Our View: Boehner symptom of larger problem

House Speaker John Boehner’s announcement Friday that he would resign from Congress at the end of October was surprising in its timing. But his exit hardly was surprising.

He left the speakership before he could be fired from it, by his own party members.

No speaker since Tip O’Neill, who served from 1977 to 1986, has surrendered the gavel willingly. That’s a testament to the position’s prestige and power. Yet, Boehner is leaving not because of an electoral shift, nor is he disgraced by scandal. Rather, he has become a pariah to a substantial faction within his Republican Party that sees him as being unable and unwilling to push a conservative, confrontational agenda against Democratic — and especially White House — opposition.

The House GOP’s Freedom Caucus — a tea party-inspired group whose 37 members include Rep. Ron DeSantis, who represents Flagler County and most of Volusia County — was gathering sufficient votes to oust Boehner as speaker. His only hope of survival was to solicit Democratic support. And having a Republican speaker who owes his job to the other side of the aisle is a politically untenable situation.

So Boehner did the right thing, for himself, for the House and for his party. But his departure hardly presages any improvement in a dysfunctional Congress.

If, as is speculated, Boehner’s successor is one of his lieutenants, such as Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy of California, that merely maintains the poisonous dynamic of establishment Republicans defending the status quo against rebellious conservatives. The alternative would be to somehow cobble together enough votes to elect as speaker one of the GOP insurgents — or at least someone considered outside the old guard.

That person would be expected to wield a partisan cudgel for largely symbolic battles, the strategy being that the House should pass a broad range of conservative policy ideas even though most of them would be filibustered by Democrats in the Senate, or vetoed by President Obama. The goal is just to get Democrats on the record for opposing them.

Little would be accomplished, but the right would be emboldened by a renewed fighting spirit, with many believing public opinion eventually would swing to their side.

Boehner’s failure to produce Republican victories, though, isn’t so much from a lack of skill or will. Rather, it is emblematic of the decline of Congress in general, to which both parties have contributed.

For decades, Congress has ceded power to the executive and judicial branches, diminishing its constitutional role as a co-equal partner in governing. Members have expended a lot of hot air denouncing various policies and decisions, but have comfortably benefited from escaping responsibility for making hard choices. Rhetoric wins elections; actions can anger voters. As a result, the administrative state governed by the chief executive has expanded like a glacier, and too much policy is set by judicial fiat.

Conservatives are rightly angered and frustrated by President Obama’s promiscuous use of executive orders in place of legislation, but they were complacent when President George W. Bush used his pen to set law (the reverse being true for Democrats). The speaker, and the Senate majority leader, don’t have comparable singular powers to effect change. They must reconcile legislative factions.

Alas, politics used to be defined as the art of compromise, but today such accommodation is viewed as weakness, a selling out of principle. Securing anything less than 100 percent is a failure; half-loaves have become crumbs.

A speaker will truly succeed not as an instrument of partisan wrath, but only if he or she is a transformative figure who reasserts congressional power, elevating the institution back to its proper place at the table.