I’ve known Steve Scalise for a long time, since he first went to the state Legislature long before he moved up to Congress. As often as I’ve disagreed with him — and I have more than I haven't — I’ve watched as he worked with others he disagrees with to make things happen for our state.
I believe that in this fraught moment, of the people who might realistically become the next Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, he’s best positioned to represent Louisiana’s interests in Washington — and, much more importantly, to help move beyond the extreme mess that led to the ouster of former Speaker Kevin McCarthy by a fringe faction of his own caucus, after McCarthy had kowtowed to them to the point of real harm to our country but still not enough to make them happy.
And let’s get this part out of the way right now: No, that doesn’t mean I think what Scalise did on Jan. 6, 2021, and quite a few times before and after, is OK.
Far from it. Even understanding that his roles as Republican whip and now majority leader demanded that he play the full-throated partisan, I’ve found Scalise’s willingness to support former President Donald Trump’s terrible conduct intellectually dishonest and deeply offensive, never more so than when Trump tried to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power to duly-elected President Joe Biden.
As someone who came up through the conservative movement but also an institutionalist, Scalise had a choice to make, whether to side with those who’d blow up our system to get what they want or to defend our norms, our laws and our Constitution.
He chose wrong, and by virtue of his prominent role, he effectively invited extreme positions into the mainstream and helped create a permission structure for others to go along — most dramatically, when he assailed the attack on the Capitol but then turned around that night and voted against full certification of the election results. Every other Republican Louisianan in Congress except U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy did the same thing, but Scalise was a leader, and the fact that many others followed is at least somewhat on him.
Two weeks later, Scalise attended Biden’s inauguration and pointedly sat with a famous Louisiana Democrat, Donna Brazile, but the damage of standing with Trump was done.
Ironically but predictably, Trump isn’t standing with him. In the contest for speaker, the ex-president endorsed Jim Jordan, a like-minded chaos agent who was pretty much born with resting rant face.
As the weak-kneed McCarthy learned and as Scalise must get by now, you can’t control the crazy, or harness it. And appeasement most but not all of the time is never going to be enough.
And yet, given the options, he still rises to the top of my list.
Scalise made some bad choices — disqualifying ones in a perfect world — but is still capable of making good ones. Like showing up to the Biden inauguration with Brazile, and to honor former Democratic House Speaker Nancy’s Pelosi’s groundbreaking tenure when McCarthy, her successor, couldn’t be bothered to. Like maintaining a productive working relationship with Louisiana Democratic colleagues Cedric Richmond and Troy Carter, and also current Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries, who has compared Scalise favorably to McCarthy.
Those are things you do when you want Congress to function, which shouldn’t even be a question but sadly these days is.
Would Scalise be able to lower the temperature and put the pieces back together? Would anyone? Who knows?
If he wins support from both the radical and the moderate wings of his party, keeping them together would be one of the most difficult challenges he’s faced, and this is a guy who survived an assassination attempt and is now battling cancer.
But of the people who are in the running or likely to be, I think — and maybe naively hope — that Scalise is the one who might be able to right the ship.
Because somebody’s got to.
