The day before he was ousted, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy was doing what he loved — stopping to greet tourists at the Capitol and gushing over its place in American democracy. But on Wednesday, McCarthy’s House was shuttered, his Republican majority in chaos for the foreseeable future. The arc of McCarthy’s political career went from running a sandwich counter in Bakersfield, California, to the pinnacle of power. His downfall was engineered by the hard-right Republican lawmakers he once recruited to Congress but ultimately could not tame. Without a House speaker, the Congress cannot fully function — to pass laws, fund the government — as the branch of government closest to the people.
