The former President Donald Trump described him as having “the greatest name in politics.” But Rep. Patrick McHenry, the GOP’s bow-tied, interim speaker who slams the gavel, is only now becoming the latest political fixation in America, memes and all. Additionally, he is about to take over as speaker in a more official capacity after the House GOP decided on Thursday to resolve its leadership issue.
Where did he come from?
You’ll read that the 18-year House veteran, a pragmatist who is prepared to lead and even has Democrats begging for him to rule the House, is the “adult in the room” contrasted to other GOP hard-liners. But things weren’t always like that.
The fact that the North Carolina Republican was once one of them, even before the birth of the GOP tea party movement, is part of the reason he still has any standing with the far right, even though it is eroding in the Matt Gaetz era.
At the age of 29, McHenry was elected to Congress in 2005, where he quickly established a reputation as a “bomb-thrower.” By opposing the government’s economic rescue plans in the aftermath of the global financial crisis, he advanced in the House GOP ranks and contributed to the failure of the Bush administration’s initial attempt to bail out Wall Street, which led to a market crash.
Early in McHenry’s career, a Roll Call columnist referred to him as “the GOP’s attack dog-in-training” when he engaged Democrats in an ethics conflict against Majority Leader Tom Delay, who was charged with criminal conspiracy.
However, McHenry then became grave. He settled in at the House Financial Services Committee, which creates legislation governing stock trading and banks and developed into an expert on Wall Street policy. He also entered the House leadership, rising to become the chief deputy whip and one of the most effective GOP vote counts.
After the Republicans regained control of the House last year, McHenry, a father of three now, had a chance to participate in its management. He declined, making it clear that he didn’t want to argue with conservatives about government spending and the debt ceiling, and instead took the helm of the Financial Services Committee to concentrate on “making law.”
How does he function?
McHenry’s shift to GOP statesman doesn’t quite mean that he has given up his conservative principles. But he’s made it obvious that he’s willing to compromise to close a deal.
Take McHenry’s strategy at House Financial Services as an example. Rep. Maxine Waters, the panel’s top Democrat and McHenry’s polar opposite has been courted by McHenry for years in an effort to design legislation that might have a chance of passing the Senate and being approved by the president. He described the committee as a vibrant hub of bipartisanship before he took the gavel.
“We’ve been able to find a compromise on helping families and small businesses obtain lending and access to capital,” he said.
Early in the year, former Speaker Kevin McCarthy looked to McHenry for assistance in resolving the debt-limit standoff. It thrilled hearts on Wall Street because bankers felt certain that McHenry would speak with reason and help prevent a financial crisis for the nation. After all, he had publicly cautioned against holding the debt ceiling hostage last year, knowing McCarthy was headed in that direction.
One ideology score places McHenry fairly in the middle of his party. He thinks that climate change is real and that “we need to take action.” He has advocated for aid to Ukraine. He avoided some of the culture war themes that are consuming Republican politics, and he even attracted criticism from the right when he put Waters’ top objective of diversity and inclusion on the Financial Services oversight agenda.
McHenry, unlike some other conservatives, refrained from criticizing the Biden administration’s handling of the problem after a rapid series of regional bank collapses in March, signaling a complete change from his bombastic past.
At the time, McHenry stated, “I’m confident in their ability to do the right thing.
Next, what?
Although it is understandable that McCarthy would leave a top deputy in command of the House, McHenry was not interested in the position. Many in Washington thought McHenry was nearing the end of his tenure in Congress before he delivered the gavel smack heard around the globe earlier this month.
The speculation was more based on connecting the dots than on McHenry’s remarks. He was opposed to serving in the House leadership. After the 2024 election, a term limit on his chairmanship of Financial Services takes effect. He has a young family and has worked in politics since he was in his twenties.
According to one former Republican leadership aide, “The conventional wisdom at the beginning of this Congress was that McHenry would serve the last two years as chairman before he could either retire or become speaker.” “Nobody really thought that speaker would be able to,”