House Republicans flailed through the long day of eight-eight balloting Wednesday, unable either to choose a leader that Kevin McCarthy is speaker of the House or create a new strategy to end the political chaos that has tarnished the beginning of the new majority.
But McCarthy not only didn’t give up, he was optimistic after rejecting the night session.
“There is no deal,” he said as he left the long closed-door meeting with the keys. “But there’s a lot of progress.”
No progress at all was seen even on voting day after voting. For the fourth, fifth and sixth times, Republicans tried to elevate McCarthy to the top job as the House deteriorated. But the vote produced almost identical results, with 20 conservatives still refusing to back him, leaving him far short of the 218 he would normally need to win the hammer.
In fact, McCarthy saw his support rise to 201, as one of the Republicans who voted for it just now.
Not seeing a quick way out of the political standoff, the Republicans chose abruptly at the end of the day to postpone because they are desperately looking for an endgame for the chaos they create themselves. They returned in the evening, but the House was at a standstill.
“I think people should work a little more,” McCarthy said. “I don’t think tonight’s vote will make a difference. But future votes could.
McCarthy, a Republican from California, vowed to keep fighting despite the joyous spectacle, not unlike the one in which his new majority erupted a day earlier. Animated private discussions broke out on the floor of the room between McCarthy’s supporters and detractors looking for an endgame.
“Well, it’s Groundhog Day,” said Rep. Kat Cammack, R-Fla., on McCarthy’s nomination on the sixth ballot.
He said, “To all Americans watching right now, We hear you. And we’re going to get through this — no matter how messed up it is.
But far-right conservatives, led by the Freedom Caucus and aligned with Donald Trump, appear energized by the standoff — even as Trump supports McCarthy,
“This is truly an invigorating day for America,” said Rep. Byron Donalds, R-Fla., who was nominated three times by his conservative colleagues as an alternative. “There are a lot of members in the room who want to have a serious conversation about how we can get this all done and elect a speaker.”
The House is in session at noon, but no other business can be done — swearing in new members, forming committees, dealing with legislation, investigating the Biden administration — until the speaker is chosen.
“I still have the most votes,” McCarthy said at the start of the session. “At the end of the day, we’ll get there.”
But the dynamic proved to be no different from Day One, as the Democrats re-up their leader, Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, for speaker, and Donalds offered a challenge to McCarthy in another history-making moment. Both Jeffries and Donalds are black.
“This country needs leadership,” said Rep. Chip Roy, Texas Republican noted for the first time in history two Black Americans nominated for high office, and legislators from both parties rose to applaud.
It was the first time in 100 years that a nominee for House speaker could not take the gavel on the first vote, but McCarthy seemed undeterred. However, he vowed to fight until the end.
A disorganized start to the new Congress points to difficulties ahead with Republicans now in control of the House.
President Joe Biden, leaving the White House for a bipartisan event in Kentucky with Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell, said “the rest of the world is watching” at the scene on the House floor.
“I just think it’s a shame it took so long,” Biden said. “I don’t know” who will win.
Tensions among the House majority are new as campaign promises stall. Not since 1923 has the election of the speaker been so many ballots, and the longest and most terrible battle for the hammer began at the end of 1855 and dragged out for two months, with 133 ballots, during the debate on slavery during the Civil War. .
A new generation of conservative Republicans, many aligned with Trump’s Make America Great Again agenda, want to restore business as usual in Washington, and are committed to ending McCarthy’s rise without concessions to priorities.
But even Trump’s staunchest supporters disagree on this issue. Rep. Lauren Boebert, a Colorado conservative who nominated Donald twice, called on the former president to tell McCarthy, “‘Sir, you have no voice and it’s time to step down.’
Earlier on Wednesday, Trump had done the opposite, urging Republicans to nominate McCarthy. “Close the deal, get the victory,” he wrote on the social media site, using all capital letters. “Don’t turn a great victory into a great and embarrassing defeat.”
As the voting spectacle dragged on, McCarthy backers implored the holdouts to fall in line for the California Republican.
“I think members on both sides of the aisle are under a lot of pressure,” said Rep. Tom Cole, R-Okla. “So I think the message from home is, ‘Hey, sort this stuff out, we don’t have time for petty stuff and egos.'”
The standoff over McCarthy has been building since Republicans won the House majority in the midterm elections. While the Senate remains in Democratic hands, barely, House Republicans are eager to face Biden after two years of Democrats controlling both houses of Congress. The conservative Freedom Caucus led McCarthy’s opposition, believing that he was not conservative enough or tough enough to take on Democrats.
To win support, McCarthy has agreed to many demands from the Freedom Caucus, which has been agitating for rule changes and other concessions that give rank-and-file members more influence in the legislative process. He has been here before, after dropping out of the speaker’s race in 2015 when he failed to win from the conservatives.
“Everything is on the table,” said ally Rep. Patrick McHenry, RN.C. – except, he said, to have McCarthy step aside. “Not at all. That’s not on the table.”
Democrats enthusiastically chose Jeffries, who took over as party leader, as their choice for speaker. He won the most votes overall, 212.
If McCarthy can win 213 votes, and then persuade the remaining naysayers to just vote now, he will be able to lower the threshold required according to the rules to have a majority.
It’s a strategy former speakers of the House of Representatives, including outgoing Democratic Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Republican Speaker John Boehner used when they faced opposition, won the gavel less than 218 votes.
One Republican, Rep. Victoria Spartz of Indiana, voted now in several rounds, but there was no difference in the immediate results.