For years, U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has been revered by Democrats and demonized by Republicans; the dynamic, sadly, survived the brutal attack on her husband Paul in October, and was on full view when Pelosi stood before fellow House members last month and announced that she’d be stepping back from leadership.
The Democratic side of the chamber was packed with well-wishers, according to an account from NBC News, but on the Republican side attendance was sparse.
Kevin McCarthy, the fellow Californian hoping to fill Pelosi’s shoes as speaker, said he couldn’t make it, citing meetings. Just one member of the GOP leadership did deign to honor this icon of American politics and master of the legislative process: Steve Scalise of Jefferson Parish, the second-ranking Republican behind McCarthy.
Soon after, Scalise’s name came up during a CNN interview with Hakeem Jeffries, the New York Democrat who will succeed Pelosi as Democratic leader in the next Congress, representing the minority in a closely divided House.
Asked how he’d work with the man most likely to be his GOP counterpart, Jeffries made it clear that his relationship with McCarthy is at best cool.
“I do have, I think, a much warmer relationship with Steve Scalise,” Jeffries volunteered.
This isn’t necessarily the side of Scalise that those who’ve watched his turn on the national stage during recent years would recognize. On television and in news releases, he regularly plays partisan pit bull, and he often disparages Democratic adversaries with enthusiasm, even as he steadfastly refuses to acknowledge former President Donald Trump’s countless offenses against democracy and common decency. Unfortunately, this is the way things go in Washington these days.
A fuller picture should be at least somewhat familiar to the people of Scalise’s home state, though.
Scalise had a famously close relationship with Cedric Richmond, the former congressman from a neighboring New Orleans district and as true-believing a Democrat as Scalise is a committed Republican. He also counts Troy Carter, who now holds the seat, as a friend and partner in legislation of local import. And he appears to get along with Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards just fine.
During his time in the House, his less combative side has shown itself on occasion. Back in 2014, he worked with Maxine Waters, another California Democrat whom Republicans love to hate, to keep federal flood insurance more affordable for homeowners. In 2020, he criticized the toxic politics of Marjorie Taylor Greene and supported a Republican primary opponent, to no avail.
Chalk at least some of this up to Scalise’s formational years in the Louisiana Legislature, where coalitions surrounding individual issues are historically more fluid than they are in Washington and where bipartisan legislation is common (although disturbingly, becoming less so in recent years).
Certainly Scalise understands his role as a party leader in the current environment and embraces it. But he has retained the invaluable, and unfortunately rare, ability to not make things personal, to not treat political disputes as showdowns with mortal enemies.
That in no way excuses the many times Scalise has leaned into the era’s ugliness instead of away from it.
He absolutely encouraged the baseless conspiracy that the 2020 election was stolen, and amazingly questioned Pelosi's actions leading up to Jan. 6, 2021, even as he scrupulously avoided pinning any responsibility for stoking the violent insurrection on Trump. He has also voted against — and in his current role as Republican whip, lined up votes in opposition to — legislation to meet some of Louisiana’s vast infrastructure needs.
But as he prepares to become the House majority leader, the highest-ranking post a Louisianan has held in many decades, Scalise’s better instincts — the ones that led him to the House floor to honor Pelosi and forge a relationship across the aisle with Jeffries — could help make Congress more functional and solve some actual problems in his home state.
I hope he chooses to listen to them more often than not.