McCarthy is the first speaker candidate in 100 years not to win the first ballot.
Republican Kevin McCarthy suffered a series of embarrassing setbacks today after members of the right wing of his party refused to support his presidential bid. McCarthy failed to secure the necessary support after three rounds of voting, becoming the first speaker candidate in 100 years to fail to win the first hammer vote. Parliament will reconvene tomorrow.
This is where it’s located:
- Democrats sided with leader Hakeem Jeffries, who won more support than McCarthy in three rounds of voting.
- Republican Andy Biggs of Arizona (right-wing nominee Paul Gosar) had 10 votes after the first round, and Jim Jordan of Ohio was backed by 19 Republicans in the second round. In the third round, Jordan had 20 votes.
- Reporters find Chick-fil-A being shipped to the Capitol, marking a long night of negotiations between House Republicans.
- The Senate met without incident.
In a historic setback, Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy faces a protracted battle Tuesday to secure the speaker’s seat after failing to win the first three votes on the opening day of the new Congress.
A fourth – and possibly more overnight – vote was averted when the House decided to postpone it until noon on Wednesday.
Previously, 19 Republicans ran against McCarthy in the first two polls to determine the next speaker, making him 15 short of the 218 needed to win. On the third ballot, McCarthy lost another supporter, sparking fears he may not be able to unite his faction.
In another demoralizing sign of the Republican Party’s new majority, Democrat Hakeem Jeffries received more votes than McCarthy in the first three ballots.
McCarthy is the first speaker candidate in 100 years not to win the first ballot for the hammer. A California Republican political adviser said that for McCarthy it was “the most embarrassing day of his political career”, a line that was picked up in newspapers in McCarthy’s home state.
McCarthy has acknowledged that he is unlikely to win the speakership on the first ballot, setting the stage for a potential lengthy delay before new members of the House can be sworn in. McCarthy is comfortable beating the record for the longest presidential election in history, at two months and 133 ballots. The voice of dissent emerged in 1856, just before the American Civil War.
“We can argue on the ground,” McCarthy told reporters. “But that fight is for the conference and for the country, and I’m fine with that.”
On Tuesday night, Donald Trump declined to say whether he would continue to endorse McCarthy as a speaker, telling NBC News, “We’ll see what happens.” We’ll see how things develop.”
Trump’s comments came despite McCarthy’s loyalty to the former president, including a flight to Mar-a-Lago to meet Trump soon after he left the White House, just weeks after the January 6 riots.
“We’re done with Kevin McCarthy,” Virginia congressman Bob Goode told CNN late Tuesday, arguing that the Republican vote against McCarthy will only increase in the next round of voting.
Republican opposition to McCarthy was led by members of the House Freedom Caucus, a far-right group pushing for changes to the assembly rules. Freedom Caucus chairman Scott Perry Tuesday reiterated his opposition, accusing McCarthy of not working in good faith with his group.
McCarthy’s allies lambasted Perry and other opponents, saying they had put their own ambitions above the good of the party.
New Yorker Elise Stefanik, who formally nominated McCarthy before the first ballot, supported her candidacy and voiced veiled criticism of her opponents.
“No one on this board has worked harder for this Republican majority than Kevin McCarthy,” Stefanik said. “A proud Conservative with a tireless work ethic, Kevin McCarthy has earned the title of Speaker of the House.”
On the first ballot, the third nomination was offered by Arizona Congressman Paul Gosar, a far-right Republican, who offered his Arizona compatriot Andy Biggs as a conservative alternative. Of the 19 Republicans who opposed McCarthy in the first ballot, 10 supported Biggs, who lost to McCarthy 188-31 in the November nomination contest.
“We need to support him and unite,” Jordan said.
But McCarthy lost support on the third ballot. Florida’s Byron Donalds traded from McCarthy to Jordan, bringing the number of GOP critics to 20.
“The reality is… Kevin McCarthy has no voice,” Donalds said on Twitter. “Our conference needs to stop, hunker down and find someone or work out their next steps… but this constant voting isn’t working for anyone.”
Tuesday’s conference failed to resolve the issues between McCarthy and her critics. Matt Goetz, one of McCarthy’s most outspoken critics, said those who refused to support could be removed from the committee.
“If you’re going to drain a swamp, you can’t put the biggest crocodile at the forefront of the exercise,” Goetz told reporters. “I’m a guy from Florida and I know what I’m talking about.”
Goetz and his colleagues show no signs of slowing down. Their stalemate has raised the prospect of the Speaker of the House’s first protracted struggle in 100 years. The last such performance was in 1923.
“We’re not going to back down until we walk into a room and decide how we can stand up and fight for the American people, no matter who the speaker is,” Texas resident Chip Roy told Fox News. . “I didn’t blink.”
Second place Republican Rep. Louisiana’s Steve Scalise was seen as a potential compromise solution, but so far he has focused on building support behind McCarthy.
In the second ballot, Jim Jordan of Ohio won the support of 19 Republicans who opposed McCarthy in the first ballot. This came after Jordan himself nominated McCarthy to show unity. In his speech, Jordan outlined the Republican Party’s agenda and urged his colleagues to forget their differences.
The Democrats rallied behind their leader, Jeffries.
“He doesn’t kneel to anyone who tries to undermine our democracy,” said Pete Aguilar of California, the third-ranked Democrat, in a speech that named Jeffries as a speaker.
The Senate met without incident. The Democrats welcomed two new members, including John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, who helped his party win a 51-49 majority.
In his speech on the first floor of the new Congress, Majority Leader Chuck Schumer congratulated fellow Senate Republican Speaker Mitch McConnell for being the chamber’s longest-serving party leader.
As an era of divided government begins after two years of democratic control, Schumer concedes that the legislative path “will not be easy”, but he remains optimistic.
“After all that we have achieved in an evenly divided Senate and a tightly divided House of Representatives,” he said, “there is no reason the two sides cannot continue to work together for the good of our country, our beloved country.”
Negotiations made him seem weak
Republicans narrowly won control of the House of Representatives in November, leaving Mr. McCarthy is only a few votes short of becoming Chairman. This allowed a group of hardline Conservatives to unite against his candidacy.
According to Republican watchers, that crack has been a long time coming.
“Kevin McCarthy hasn’t been friends with certain sections of the caucus for a long time, he’s made a lot of enemies,” said a Republican lobbyist who wanted to speak publicly at Tuesday’s vote on condition of anonymity. “There are people who don’t like him for political reasons, for personal reasons.
Mr McCarthy has entered into negotiations with his opponents – who see him as too mainstream and power-hungry – offering concessions to try to win their vote. At one point he reportedly agreed to change the house rules to make it easier to remove seated speakers, giving his opponent great control over his power.
“The fact that he’s even negotiating with Republicans makes him look very, very weak to the point of despair,” said the Republican lobbyist.
His opponent felt brave
The futility of this approach became clear Tuesday.
By three consecutive votes, McCarthy fell short of the required 218 vote threshold. Although the Republican Party holds 222 seats, a bloc of 19 right-wing Republicans has strengthened itself. They opposed McCarthy for ideological and personal reasons, but also saw an opportunity to force him to make further concessions through a narrow Republican majority.
They “will never back down,” said Rep. Rob Goode, R-Va., told reporters Tuesday.
In one of the most dramatic moments of the day, they even nominated Representative Jim Jordan to challenge him, just moments after Mr Jordan himself appointed Mr McCarthy speaker.
Even after Mr.
Meanwhile, the Democrats have remained solid behind their party’s new leader, Rep. Hakeem Jeffries from New York.
Some couldn’t help but openly tease their fellow Republicans about a tough afternoon at their party. One congressman, Ruben Gallego of Arizona, tweeted that the Democrats were “cracking popcorn”, and included a photo of breakfast as evidence.
What options does McCarthy have now?
Political observers in Washington have started offering various theories as to how this all came to be. Their predictions to the BBC ranged from decent (Mr. McCarthy held on and won but became very weak) to completely probable (he resigned in favor of his deputy, Steve Scalise of Louisiana). One proposal borders on fantasy (five Republicans decide to elect Mr. Jeffries, a Democrat, and give him control of the House of Representatives).
As it stands, Mr. McCarthy “was essentially held hostage to one side of his party,” said Ruth Block Rubin, a University of Chicago political scientist who studies partisanship.
Mr McCarthy has promised not to make any more concessions, but he may have no choice. He could try to convince stubborn legislators with a new board appointment or leadership role.
“He needs to give people who oppose him something to hang onto,” said Aaron Cutler, a lobbyist who once worked for former Congressman Eric Cantor, another politician ousted by the conservative opposition. However, other Republican lobbyists believe that there is “no path to victory at all.”
Members will meet for the fourth time on Wednesday, but it is unclear whether the impasse will be broken.
“We haven’t heard anything new from McCarthy,” one conservative, Colorado Congresswoman Lauren Bobert, told reporters. “So I guess we’ll keep going.”
Leave a Reply