WASHINGTON (AP) – The new Congress opened with House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy grasping for political survival, with the potential to become the first nominee for speaker in 100 years to fail to win the initial support of his own colleagues in the high vote. for the hammer.
Lawmakers agreed Tuesday to a new era of divided government as Democrats relinquished control of the House after losing midterm elections. While the Senate remains in Democratic hands, barely, House Republicans are eager to confront President Joe Biden’s agenda after two years of the Democratic Party’s monopoly in Washington.
But first, House Republicans must elect a speaker.
McCarthy is in line to replace Speaker Nancy Pelosi, but is headed to a vote with no guarantee of success. California Republicans face entrenched detractors in their own ranks. Despite efforts to cajole, harangue and win – even with the endorsement of former President Donald Trump – McCarthy has fallen short.
The midnight showdown could turn into a long House floor battle, a spectacle that divides the Republican Party, undermines leadership and consumes the first day of the new Congress.
“This is more important than one person,” said Doug Heye, a former senior aide to the Republican leader. “This is about whether Republicans will be able to govern.”
House Republicans will huddle behind closed doors in the morning, ahead of the floor action, as the newly elected members of parliament arrive for what is traditionally a day of celebration. Family, new members of Congress prepare to be sworn into the House and Senate to begin the two-year legislative session.
AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File
A new generation of Trump-aligned Republicans is leading the opposition to McCarthy, inspired by the former president’s Make America Great Again slogan. He didn’t think McCarthy was conservative enough or tough enough to fight Democrats. It was like the last time Republicans took back the House majority, after the 2010 midterms, when the tea-party class entered a new era of political hardball, finally sending Speaker John Boehner to early retirement.
It usually takes a majority of 435 members of the DPR, 218 votes, to become speaker. With a slim majority of just 222 seats, McCarthy could only afford a few spoilers. The speaker can win with less than 218 votes, like Pelosi and Boehner, if some lawmakers are absent or just vote.
But McCarthy has failed to win over the core – and potentially large – right-wing Republican group led by the conservative Freedom Caucus, despite weeks of closed-door meetings and promises of changes to House rules. Nearly a dozen Republicans have publicly expressed concerns about McCarthy.
“Kevin McCarthy does not need 218 votes to become speaker,” Rep. Scott Perry, R-Pa., Chairman of the Freedom Caucus and a leader in Trump’s efforts to challenge the 2020 election, said in an interview with The Associated Press. “Unless something changes dramatically, that’s where we’re going to be.”
Late Monday afternoon, McCarthy met with Perry in the speaker’s office at the Capitol, a Republican aide confirmed on condition of anonymity to discuss the private session.
But the prospect of the shutdown causing havoc on Day One has launched a backlash from frustrated Republicans as critics threaten the new Congress’s job.
A sizable but less vocal group of McCarthy supporters started their own campaign, “Just Kevin,” as a way to shut down the opposition and pledge support only for him.
AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite
A viable challenger to McCarthy has yet to emerge. Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., former leader of the Freedom Caucus, is running against McCarthy as the conservative choice, but is not expected to attract a majority. McCarthy defeated him in the November nomination contest, 188-31.
The second-ranked House Republican, Rep. Steve Scalise of Louisiana, would be the obvious next choice, a conservative beloved by his colleagues and seen by some as a hero after surviving a brutal mass shooting during a congressional baseball practice in 2017.
After competing, McCarthy and Scalise have become a team. Scalise’s office rejected as “false” suggestions on Friday by other Republicans that Scalise called about the speaker’s race.
McCarthy vowed to fight to the finish, with several rounds of floor votes — a sight not seen in Congress since the 1923 speaker’s race.
“It would be nice if we could be ready to go on January 3,” said Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, who is set to become chairman of the House Judiciary Committee. “But you know, if it doesn’t happen on the first ballot, it’s just going to go backwards.”
Without the speaker, the House cannot fully form — naming committee chairs, participating in floor proceedings and launching the investigation into the Biden administration that is expected to be at the heart of the Republican agenda.
The turmoil in the House on the first day of the new session could be a stark contrast to the other side of the Capitol, where Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell will officially serve as the party’s longest-serving leader in history.
Despite being in the minority in the Senate, where Democrats hold a 51-49 majority, McConnell could prove to be a viable partner as Biden seeks a bipartisan victory in an era of divided administration. The two are expected to appear together later in the week in the GOP leader’s home state of Kentucky to celebrate federal infrastructure investment in a key bridge connecting Kentucky and Ohio.
Bill Clark/Pool via AP, File
McCarthy’s candidacy for speaker should be almost certain. Affable and approachable, he led his party to a majority, raising millions of campaign dollars and traveling the country to recruit many of the newer members of parliament to run for office.
But McCarthy has been here before, abruptly dropping out of the speaker’s race in 2015 when it became clear he didn’t have the support of conservatives to replace Boehner.
One core question from the holdouts this time McCarthy restored the rule that allows any single legislator to make a “motion to vacate the seat” – in short, to call a vote to remove the speaker from office.
Pelosi removed the rule after conservatives used it to threaten Boehner, but McCarthy agreed to add it back — but at a higher threshold, requiring at least five lawmakers to sign off on the motion.
“I will work with everyone in our party to build a conservative consensus,” McCarthy wrote in a weekend letter to friends.
As McCarthy held a New Year’s Eve conference call with Republican lawmakers to unveil a package of new House rules, Perry released a new letter of concern signed by eight other Republicans saying the changes don’t go far enough.