Kevin McCarthy has been elected as Speaker of the House of Representatives, ending a tortuous week of wheeling and dealing on Capitol Hill that exposed a clear division in the Republican party and raised new questions about whether Congress can govern effectively in the coming year.
McCarthy was elected Speaker just after midnight on Friday with all but six Republicans supporting his bid. Six opposing Republicans voted “present” — a technicality that reduced the number of critical votes needed for McCarthy to seize the Speaker’s gavel.
It is the 15th round of voting since the process to elect the Speaker began on Tuesday. McCarthy was the first Speaker in a century to require more than one ballot to be elected.
“It’s easy, right? I never thought it would be up here,” McCarthy said with a laugh as he accepted the Speaker’s gavel from Hakeem Jeffries, the House Democratic minority leader.
“It’s not how you start, but how you finish. And now we have to finish strong for the American people,” added McCarthy.
The California congressman defied critics when, after seemingly endless negotiations and concessions, he eliminated enough opposition within his own party to be given the Speaker’s gavel. Earlier in the night, McCarthy suffered a humiliating defeat when he lost the 14th round of the election by the narrowest of margins.
McCarthy appeared shocked by the result, and in a last-ditch effort walked over to Florida’s Matt Gaetz and Colorado’s Lauren Boebert to try to change the vote from “now.” Mike Rogers, a congressman from Alabama, appeared to lunge at Gaetz before being restrained by another lawmaker.
McCarthy stressed that the process has united the party and will make them more effective in passing legislation in the coming months and years. But many in Washington question whether he has weakened his own hand and left himself in a very vulnerable position as he begins the new Congress.
One of McCarthy’s major concessions was to approve a rule allowing a single member of Congress to trigger a vote of no confidence in him or the incoming Speaker.
After Saturday’s early vote, US president Joe Biden issued a statement congratulating McCarthy on her election as Speaker but warning that “the American people expect their leaders to govern in a way that puts their needs higher, and this is what we have to do now” .
Biden said he was ready to work with Republicans on legislation but also set some red lines. “It is important that we continue . . . economic progress, not regress,” he said. “It’s important that we protect Social Security and Medicare, not cut them. It’s important that we defend national security, not destroy it. These are some of the options before us.
McCarthy addressed Jeffries and Democrats directly in a speech on Saturday morning, saying: “I promise our debate will be spirited, but it will not be personal. That is my commitment to you.”
McCarthy faces an uphill battle for Speaker as the Republican “red wave” he and others predicted did not materialize in the November midterm elections. However, Republicans eked out a razor-thin majority in the House, the lower chamber of Congress, and failed to regain control of the Senate, the upper chamber.
McCarthy was elected Speaker on the two-year anniversary of the January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol that disrupted the certification of the presidential election of Joe Biden and left several people dead.
At the White House on Friday evening, Biden held a ceremony marking the anniversary and awarded the presidential citizen’s medal to several people, including a state official who resisted former president Donald Trump’s attempt to overturn the election results, and the brother of a deceased Capitol police officer.