How Kevin McCarthy finally won the speaker of the House vote

Charlie Brown never kicked the football, Ralph Bellamy never got the girl, but early on Saturday morning, Kevin McCarthy was finally the speaker.

On the 15th ballot, a total not achieved since before the Civil War, McCarthy finally received the absolute majority of votes needed to be elected speaker of the House. With 216 votes for 212 for Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) with six votes now, finally won the longest speaker election since Rep. William Pennington (R-NJ) won after 44 ballots on the eve of the Civil War.

Since Tuesday, California Republicans have faced a sustained backlash from members of the right-wing party who don’t believe they will uphold their conservative doctrines if given power. After three days of voting after voting and negotiations last night in the Capitol, McCarthy finally achieved the long-desired goal of wielding the spiker’s gavel.

After McCarthy failed again during the 14th vote last Friday night – falling short by only one vote – members of the Leadership team surrounded Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) to ask him to change his mind after he voted now, effectively abstaining. It got so hot that Rep. Mike Rogers (R-AL), a staunch McCarthy ally, even attacked Gaetz earlier. are being held by Reps. Richard Hudson (R-NC) and Garret Graves (R-LA).

In the 15th round of voting that began on January 6th and ended after midnight, all remaining anti-McCarthy voters voted “now”. It was enough to finally make McCarthy speaker.

However, the price he paid was high. McCarthy made some concessions to his critics in order to satisfy them and avoid a political deadlock. The result made him a weaker speaker even before his first day in office. Gaetz is perhaps the most virulent critic of McCarthy in the GOP House, saying on the floor that even if the California Republican wins, the power will be more like the speaker of the British House of Commons than the American House of Representatives. In other words, McCarthy would be a constitutional figure rather than a powerful party leader. The concession may not be too far away and it is unlikely that McCarthy will wear a black silk dress like her counterpart in Parliament. However, they will not have the same power as Nancy Pelosi, or even Paul Ryan and John Boehner. After decades in which the speaker’s position grew more powerful, the deal reached Friday reduced the role of the office.

What makes them top?

McCarthy made a series of concessions to the right that would give members affiliated with the House Freedom Caucus significant influence in the legislative process. Most importantly, he would get three members on the powerful House Rules Committee. The Rules Committee is not concerned with the substance of policy. As chairman, Rep. Tom Cole (R-OK), explained to Vox, “it’s a process committee.” It sets the terms of debate and decides whether a bill is subject to amendment on the floor or not. Long-time House leader in both parties and there, in Cole’s words, to “make sure [legislation] reach the floor in a form that the speaker thinks will be passable.”

In recent years, this has meant that legislation has been passed by prepared committees with few amendments accepted in the chamber and no ability to change bills by rank-and-file members once they are on the floor. In theory, under McCarthy’s agreed concessions, the new members will now allow more debate on bills and make it more difficult for the comprehensive legislative leviathan. — like the new omnibus bill or the Democrats’ social spending bill dubbed the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) — forced through the room.

The rebels also won concessions to limit spending as well as a commitment by the outside super PAC affiliated with McCarthy, the Congressional Leadership Fund, not to spend in open Republican primaries in safe seats.

The most symbolic concession, however, was the move to vacate. It’s a lengthy provision in House rules that allows any member to make a motion to “vacate the seat,” which would trigger a new election for speaker at any time. This tool carries great symbolism in negotiations with McCarthy’s detractors; it was a threat used by the right in 2015 to finally force Boehner out of the speaker’s office. After taking office in 2018, Pelosi changed the rules to limit their use. House Republicans pushed for reinstatement, although McCarthy once described it as a red line. While California Republicans previously admitted that the motion could be passed with the support of five members, the threshold is now back to one.

What happens next?

After McCarthy finally won the election that evening, the House proceeded to enforce the rules and let everyone go home. In the short term, House Republicans will be able to pass some of the agenda they campaigned on in the coming days and weeks, including legislation to reverse funding increases for the Internal Revenue Service that are in IRAs as well as legislation to address the southern border and immigration. illegal. That would be a nonstarter in the Democratic-controlled Senate.

In the long run, McCarthy’s concessions set the table for another major showdown on the debt ceiling in the coming months. The federal government will quickly oppose the $31.4 trillion cap and conservatives will demand that the Biden White House make concessions in order to approve the cap. This means a high-stakes match that will endanger the credibility and credit of the United States. The same performance in 2011 under John Boehner caused the credit rating of the United States to decrease for the first time in history. But not as it is today, right-wing conservatives the House will have more power, and the Republican speaker will be in a weaker political position.