Rep. Andy Ogles' opposition to Kevin McCarthy as House Speaker draws rebuke, praise

UPDATE: On Friday, in the 12th round of voting, Rep. Andy Ogles switched his vote for Speaker in favor of Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy and kept voting for him. On the 15th round of voting, McCarthy finally prevailed with 216 GOP votes. Six Republicans voted present and 212 Democrats voted for Jeffries.

The House of Representatives started a 10th round of voting for Speaker of the House on Thursday. No candidate has received a majority so far.

Republicans won a majority of House seats in November, but since the first ballot on Tuesday, their leader, Rep. Kevin McCarthy, has continuously failed to get enough of his fellow GOP colleagues to vote for him.

Among the 20 or so insurgents are Rep. Andy Ogles, the freshman congressman from Columbia, Tennessee whose Fifth District includes portions of Nashville, Williamson County and Wilson County. All of Tennessee's seven other Republican members of Congress back McCarthy.

I wrote a column about what Ogles risks by defying McCarthy, and I have seen commentary in our letters to the editor and on social media, some of which I'm sharing below. If you have a comment or letter, ping me at dplazas@tennessean.com.

-- David Plazas, opinion and engagement director

Letter: Ogles sows chaos in his congressional debut

"Andy Ogles had yet to be sworn in as a U.S. representative or take a single vote on congressional legislation, but he already made our government more dysfunctional.

"On Wednesday night, a handful of extremist Republicans prevented the House of Representatives from appointing a Speaker and proceeding with official business. Out of Tennessee's eight GOP Congress members, only Ogles threw in his lot with the likes of Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado and Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida to turn the House into a CSPAN circus.

"As important votes on government funding and the debt ceiling loom, one can only hope that Ogles will soon remember that he is supposed to be a representative of Tennessee, rather than a representative of chaos."

Signed, Kyle Mallinak, Brentwood

Reaction on Twitter

Find some tweets below:

Gary Humble, executive director of Tennessee Stands: "The TN establishment hacks continue to pretend they hold the power. Glad we at least have @AndyOgles to represent conservatives in Congress."

Super Talk 99.7 FM talk radio host Matt Murphy: BREAKING NEWS: @JohnRoseforTN tells me @AndyOgles was lying when he claimed his support for Kevin McCarthy was “conditional” Say he was in the room and it was an unconditional promise to vote for KM. @997wtn"

Photographer Alex Hart Ciaramitaro: Congressman Elect @AndyOgles, as a member of a constituency, a resident of Spring Hill, Maury County of Tennessee I urge you to vote for Congressman Hakeem Jeffries as Speaker of the United States House of Representatives for the 118th United States Congress.

Columnist Cameron Smith (a former political attorney for Republican members of Congress): "This isn't about McCarthy. It's about 20 members trying to dictate conditions to 202. I can tell you which 20 are going to get committee seats in the basement. One of them is @AndyOgles."

Knox County Democrats Chair Matt Shears: "This is @AndyOgles handing a giant speaker’s gavel to a fundraiser that Kevin McCarthy flew to Nashville to host for him when he was being out-fundraised. Today Andy Ogles voted against McCarthy to be speaker. LOL…you reap what you sow."

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Reaction to Rep. Andy Ogles opposition to Kevin McCarthy as Speaker