McCarthy Loses Third Round of Voting for House Speaker

Billy House and Erik Wasson
·4 min read
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(Bloomberg) -- Representative Kevin McCarthy lost a third round of voting for House speaker Tuesday, further imperiling his chances of winning the post amid a revolt by a small group of GOP dissidents that previews the turmoil that will envelop the chamber over the next two years.

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The three votes were a stunning political rebuke to the California Republican, who had spent much of the past year courting hard-line conservatives in the House GOP caucus. It was the first time since 1923 that a House speaker wasn’t selected on the first ballot.

The House can’t conduct any business until a speaker is elected and will continue to vote until someone wins a majority. McCarthy has vowed to press on.

“We stay in until we win,” he said after the second ballot.

McCarthy, 57, won backing from most Republicans in all three rounds of voting, but that wasn’t enough to win the majority of the entire House. Nineteen GOP members voted against him in the first two rounds and the opposition grew to 20 in the third.

Arizona Representative Andy Biggs was the nominee of the McCarthy opponents in the first round. Representative Matt Gaetz, one of McCarthy’s most vocal detractors, nominated Representative Jim Jordan, an Ohio Republican who supports McCarthy, in the second round.

“Maybe the right person for speaker of the House isn’t someone who wants it so bad,” Gaetz said on the floor.

McCarthy opponents moved to unify behind Jordan in an attempt to build momentum for an alternative, but the stalwart conservative would have a hard time getting the backing of swing-district moderates however.

“I believe it’s possible this could go for some period of time,” Texas Republican Pete Sessions, a McCarthy supporter, said.

Democrats cast their ballots for their leader, New York Representative Hakeem Jeffries, giving him 212 votes in the first round.

McCarthy’s backers said they expected him to eventually prevail, but the turmoil is bound to embolden the dissident Republicans and make it much harder for the speaker to lead the chamber and rally the party around legislative priorities. It also portends deadlock in Congress as it approaches critical deadlines to raise the nation’s debt ceiling and keep the government funded later this year.

The struggle over the speakership is part of the battle over the direction of the GOP between swing-district moderates and conservatives who have taken up the populist agenda of former President Donald Trump.

The animosity within the GOP seemed to be as personal as it is political. Alabama Republican Representative Mike Rogers threatened to strip McCarthy’s opponents from committee assignments — something Gaetz shrugged off.

“I’m not here to participate in some puppet show,” Gaetz said.

South Carolina Representative Nancy Mace, who supports McCarthy, expressed frustration with the House Freedom Caucus members who are leading the opposition.

“When asked point-blank what more they wanted, the House Freedom Caucus could not say what more they wanted,” Mace said after a closed door meeting of Republicans Tuesday morning. “They are holding our agenda hostage.”

Former Representative Justin Amash, a libertarian who left the Republican party in 2019 and didn’t seek reelection in 2020, outlined some of the objections to McCarthy in a blistering series of tweets.

“All evidence suggests that McCarthy, if elected speaker, will be singularly focused on doing whatever it takes to remain speaker,” Amash, a founding member of the Freedom Caucus, tweeted. “He’s motivated by power, not principles. A person with this mindset — that the end justifies the means — will, by definition, put the process last.”

McCarthy’s troubles are further complicated by the political sideshow involving newly elected Representative George Santos, the New York Republican who has admitted he made up much of his resume, including that he graduated from college and worked for Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Citigroup.

Santos’s fabrications only became public after he was elected in November. Federal and local officials have since opened investigations into the discrepancies. Santos voted for McCarthy, who has so far been silent about whether he plans to discipline Santos, despite other Republicans calling for action against him

--With assistance from Laura Litvan and Emily Wilkins.

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