. All of those same Democrats voted with Gaetz, saying McCarthy could not be trusted.

It was clear that McCarthy was done around midday, when Rep. Jared Golden of Maine's 2nd District said he saw no reason to bail the speaker out. Golden is at the ideological center of the chamber. His opposition to McCarthy was a clear signal that Democrats would be united in helping Gaetz remove him.

Golden and McCarthy have a history. After the Maine congressman was elected in 2019, his first floor fight was with the future House speaker over H.R. 1, which was Democrats' signature campaign finance reform measure. After Golden spoke for the bill, McCarthy stood up to call it a "democratic socialist" attempt to undermine the U.S. political system.

“I fought in two wars for this country in Afghanistan and Iraq, and I reject this socialist rhetoric,” Golden retorted, nodding to his service in the Marines.

Fast forward to 2023 and Golden is still representing one of the nation's top swing House districts, which voted twice for former President Donald Trump while returning the centrist Democrat to office twice. McCarthy and the House Republican campaign arm have supported state Rep. Austin Theriault, a former NASCAR driver from Fort Kent, in a three-way primary for the nomination to oust Golden next year.

The congressman met with McCarthy on the spending situation last week. They apparently reached no detente. While the speaker chose to work with Democrats to avoid a shutdown over the weekend, he got no credit for that once it came time to vote on his ouster.

Instead, Golden issued a statement hitting McCarthy for not supporting bills on issues affecting Maine. The only reaction from Republicans came from their campaign arm in the House, which compared Golden and Democrats to "arsonists complaining about fire damage."

"As House Republicans continue to try to do the people's work considering critical funding bills, House Democrats are using every dirty trick to delay, deflect, and destroy the institution," Savannah Viar, a spokesperson for the National Republican Congressional Committee, said.

Of course, this leaves out that Republicans have been unable to unite their side. Democrats have responded to that criticism by saying Republicans need to figure out their problems, and that will be Golden's line.

It is also worth noting that his actual opponents have not taken sides on any of this. Two of them — Theriault and state Rep. Michael Soboleski of Phillips — turned down opportunities to criticize Golden, Gaetz or McCarthy between Tuesday and Wednesday, focusing on the general mess in Congress.

"Many in Congress are putting politics over the people of Maine and the country," Theriault said in a statement. "This mess is completely unacceptable."

"Regardless of your opinion of Kevin McCarthy, today is further evidence of dysfunction in Washington," Soboleski said.

It is early in this campaign. As the little-known Republicans begin trying to build their profiles, they look like they do not want to alienate primary voters from the establishment to the grassroots. Golden and his opponents will face more questions about the situation the longer the House is paralyzed with no leader.