House Republicans in disarray on Speaker choice as new Congress session begins

US lawmakers braced on Tuesday for a new era of divided government as Democrats relinquished control of the House of Representatives after losing the midterm elections, with Republican Kevin McCarthy seeking to avoid becoming the first nominee for Speaker in 100 years after failing to win initial support from his own colleagues.

McCarthy is in line to replace Nancy Pelosi as House Speaker for the 118th session of Congress, but leads to a vote without guaranteeing success. Despite the endorsement of former president Donald Trump, still popular in the party, McCarthy faced entrenched detractors in his own ranks despite a few weeks of lead time to ask members of doubt on the board after the November midterm results became official.

The matchup could turn into a long House floor battle and a divisive spectacle for the Republican Party.

“We are going out to the American public with a commitment to America to fight for them, not for some members,” McCarthy said, as he entered a closed-door meeting of House Republicans.

Without the Speaker, the House cannot fully function – naming committee chairs, participating in the floor process and launching the investigation of US President Joe Biden’s administration that is expected to be at the heart of the Republican agenda.

It usually takes a majority of 435 members of the DPR, 218 votes, to become the Speaker. With a slim majority of just 222 seats, McCarthy could only afford a few spoilers. The speaker could win with fewer than 218 votes, as Pelosi and Republican John Boehner have done in recent years, if some lawmakers are absent or just vote today.

Every nominee in the last 100 years has been successful on the first ballot. The record number of voting rounds to elect the Speaker of the House of Representatives was 133 in two months in the 1850s.

A potential replacement is unclear

McCarthy, of California, has raised millions of campaign dollars and traveled the country to recruit more new lawmakers to run for office, but has failed to win over a core group of right-wing Republicans led by the conservative Freedom Caucus, even for several weeks. closed meetings and promised changes to the House rules.

Nearly a dozen Republicans have publicly expressed concerns about McCarthy.

“Kevin McCarthy doesn’t have 218 votes to be Speaker,” said Rep. Scott Perry of Pennsylvania, chairman of the Freedom Caucus and a leader in Trump’s efforts to challenge the 2020 election. “Unless there is a dramatic change, we will be.”

A viable challenger to McCarthy has yet to emerge. Congressman Andy Biggs of Arizona, former leader of the Freedom Caucus, ran against McCarthy as a conservative choice, but was not expected to attract a majority. McCarthy defeated him in the November nomination contest, 188-31.

The second-ranked House Republican, 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 at a congressional baseball practice in 2017.

Scalise’s office dismissed as “false” suggestions Monday by other Republicans that Scalise called about the Speaker’s race.

McCarthy, another prominent Republican objected to the subpoena

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.

Read the committee’s final report on January 6:

The change in party control means work by the Democratic-led committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol will come to a halt, an effort that McCarthy and nearly all other House Republicans have scorned.

The committee in its final report recommended that McCarthy, Perry, Biggs and incoming House judiciary committee chairman Jim Jordan all face House ethics committee proceedings for defying subpoenas for interviews with the panel.

Pelosi, who turns 83 in March, is stepping down from the leadership role for Democrats. New York Democrat Hakeem Jeffries will serve as the party’s minority leader.

In the Senate, Democrats retain slim control of the chamber, led by Majority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York.