Race for House speaker: Central Texas' Chip Roy continues fight against Kevin McCarthy

WASHINGTON — Hays County U.S. Rep. Chip Roy continued to lead a group of about 20 conservative Republicans on Wednesday in their fight to keep House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., from becoming House speaker after six rounds of voting over two days.

House lawmakers spent a second day deadlocked over electing a new speaker, with McCarthy unable to overcome opposition within his own party to win a majority vote.

Seeing no quick way out of the political standoff, Republicans voted abruptly late Wednesday afternoon to adjourn until 8 p.m. as they desperately searched for an endgame.

The House gaveled in at noon, but no other work can be done — swearing in new members, forming committees, tackling legislation, investigating the Biden administration — until the speaker is elected.

With Republicans holding a slim majority of 222 seats in the House, McCarthy can only afford to lose the support of four GOP members to become speaker.

Roy, a key McCarthy defector since the midterm elections when the GOP won control of the House, stunned many colleagues and observers Wednesday by nominating little-known Rep. Byron Donalds, R-Fla., to be speaker.

“Now for the first time in history, there have been two Black Americans placed into the nomination of speaker of the house,” Roy said to applause and a standing ovation from both sides of the aisle in what was a fleeting moment of unity in a divided chamber. Democratic nominee Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y. is also Black.

Democrats enthusiastically nominated Jeffries, who is taking over as their party leader in the House, as their choice for speaker. He continued to win the most votes overall, 212.

Roy had voted for Donalds to be speaker in the first vote held Tuesday, and then pivoted to Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, in the next votes, even though Jordan supports McCarthy.

In the second day of voting, the core group of Roy-led opponents to McCarthy stuck with Donalds, who had previously supported McCarthy in the first vote.

“Today I am rising to nominate Byron Donalds as speaker of the house,” Roy said Wednesday morning just before the fourth round of votes. “Byron is a dear friend, a solid conservative, and most importantly, a family man who loves dearly his wife, Erika, his three children, has a proven record as a businessman, public service in the Florida Legislature and now as a member of the United States Congress.”

Why Donalds?

“This country needs a change. This country needs leadership that does not reflect this city, this town, that is badly broken,” said Roy, who wants vigorous debate on the House floor on all measures.

“The only way you are going to get that is if you change the rules and have the leadership to advance the rules to make sure that we can do that.”

Several McCarthy supporters pointed to changes in House rules that the GOP leader had proposed to accommodate critics, but Roy said in his speech that it was not enough.

“Now, we’ve had a conversation for two months to try to advance the ball. And we have had success in doing that. But we’re not there,” Roy said. “We’re not at the place where we need to be to guarantee ... that we’re going to be able to stand up in the face of the swamp that continues to step over the American people on a daily basis and spend money we don’t have, and to continue to leave our borders open. ... Byron will step up and do that.”

Not since 1923 has the House speaker's election gone to multiple ballots. The longest and most grueling fight for the gavel started in late 1855 and dragged out for two months, with 133 ballots, during debates over slavery in the run-up to the Civil War.

President Joe Biden, departing the White House for a bipartisan event in Kentucky with Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell, said “the rest of the world is looking” at the scene on the House floor.

“I just think it’s really embarrassing it’s taking so long," Biden said. “I have no idea” who will prevail.

Former President Donald Trump renewed his support for McCarthy on Wednesday. “Close the deal, take the victory," Trump wrote on his social media site, using all capital letters. “Do not turn a great triumph into a giant & embarrassing defeat.”

If McCarthy could win 213 votes, and then persuade the remaining naysayers to simply vote present, he would be able to lower the threshold required under the rules to have the majority. It's a strategy former House speakers, including outgoing Democratic Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Republican Speaker John Boehner had used when they confronted opposition, winning the gavel with fewer than 218 votes.

Texas Rep. Michael Cloud and Rep.-elect Keith Self joined Roy in voting for Donalds. All other GOP lawmakers who represent Central Texas voted for McCarthy: U.S. Reps. John Carter, of Round Rock; Michael McCaul, of Austin; and Pete Sessions, of Waco.

Additional material from The Associated Press.

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: U.S. House speaker race: Chip Roy leads fight against Kevin McCarthy