Congressman Kevin McCarthy is motivated by revenge. That is not the way to represent Clovis

A year ago, in the wake of the Jan. 6 riot, Republican congressman Kevin McCarthy of Bakersfield said President Donald Trump bore responsibility for the mayhem because he did not quickly denounce the mob breaking into the Capitol.

But several weeks later, after Democrat Joe Biden became president, McCarthy went to Trump’s Florida home to ask for his help in getting the GOP to retake the House.

McCarthy also voted against certifying the November election results, a position consistent with Trump’s “stolen election” claims, despite no evidence proving that point.

McCarthy is the GOP leader in the House, so his words and actions carry a great deal of significance. Sadly, his current term is filled with actions that demonstrate he does not care about the two-party system of government in America.

Rather, he is motivated to defend Trump at all costs, even to the point of hypocrisy. He has shown no courage to discipline some of the outrageous behavior of far-right members of his party who deserve repudiation.

Now McCarthy is bent on revenge politics, warning Democrats that if the GOP takes over after November’s election, Republicans will remove some Democratic members from committee assignments as payback for how the far-right members were treated.

McCarthy for Clovis

So why bring all this up? Because McCarthy will likely become the next representative for Clovis.

The city for years was represented by one of the most powerful Republicans in the House of Representatives — Devin Nunes. Even though he was from Tulare, Nunes’ 22nd District reached up to Clovis and west over to north Fresno.

Nunes is now gone, of course. First elected to the House in 2002, Nunes transmitted his resignation letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on New Year’s Day. He’s off to work for Trump, heading up new social media efforts that the former president is undertaking.

Who will be next in line to represent Clovis? First, there will be an immediate election to fill out the rest of Nunes’ term, which covers the remainder of this year.

Longer-term, the 2020 California Citizens Redistricting Commission has put Clovis , the city of 110,000, in Congressional District 20, which McCarthy will almost certainly represent. It is the most Republican leaning of any districts created in the state, with a +31 rating by the political analysts at FiveThirtyEight.

And if Republicans recapture the House majority in the fall balloting, McCarthy would take the speaker’s gavel from Pelosi. That would put him third in the line of succession to lead the nation, should something happen to the president and vice president.

Having the House speaker as an area’s representative should mean lots of benefits for communities; the speaker’s political muscle can get much done.

But right now, McCarthy is motivated by revenge.

Playing House politics

What has him worked up is the removal late last year by Democrats of Republican Reps. Paul Gosar and Majorie Taylor Greene from their House committees.

Gosar, a strident conservative from Arizona, made an animated video that showed him stabbing colleague Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, an outspoken liberal from Brooklyn, and attacking President Biden.

Taylor Greene of Georgia was taken off committees for social media posts she made before she was elected. She supported the QAnon conspiracy theory, controversial remarks about 9/11 and whether mass shootings were “false flag” events.

On Monday, McCarthy said that if he takes over as speaker, he will remove California congressmen Adam Schiff and Eric Swalwell from the Intelligence Committee, and Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota from the Foreign Affairs Committee.

CNN commentator SE Cupp noted that the Democrats took action on Gosar and Taylor Greene because McCarthy refused to discipline them, even as they are members of his party.

Quite the opposite, in fact. McCarthy said that if the GOP takes over, he will reinstate the pair to even “better committee assignments” than the ones they lost.

With all the challenges America faces, and with all the needs of the central San Joaquin Valley, for McCarthy to use his political capital on revenge is wasteful and wrong. Here’s hoping he will reflect on the best use of his time and position to do good instead.

This is a call for him to act with honor, not pettiness, should he become the next speaker, and representative for Clovis.