Kevin McCarthy promises revenge and recriminations. But first he has to become House speaker

Having easily dispatched with his latest Democratic opponent in the Nov. 8 election, Republican Kevin McCarthy is readying for the balloting he cares most about: Winning the race to become the next speaker of the House.

McCarthy cruised to victory over Marisa Wood, 67.5% to 32.5%, and earned the right to represent the newly drawn 20th District. Besides parts of Bakersfield, which is McCarthy’s hometown, the district stretches north all the way to Clovis and parts of Fresno County.

On Wednesday it became official that control of the House would flip from Democrats to Republicans. That means longtime Democratic Speaker Nancy Pelosi will leave the post. As he readies to get 218 votes of House members to become the next speaker, McCarthy faces more formidable challengers than Wood. Hard-right members of the GOP have made clear they plan to challenge McCarthy for speaker, or else extract concessions from him for their support.

For the better part of the last six months, McCarthy has been angling to make those ultra-conservative members of the Freedom Caucus happy. How has he done it? By promising revenge and recriminations for years of House control under Pelosi, the San Francisco Democrat conservatives love to hate.

Next up: Recriminations and revenge

McCarthy has already pledged to investigate Attorney General Merrick Garland and the Justice Department over what he calls “an intolerable state of weaponized politicization.” The threat came in the wake of FBI agents searching former President Donald Trump’s Florida estate for documents he had not returned to government keeping, as required by federal law.

Opinion

Nevermind Trump should never have taken anything classified or otherwise from the White House once he left it. Nevermind the Justice Department and the AG are just trying to uphold the law. To McCarthy and the GOP, it’s “weaponization.”

Next, some of the harshest right-wing House members want McCarthy’s blessing to bring impeachment proceedings against President Biden. Georgia’s Marjorie Taylor Greene has already introduced five articles of impeachment accusing Biden of abusing his power while serving as vice president to benefit his son Hunter Biden’s business dealings in Ukraine. Other conservatives bash Biden for losing immigration control of the border or for the disjointed withdrawal of American forces from Afghanistan. According to The New York Times, a total of 10 House Republicans have either introduced or sponsored a total of 21 articles of impeachment against Biden and his top officials.

Cutting government spending and reinvigorating American oil and gas exploration are other GOP priorities McCarthy wants to pursue.

Cutting Social Security or Medicare would seriously hurt low-income seniors in his 20th District. To say nothing of oil and gas production that only worsens climate change and makes more air pollution in his new district, which happens to be one of the most polluted in the nation.

Elections have consequences, so get ready for those unleashed by McCarthy if he becomes second in line to the presidency.

Needed most: A Valley agenda

“Stopping the Biden agenda,” as McCarthy promises to do, means playing lots of inside-the-Beltway politics. That requires time and attention.

But how about an agenda for the San Joaquin Valley and its problems?

McCarthy well knows about one major problem facing Valley farmers: having enough water. With the impacts of the ongoing California drought and a 2014 state law that put limits on how much groundwater pumping farmers could do, about 500,000 acres of farmland in the Valley may be taken out of production in the Valley in the coming decades, reports the Public Policy Institute of California.

The PPIC has said that if fallowed land is not carefully planned for, blowing dust will be the result, adding to the Valley’s already bad air quality. Public health will suffer.

Then there are economic impacts of any slowdown in farming. Advocates for farm workers, a group estimated to number about 170,000, worry that widespread fallowing of land will mean unemployment for these people. That, in turn, would hurt the small towns throughout the Valley with businesses that cater to field workers.

This is but one example of challenges facing McCarthy’s home region. Unemployment in the counties he represents is well above the state average. The region’s young people are way behind their peers statewide for attaining a college education. And poverty, a decades-long burden on the Valley, remains as firmly entrenched as ever.

As the new year beckons and McCarthy strives mightily to win enough votes for his cherished dream of becoming House speaker, he must remember the multifaceted plight of the Valley while he engages his GOP revenge mode. If all McCarthy ends up doing is keeping Taylor Greene happy, he will have failed the people of his district, and America.