The House doesn’t have a speaker. Again.

We don’t have a speaker of the House. Again. My prediction that Speaker Kevin McCarthy would survive a challenge until at least November proved to be incorrect. It is possible that a new speaker will be chosen between the time I write this column on Saturday morning and the column’s publication, but chances of that are slim. I hope I am wrong. Assuming I am not, what does McCarthy’s ouster mean for the House of Representatives today and could we see a bipartisan solution to the speakership?

If you remember from January when the House kept voting down Kevin McCarthy the first time, without a speaker the House of Representatives cannot do anything. The reason is because the House is run by rules and a calendar, both of which are set by the speaker. No speaker? No rules. No calendar. Nothing gets done.

Speaker McCarthy left behind an Acting Speaker, Patrick McHenry of North Carolina, but there is a lot of disagreement over what powers the acting speaker actually holds. Some legal scholars have said that McHenry has all the powers of the speaker of the House. Other legal scholars have argued that all McHenry can do is to run the election for a permanent speaker. McHenry’s actions up to this point have indicated that he believes he possesses very little power because he has made no active attempts at governing as of right now.

What is the likelihood of a bipartisan speaker? It is slim, but if you squint you can see the logic behind it. The House of Representatives has 27 members who won districts where the opposite party won the presidential vote; 14 Republicans represent districts won by Joe Biden and 13 Democrats represent districts won by Donald Trump. If either of those groups formed some kind of coalition with the opposite party they could, in theory, get someone elected. Those group sizes do not look very large, but remember that the Republican majority is only nine seats.

Presumably a candidate for speaker who could draw support from these members would be more politically moderate than a typical speaker candidate. Assuming that a moderate Republican was attempting to woo those 13 Democrats to their side, they are going to run into the same problem that Kevin McCarthy ran into. If Matt Gaetz thinks that Kevin McCarthy is too liberal to be speaker, then what is he going to think when a more moderate Republican steps up and their pitch is, “I am supported by Democrats”? Theoretically the Democrats could partner with the 14 Republicans in Biden districts but that is potentially more dangerous for those Republicans because it would flip the party in power and give the Democrats control of the House, Senate and the presidency. Any Republican Representative who does that is guaranteeing themselves a primary challenge and abandonment by the party apparatus.

A more realistic option if the Republicans are incapable of coalescing around a single candidate is to find a speaker who can win the majority of Republicans and the support of a large chunk of the Democrats in the House. That candidate will almost certainly be a moderate Republican. It would also require the Republicans to give something of significance to the Democrats to get their help.

My grandfather used to say that if your opponent was shooting themselves in the foot, that the best thing you could do was to not get in the way. For all the complaints we saw about Democrats not stepping in and saving Kevin McCarthy, it is important to note that Democrats never got anything from Kevin McCarthy. They had no reason to help. If a Republican wants the Democratic Party to help, they are going to have to make a number of concessions that are going to enrage the right flank of the Republican Party.

When McCarthy was ousted, things were relatively quiet politically. There is a potential government shutdown in November but that was weeks down the line. That was before the bombings and attacks in Israel. The general public has a low tolerance for political theater during normal periods and that tolerance goes down even more during periods of crisis.

We have three options at this point: Republicans can come up with a consensus candidate, they can compromise with Democrats, or McHenry can act as if he has the full power of the speakership. The alternative is that Congress simply cannot function during a period of international crisis.

David Searcy holds a master’s degree from Oklahoma State University and a PhD in political science from Southern Illinois University.