Utah congressmen express anger after Speaker McCarthy ousted

A handful of House Republicans succeeded in ousting their own leader Tuesday for the first time in U.S. history, infuriating the rest of the GOP conference, including Utah Reps. Blake Moore, John Curtis and Burgess Owens who voted against the motion.

“Congress set a new low today,” Curtis told the Deseret News shortly after the vote. “Republicans turning on Republicans and Democrats standing around with lighter fluid and matches.”

The motion to vacate the chair held by House Speaker Kevin McCarthy passed 216-210 Tuesday afternoon, with eight Republicans joining the entire Democratic conference in a show of defiance against the embattled speaker.

McCarthy won’t run again

McCarthy said he will not run for speaker again at a press conference Tuesday evening. Who his successor might be is unclear. The second most powerful person in the Republican conference, Majority Leader Steve Scalise, has cancer — although there were reports late Tuesday that Scalise was calling fellow Republicans about the position.

Calling himself a “happy conservative,” McCarthy defended his decision to support a resolution Saturday to avoid a government shutdown. After the vote, he immediately faced blowback from some members of his conference.

“Saturday I took a risk for the American public,” he said. And later, “You should always put country first.”

He criticized the process that brought him to this point — saying a small percentage of his conference shouldn’t have been able to team up with the entire Democratic conference to overturn the will of the large majority of Republican representatives who wanted him to keep his job.

“My fear is the institution fell today because you can’t do the job,” he said.

The frustration McCarthy clearly felt with the Republicans who pushed for his ouster, including Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz, was echoed by Utah’s three congressmen.

Moore: Gaetz has “insatiable desire for attention”

The sequence of events leading to McCarthy’s removal was set in motion Monday night by Gaetz, who has been at the forefront of the McCarthy-skeptics since the speaker was elected in January after 15 rounds of voting and after numerous concessions were made.

One of the concessions was lowering the threshold to call for a vote to oust the speaker to just one representative. It was a threat Gaetz, and others, have consistently hung over McCarthy’s head until it was carried out Monday and Tuesday.

“Today, Matt Gaetz and seven other members put our ability to hold the line against the Biden Administration’s out-of-control agenda in jeopardy by working with Democrats to oust our Republican Speaker instead of moving forward with votes on our conservative policies and appropriations bills,” Moore, who represents Utah’s 1st Congressional District, told the Deseret News Tuesday in a written statement.

“Today’s vote was not about Kevin McCarthy’s performance as speaker or disagreement over the House Republican agenda. Today’s vote was about Matt Gaetz and his insatiable desire for attention.”

Gaetz announced his intentions on Sunday after McCarthy avoided the government shutdown by bringing a no-strings-attached funding extension to the floor on Saturday for a bipartisan vote. The stopgap measure extends government funding until mid November so Congress can work through its 12 annual spending bills.

Despite having rejected a short-term spending bill with significant budget reductions and border security provisions, a contingency of House Republicans, headed by Gaetz, claimed McCarthy had walked back promises he made by relying on Democratic support to keep the government open. McCarthy vehemently denied their claims and challenged Gaetz’s honesty.

“Just because Gaetz said something, don’t believe it’s true,” said McCarthy. “I haven’t heard him say one true thing yet.”

Which Republicans voted to remove McCarthy?

The eight Republicans who voted to oust McCarthy — which included Gaetz, Arizona Reps. Andy Biggs and Eli Crane, Colorado Rep. Ken Buck, South Carolina Rep. Nancy Mace, Rep. Tim Burchett of Tennessee, Rep. Bob Good of Virginia and Rep. Matt Rosendale of Montana — argued the motion to vacate was needed to address the nation’s dangerous fiscal trajectory and McCarthy’s inability to keep his word.

On Fox News Tuesday evening, Gaetz said McCarthy wanted Republicans to “abandon” their priorities and he criticized the passage of the continuing resolution.

“I believe that the only way to achieve programmatic reform and to put downward pressure on spending is to do what was done back in the 90s where every individual bill is conferenced and debated and subject to amendment,” Gaetz said.

But Utah’s congressmen expressed their frustration about the inability to get conservative priorities through Congress because of the infighting brought on by Gaetz and others.

“No one’s interest was served with the removal of Kevin McCarthy,” said Curtis, who represents Utah’s 3rd District. “Instead of working on the budget, the border and run-away inflation we’re reenacting our high school years. I stand ready to work with any reasonable member of Congress to put this back together again and work on the real problems of our day.”

Who is speaker now?

Upon his removal, McCarthy was replaced by his close ally Rep. Patrick McHenry of North Carolina who he had selected in advance to serve as “speaker pro tempore.”

McHenry will now oversee the election of a new House speaker — a process that took five days the last time the Republican conference attempted to unite its narrow and raucous majority around one leader.

McHenry has said his intention is to have a speaker vote next Wednesday.

Owens: this is a “setback” to “conservative agenda”

In addition to expressing his continued support for McCarthy, Utah’s 4th District congressman, Rep. Burgess Owens, criticized his colleagues who “aligned with Democrats — one individual driven by a personal vendetta” for disrupting “the legislative process.”

“With only 43 days remaining to pass essential appropriations, their actions are a setback to our conservative agenda,” Owens said. “We have a mandate to govern effectively, and we must rise to the occasion.”

“A victory for chaos”

To many outside observers, McCarthy’s ouster represents the pinnacle of congressional dysfunction and highlights deep divisions that have prevented the Republican conference from governing.

“The vote today is a victory for chaos and a retreat from the responsibilities of governing,” said Chris Karpowitz, a senior scholar at the Center for the Study of Elections and Democracy at Brigham Young University, in a statement given to the Deseret News. “It is a historic and, frankly, sobering demonstration of political dysfunction in the Republican Party and, because they control the majority, of the House of Representatives.”

Former Utah Gov. Gary Herbert also expressed disappointment in the “House’s actions.”

“It is a sad day for both Republicans and Democrats, and more importantly a sad day for America,” Herbert said on X, formerly known as Twitter.

More criticism for Gaetz

Former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich, known for his aggressive style that resulted in a government shutdown in 1995, may have leveled the harshest criticism towards Gaetz and the current GOP conference.

“Drama has filled the halls of Congress for 234 years,” Gingrich wrote Tuesday in The Washington Post. “But Gaetz has gone beyond regular drama. He is destroying the House GOP’s ability to govern and draw a sharp contrast with the policy disasters of the Biden administration.”

Gingrich concluded: “(Gaetz) should ... be expelled from the House Republican Conference. House Republicans have far more important things to do than entertain one member’s ego.”

Despite labeling himself the “Trumpiest Congressman,” Gaetz’ antics also earned him heat from the former president, as well as pro-Trump commentators and conservative House members, including talk show host Mark Levin and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga.

“Why is it that Republicans are always fighting among themselves, why aren’t they fighting the Radical Left Democrats who are destroying our Country?” said former President Donald Trump in a Truth Social post Tuesday.

Most Senate Republicans were more muted, preferring to remain quiet or neutral on the matter.

Texas Sen. John Cornyn, former Republican whip in the Senate Republican Conference, was one exception, saying it was “sad” that “a handful House members just want to blow up the institution and themselves in the process.”

Utah Republican Sen. Mike Lee, who has often been a vocal supporter of moves by members of the conservative House Freedom Caucus to oppose leadership and push for spending cuts, expressed his confidence in the process underway in Congress’ lower chamber.

“The House of Representatives is determining the best leadership for their chamber, and I look forward to working with the next Speaker and my Republican colleagues to secure the border, stop wasteful government spending and skyrocketing debt, and rescue American families from the Biden administration’s disastrous economic policies,” Lee said in a statement given to the Deseret News on Tuesday.