‘From ‘My Kevin’ to ‘Bye, Kevin.’’ California pols reacts to McCarthy ouster

Good morning and welcome to the A.M. Alert!

MCCARTHY IS OUT

To quote a tweet from California Democratic political strategist Noah Finneburgh, he went “from ‘My Kevin’ to ‘Bye, Kevin.’”

As of Tuesday afternoon, Bakersfield Republican Kevin McCarthy is no longer Speaker of the House, as House Democrats joined forces with a handful of far right conservatives to vote him out.

This kicks off a power struggle as the slim Republican House majority must figure out who’s taking the gavel next.

An impassioned California Republican Rep. Tom McClintock warned that this could lead to a “Republican rump” joining forces with the Democrats to name a compromise speaker. To be clear, McClintock didn’t think this was a good thing.

After McCarthy’s historic ouster, establishment Republicans were livid and Democrats were critical.

National Republican Congressional Committee western press secretary Ben Petersen attempted to shift blame for the palace coup to the Democrats, despite the fact that said coup was led by arch-conservative Florida Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz.

“As House Republicans continue to try to do the people’s work considering critical funding bills, House Democrats are using every dirty trick to delay, deflect and destroy the institution,” Petersen said in a statement.

The California Business Roundtable on Tuesday offered an epitaph for McCarthy’s speakership, with President Rob Lapsley saying in a statement that “whether as leader here in California or as Speaker of the House, Congressman Kevin McCarthy has always served with the highest integrity.”

Lapsley bemoaned the removal, saying that it was “clearly designed to ignite and enflame political division” in the country.

“We strongly urge Congress to immediately go back to doing the work of the people, especially promoting economic stability and growth at this critical time,” he said.

California Democrats responded with an abundance of snark, and with (what else?) a fundraising email.

“Bickering online, threatening to shut down the government, derailing Congress with a dramatic vote to remove their own House Speaker… THIS is what Republicans are doing instead of protecting women’s rights, fighting for fair housing, defending labor, or serving the American people,” the California Democratic Party said in a Tuesday afternoon email.

Rep. Adam Schiff, who was censured by McCarthy’s GOP majority earlier this year, tweeted that removing McCarthy was the right decision, but that “I think we all felt the gravity of the moment.”

“The speakership has been vacated for the first time in over a century. It’s up to Republicans now to get their act together and nominate someone whose word has meaning,” Schiff wrote in a tweet.

Even California state lawmakers weighed in. Sen. Dave Min, D-Irvine, who is seeking to replace Rep. Katie Porter in the House, wrote in a tweet that “I want to imagine a world in which Matt Gaetz is just a sleazebag hanging out too much at the mall, and NOT an instrumental vote in Congress.”

Meanwhile, Assembly Majority Leader Isaac Bryan, D-Los Angeles, wrote in a tweet about the historic nature of Tuesday’s vote.

“The House Of Representatives now has two Speaker Emerita serving for the first time in history. Every Republican should be embarrassed right now…”

SENATE GOP LAWMAKERS URGE VETO ON SB 403

Though SB 403, the bill to ban caste-based discrimination in California, passed with bipartisan support, not every Republican is on board with it.

Senate Minority Leader Brian Jones, R-Santee, and Sen. Shannon Grove, R-Bakersfield, on Tuesday sent a letter to Gov. Gavin Newsom, urging him to veto the legislation, arguing that it “puts our state on track to add the first and only explicitly racially discriminatory term to California law, resulting in the denial of constitutional rights of equal protection and due process for South Asians, and Hindus in particular.”

Jones and Grove wrote that the bill “will have disastrous consequences for California for years to come.”

The letter comes as a hunger strike in favor of the bill entered its fourth week this week.

CALIFORNIA SENATE CANDIDATES TO ATTEND FORUM

Three top Democratic U.S. Senate candidates are set to attend a forum Sunday in Los Angeles hosted by the National Union of Healthcare Workers.

Reps. Schiff, Porter and Barbara Lee are scheduled for the event, which is being held in conjunction with the congressional newspaper Roll Call and the progressive group Courage California and moderated by reporters from Roll Call, the Associated Press and the Los Angeles Times.

As for Laphonza Butler, who now holds the contested Senate seat, she is not yet scheduled to appear.

NUHW President Sal Rosselli said in a statement that “this forum is an opportunity for NUHW members to hear from the candidates firsthand, and it’s also a news event where reporters can pose questions on the minds of voters across the state.”

QUOTE OF THE DAY

“Bring it on.”

- Now former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, via X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.

Best of The Bee:

• There’s no logical successor to toppled House Speaker Kevin McCarthy. There’s not even a timetable for picking a successor. There’s uncertainty about who would temporarily run the House, via David Lightman.

• Trust is the most valuable currency a congressional leader has. And many of the 216 members of Congress who ousted Rep. Kevin McCarthy as speaker Tuesday considered him a liar, via David Lightman and Gillian Brassil.

• Sen. Laphonza Butler was sworn in to succeed the late Sen. Dianne Feinstein Tuesday. She’s the first Black lesbian serving openly in Congress and only the third Black woman to serve in the U.S. Senate, via Gillian Brassil.

• Student employees in the California State University system announced Tuesday that they are one step closer to forming what they say would be the largest non-academic union of undergraduate student workers in the country, via Maya Miller.

• Days after Sacramento State officials announced that Capital Public Radio may be insolvent by January, the student member of CapRadio’s board of directors is asking for resignations of board officers and finance committee members, via Sam Stanton.