WASHINGTON (AP) — House Republicans opened the second day of the new Congress on Wednesday with no apparent way out of political chaos, as Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy vowed to become speaker of the House despite losing in several rounds of voting that launched the new majority in the House. uproar
The House caved in at noon, and a McCarthy ally quickly renominated him to the job with a rousing speech designed to weed out detractors.
“Of course it looks messy,” said Rep. Mike Gallagher, R-Wis. But he said there’s no place he’d rather be than in the new House Republican majority. “The American people are in charge,” he said.
McCarthy himself entered the chamber saying, “We’re going to have another vote.”
It was the first time in 100 years that a candidate for Speaker of the House failed to pick up the gavel on the first ballot, but McCarthy did not seem discouraged. Instead, he vowed to fight to the end, encouraged, he said, by former President Donald Trump to end the disarray and bring the Republican Party together.
Early Wednesday, Trump publicly urged Republicans to vote for McCarthy: “CLOSE THE DEAL, TAKE THE VICTORY,” he wrote on his social media site. And he added: “REPUBLICANS, DON’T TURN A GREAT TRIUMPH INTO A GIANT, EMBARRASSING DEFEAT.”
The House will try again Wednesday after Tuesday’s deadlock essentially forced all other business to stop, waiting for Republicans to choose a speaker.
“Today, is this the day I wanted to have? No,” McCarthy told reporters Tuesday afternoon at the Capitol after a series of closed-door meetings. Asked if he would quit, McCarthy said, “It’s not going to happen.”
President Joe Biden, who left the White House for a bipartisan event in Kentucky with Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, said “the rest of the world is watching” the scene in the House.
“I think it’s really embarrassing that it’s taking so long,” Biden said. “I have no idea” who will prevail.
The disorganized start to the new Congress pointed to difficulties ahead with the Republicans who now control the House.
Tensions flared between the new House majority as their campaign promises stalled. Without a speaker, the House cannot fully form: swearing in its members, appointing its committee chairs, participating in floor proceedings and launching investigations into the Biden administration. Lawmakers’ families had been waiting as what is normally a holiday turned into chaos, with children playing in the hallways or writhing in their parents’ arms.
But it was far from clear how the embattled GOP leader could bounce back to win over right-wing conservatives who reject his leadership. A majority of the House is usually needed to become president, 218 votes, although the threshold can be lowered if members are absent or present only, a strategy McCarthy appeared to be considering.
McCarthy did not win more than 203 votes in three rounds of voting, losing as many as 20 Republicans of his slim majority of 222 seats.
Not since 1923 has the election of a speaker been made by several ballots, and the longest and most grueling struggle for the gavel began in late 1855 and lasted for two months, with 133 ballots, during the debates about slavery in the period before the Civil War. .
“Kevin McCarthy will not be a speaker,” said Rep. Bob Good, R-Va., one of the absentees.
A new generation of conservative Republicans, many aligned with Trump’s Make America Great Again agenda, want to overturn business as usual in Washington and vowed to stop McCarthy’s rise without concessions to his priorities.
In many ways, the challenge from the far right was reminiscent of the last time Republicans took power in the House, when tea party Republicans brought tough policies and shut down the government after winning control of the 2010 mid-term elections.
As the voting spectacle dragged on, McCarthy supporters implored the holdovers to fall in line with the California Republican.
“We all came here to get things done,” the second-ranking Republican, Rep. Steve Scalise, said in a speech that nominated McCarthy for the vote and urged his colleagues to drop their protest.
Opposing Democratic President Joe Biden’s agenda, Scalise, himself a possible GOP compromise option, said, “We can’t begin to fix these problems until we elect Kevin McCarthy as our next speaker.”
But resistance forced a third and final vote before Republican leaders quickly adjourned Tuesday evening.
“The American people are watching, and that’s a good thing,” said Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, who nominated fellow conservative Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio as an alternate for speaker.
Jordan, McCarthy’s rival-turned-ally, was twice pushed by conservatives but doesn’t seem to want the job. The Ohio Republican is in line to become chairman of the Judiciary Committee and stood during the debate to urge his colleagues to vote for McCarthy.
“We have to rally around them, unite,” Jordan said.
In all, a core group of 19 Republicans, then 20, voted for someone other than McCarthy. The first ballot sent votes to Rep. Andy Biggs of Arizona, Jordan and others, while Jordan only won votes on the next two ballots.
The standoff over McCarthy has been brewing since Republicans won a majority in the House in the midterm elections. Although the Senate remains narrowly in Democratic hands, House Republicans are eager to take on Biden after two years of Democrats controlling both houses of Congress. The conservative Freedom Caucus led the opposition to McCarthy, believing that he is not conservative enough or tough enough to fight the Democrats.
To win support, McCarthy has already agreed to many of the demands of the Freedom Caucus, which has been agitating for rule changes and other concessions that give the grassroots more influence in the legislative process. He has been here before, having dropped out of the speaker race in 2015 when he failed to win the Tories.
Late Tuesday, pizza, Chick-fil-A and tacos were brought into various Capitol meeting rooms after the failed votes, as McCarthy supporters and detractors hunkered down to figure out how to pick a speaker.
“Everything is on the table,” said McCarthy’s allied representative Patrick McHenry, RN.C. — except, he said, that the leader stepped aside. “Not quite. That’s not on the table.”
Rep. Scott Perry, R-Pennsylvania, chairman of the Freedom Caucus and leader of Trump’s effort to challenge the 2020 presidential election, had previously said it was up to McCarthy to meet his demands and change the dynamic.
Democrats enthusiastically nominated Jeffries, who takes over as party leader, as speaker. He won the most votes overall, 212.
If McCarthy could win 213 votes and then persuade the remaining naysayers to simply vote present, he could lower the threshold required by the rules to have a majority.
It’s a strategy former House speakers, including outgoing Democratic Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Republican Speaker John Boehner, had used when facing opposition, winning the gavel by less than 218 votes.
McCarthy said Tuesday afternoon at the Capitol: “You have 213 votes, and the others don’t call another name, that’s how you can win.”