Kevin McCarthy slogs closer to US House speakership in 4th day of fight

Having swallowed a slew of demands from an ultraconservative band of rebels who insisted on changes that would dilute the power of the speakership and hand them outsized influence, McCarthy was gaining ground in his bid for the job.

But the protracted fight reflected deep divisions and foreshadowed how difficult it would be to govern with an exceedingly narrow GOP majority and an unruly faction bent on slashing spending and disrupting business in Washington. The speakership fight that paralysed the House before it had even started suggested that basic tasks such as passing government funding bills or financing the federal debt would prompt epic struggles over the next two years.

Still, on Friday, McCarthy had won over 15 of the 21 Republicans who had defected, and was pressing for more converts, a remarkable turnabout for a man who only days ago appeared to be headed for defeat. With no votes to spare, McCarthy had called back to Washington Rep. Ken Buck of Colorado, who had traveled home to his state for the weekend as the floor struggle wore on.

“We are on the cusp,” said Rep. Tom Cole of Oklahoma, a McCarthy ally.

McCarthy, who began the day privately warning members on a conference call that the proceedings could stretch into the weekend, exuded confidence going into a 14th vote, saying, “We’ll have the votes to finish this once and for all.”

The floor fight has dragged on for four days, the longest since 1859, and has frozen the House in a state of paralysis, with lawmakers stripped of their security clearances because they were not officially members of Congress until they have been sworn in — a process that cannot begin until a speaker is chosen.

(Technically, all the House members were still “representatives-elect” Friday, since in the absence of a new speaker, none had been sworn in.)

The concessions McCarthy agreed to would diminish the speaker’s power considerably and make for an unwieldy environment in the House, where the slim Republican margin of control and the right-wing faction’s appetite for disarray had already promised to make it difficult to control.

“What we’re seeing is the incredibly shrinking speakership, and that’s most unfortunate for Congress,” former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said as she entered the chamber Friday afternoon.

After a final burst of negotiating, McCarthy early Friday briefed Republicans during a private party conference call on a broad set of concessions he had offered to the far right. He agreed to allow a single lawmaker to force a snap vote at any time to oust the speaker, a rule that would codify a standing threat that McCarthy could be removed instantly if he crossed hard-right lawmakers.

Also part of the proposal, according to people familiar with the discussions, was a commitment by the Republican leader to give the hard-right faction control over one-third of the seats on the powerful Rules Committee, which controls what legislation reaches the floor and how it is debated. He also agreed to open government spending bills to a freewheeling debate in which any lawmaker could force votes on proposed changes.

Hours later, those compromises delivered a breakthrough for McCarthy, who in the 12th and 13th votes won support from a sizable chunk of the Republicans who until Friday had consistently refused to back him — though he remained short of the majority to win.

They included Reps. Dan Bishop of North Carolina, Josh Brecheen of Oklahoma, Michael Cloud of Texas, Andrew Clyde of Georgia, Byron Donalds and Anna Paulina Luna of Florida, Paul Gosar of Arizona, Andy Harris of Maryland, Mary Miller of Illinois, Ralph Norman of South Carolina, Andy Ogles of Tennessee, Scott Perry of Pennsylvania, and Chip Roy and Keith Self of Texas. Victoria Spartz of Indiana, who had voted “present” in previous ballots, also voted for McCarthy in the 12th vote.

Friday’s ballots were the first of the week in which McCarthy won more votes than Rep. Hakeem Jeffries of New York, the Democratic leader, who consistently drew 212 votes with every Democrat united behind him.

Inside the House chamber Friday, McCarthy’s supporters erupted in raucous cheers for each lawmaker who changed his or her vote.

“You never get everything you’re looking for,” said Perry, explaining his vote to reporters. He added that “the biggest win is the overall framework of it.”

“The motion to vacate is accountability,” he said, referring to the measure allowing a snap vote to remove the speaker. Of the remaining holdouts, he added, “we should address their concerns, just like every single one of my concerns was addressed.”

Roy, who helped lead negotiations for the right-wing group, defended the Republicans who had yet to change their vote.

“They are patriots who are standing up trying to defend their country,” he said, adding that without them “being with us to stand up, no chance we get the agreement that we’re at right now that we think will change this institution in meaningful ways.”

For the first time, Roy referred to McCarthy as the “speaker-elect.”

The prolonged election prompted tension and uncertainty in the Capitol, where lawmakers in both parties had grown impatient and bored awaiting the outcome of a high-stakes struggle that seemed at once monumental and absurd.

“From the outside, it looks like chaos,” said Rep. Ryan Zinke, R-Mont. “From the inside, it is.”

Even the typically understated and apolitical House chaplain addressed the dysfunction in her opening prayer Friday. As the chamber convened, the chaplain, Margaret Kibben, asked for mercy amid “exhausting frustration over the prolonged impasse. …”

She acknowledged that the proceedings fell on the two-year anniversary of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, asking for protection from the “unease stemming from the memory of inconceivable unrest in these chambers two years ago.”

Left unmentioned was that many of the same rebels who helped lead the effort in Congress to overturn the 2020 election, giving rise to the assault that day, were also among the holdouts working to block McCarthy’s ascent.

Her remarks came after Democrats, along with families of officers who lost their lives because of the Jan. 6 riot, held a somber vigil on the steps of the Capitol. There appeared to be just one Republican present: Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania.

The somber anniversary did not lead to comity on the House floor, as McCarthy’s fiercest holdout accused him in a bombastic speech of performing a fruitless exercise in vanity.

“He will not have the votes tomorrow, and he will not have the vote next week, next month, next year,” Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida said in a speech nominating Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio for speaker. “And so one must wonder, Madam clerk, is this an exercise in vanity for someone who has done the math, taken the counts and is putting this institution through something that absolutely is avoidable.”

The vitriolic attack on the top candidate for speaker from his own party led some of McCarthy’s supporters to walk off the House floor while he spoke. And by the end of the day, with the majority of the detractors finally coalescing around McCarthy, Gaetz appeared to have softened his tone.

“I think the House is in a lot better place with some of the work that’s been done to democratise power out of the speakership, and that’s our goal,” he said.

McCarthy’s supporters have been bemoaning the drawn-out process and even praising Democrats for staying united despite their ideological differences.

“We’re ready to get to work,” said Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R- Ga. “I find it embarrassing. I’ve been here for two years without committees, and I’m really ready to get to work.”

She added: “I have to give props to the Democrats, they find ways to work together. I think we should find ways to work together.”

The dissidents praised the drawn-out process that has spotlighted their party’s rifts, made it impossible for legislative business to be conducted and threatened the timely issuance of paychecks on Capitol Hill.

“The American people have witnessed for the first time in this town in probably 100 years, if not more, a deliberative process, a legitimate deliberative process, about the future of leadership in the people’s body,” Donalds said. “That is monumental.”

Even until the end, McCarthy’s path was narrow. Only a few of the six remaining holdouts were seen as open to negotiating further. Some of them, like Gaetz, Rep. Bob Good of Virginia and Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado made it clear there were no circumstances under which they would vote for McCarthy.