Of all the things that happen in Washington, D.C., one of the least dramatic is the election of the Speaker of the House of Representatives. At least for the last century, that is. This year, for the first time since 1923, that election took more than one ballot. The 15 ballots it took to elect Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) grabbed attention, but the sound and fury kept many from understanding what the fuss was really all about.

The Constitution’s discussion of the office of Speaker of the House begins (and ends) with this: “The House of Representatives shall chuse their Speaker and other Officers.” The other few mentions of “Speaker,” all in the amendments, are functional, referring to tasks for which the Speaker is responsible. That’s it.

Under House rules, the full House elects the Speaker after the new two-year Congress first meets, but before the members-elect are sworn in. While the Constitution does not require it, each of the 55 Speakers since 1789 has been a member-elect of the majority party. Speakers have served from one day (Theodore Pomeroy, R-New York, on March 3, 1869) to more than 17 years (Sam Rayburn, D-Texas, between 1941 and 1963).

The leading guide to how the House operates provides an almost quaint description of the Speaker’s role. “The Speaker,” says chapter 34 of House Practice, “is the presiding officer of the House” who “maintains order, manages its proceedings, and governs the administration of its business….The Speaker’s role as presiding officer is an impartial one.” That may have been accurate early in American history; Rep. Schuyler Cox (R-Ind.), who served as Speaker from 1863 to 1869, said that he took the position “to administer [the] rules, but not as a partisan.” Today, however, that description has become a thing of the distant past.

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In recent years, some of the most significant pieces of legislation have literally been written in the Speaker’s office rather than in legislative committees. Even when the partisan divide is narrow, the slim majority takes outsized control of the legislative process, squelching even ordinary opportunities for individual members to participate meaningfully in that process. As a result, the line between the Speaker of the House and the Majority Leader is blurred almost to oblivion, and the Speaker becomes the real partisan that Schuyler Cox resisted.

Which brings us to the tussle over electing a Speaker for the 118th Congress, which runs from Jan. 3, 2023, to Jan. 3, 2025. With such a narrow partisan split (222 GOP, 213 Dem), any five Republicans could prevent McCarthy from election by voting for another announced candidate. Six Republicans did not vote for McCarthy on any of the 15 ballots and another 14 voted for another candidate on multiple ballots, but supported McCarthy in the end.

What did the rebels want? One of them, Rep. Dan Bishop of North Carolina, sent a letter to colleagues in December with a checklist of items to shift power from the Speaker to House members. One of those items was making it easier to trigger a “motion to vacate the chair,” a parliamentary way to remove the Speaker. While on the books since 1801, this rule has been invoked only twice; a motion failed in 1910 and another was buried in the Rules Committee in 2015. McCarthy agreed to change House rules so that a single member can force such a vote.

Other items on Bishop’s list were simply enforcing existing House rules such as allowing at least 72 hours for members to examine the final text of a bill. This rule is often waived, including for very long, comprehensive bills in which many controversial provisions have been inserted at the last minute. Other House rules, requiring that bills be focused on a single subject and that amendments be germane, can help focus debate and clearly identify a member’s position—but those are often waived as well.

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McCarthy agreed to allow more bills to be considered under rules that allow members to offer amendments on the House floor. Bishop’s letter contends that this has not happened since 2016. Instead, the Rules Committee, which proposes a rule for considering each bill, would recommend rules that allow no amendments at all or that dictate how a bill may be amended. McCarthy agreed to support “modified open rules” that will allow members to offer floor amendments as long as they are germane to the bill being considered.

The reforms and other changes that the rebel Republicans demanded, therefore, are more than mere nit-picking or sand thrown in the gears. They have to do with what the House is supposed to be, and the ability of its members to have, in James Madison’s words when Congress was first established, “an immediate dependence on” the American people. Let’s hope the drama was worth it.