In a chaotic 14th vote, Kevin McCarthy fails to be House Speaker before a Republican re-do
Update: California’s Kevin McCarthy finally wins House Speaker. ‘Good thing for the Central Valley’
He really thought he had it.
California Republican Kevin McCarthy was one vote shy of becoming Speaker of the House of Representatives in a late-night session on Friday. GOP leaders had expressed optimism earlier that they thought the Bakersfield Republican had enough support.
Now he must try again on a 15th ballot, having already set a precedent in the most number of tries required since before the Civil War.
But it came down to Rep.-elect Matt Gaetz of Florida. Gaetz was part of a bloc of “Never Kevin” GOP holdouts that had been thwarting McCarthy’s goal for the gavel all week.
Despite numerous concessions that McCarthy made that won over some GOP hardliners, Gaetz strolled into the House chamber late, and it wasn’t looking good.
The House clerk, who is running proceedings in the absence of a speaker, had called his name for his vote. That meant he would have to wait to cast a vote until she went through the alphabetical list of members-elect.
GOP members-elect — none of them are members until there’s a speaker to swear them in — pleaded with Gaetz on the floor as everyone else named their pick for speaker.
Already other far-right holdouts against McCarthy had flipped their votes to support him or “present.” (By voting “present” or not voting, it lowers the majority threshold required to secure the speakership.)
Tonight, McCarthy needed 217, given an absence.
Rep.-elect Lauren Boebert had changed her vote to “present.” Reps-elect Andy Biggs and Bob Good went for Jim Jordan. Reps-elect Eli Crane and Matt Rosendale voted for Biggs.
That put McCarthy at 216. He needed one more vote, and it all came down to Gaetz.
Gaetz voted present. Chaos ensued.
McCarthy appeared to beg Boebert and Gaetz to flip their votes to him. Mike Rogers, a rep.-elect from Alabama, appeared to lunge at Gaetz on the House floor (and would have got to him if another member-elect hadn’t pulled him back).
McCarthy had fought hard to convince the dissenters to come his way.
Hours before the vote, he proposed a package of House rules and changes that would allow any member of Congress to “vacate the chair,” meaning any one person can at any time try to convince colleagues to oust the speaker.
He also said he’s change the makeup of the Rules Committee, which controls what can come to the House floor, to allow more Freedom Caucus input.
And the package would require a three-fifths vote to increase taxes, and freeze spending at last year’s levels.
All this would make it hard to achieve any consensus that would get major legislation passed, some Republicans warned.
“I think there’s fallout. I think it’s going to hurt all of us,” said Rep.-elect Don Bacon, R-Nebraska.
Where all this is likely to matter most is in two places.
Later this year, Congress is expected to have to increase the federal government’s debt limit. Conservatives have for years tried to keep the limit intact, arguing that raising it encourages more spending.
Freedom Caucus members have been adamant; they want meaningful spending cuts before any debt limit votes. That’s not likely to be popular in the Senate, where Democrats control 51 of the 100 seats.
The other flashpoint is likely to be the fiscal 2024 federal budget. The fiscal year begins Oct. 1, and without a budget, much of the government would shut down.
What makes many lawmakers shudder is the memory of what happened the last times a politically divided government couldn’t agree.
The government shut down briefly in 1981 when the Democratic House and Republican President Ronald Reagan were deadlocked over the budget.
In 1995 and 1996, with Democrat Bill Clinton in the White House, the Republican-led House again could not agree on a spending plan, and the government shut down twice. In 2013, again with a Democratic president, Barack Obama, and a Republican House, there was a 16-day shutdown.
And in 2018-19, the shutdown lasted a record 35 days when President Donald Trump, a Republican, and the Democratic-run Congress couldn’t agree on border wall funding.
This story was originally published January 6, 2023 at 8:49 PM.
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