Table Of Content
- House Democratic Caucus consensus
- Passage of a continuing resolution on the federal budget
- GOP House hard-liners won’t compromise. They’re losing key fights because of it.
- From Bakersfield to speaker of the House: Kevin McCarthy’s D.C. career in photos
- As McCarthy grasps for the speakership, ‘pork’ has become a focal point.
In Congress, he maneuvered through his party’s hierarchy before being elected speaker in January. Republicans would not have their five-seat majority in Congress without these two wins, plus three other pickups in California in 2020, McCarthy said, as he called for the reelection of state party Chairwoman Jessica Millan Patterson during Sunday’s internal party elections. Former Rep. Devin Nunes, who left Congress to lead Trump’s social media company, was supposed to speak Friday night but canceled because of weather problems. Two members of Congress spoke in his place, and three more spoke Saturday night, including newly elected Rep. John Duarte of Modesto and Rep. Michelle Steel of Seal Beach, who beat back a challenge in a tight district that includes swaths of Los Angeles and Orange counties. And after he averted a government shutdown by passing a short-term funding bill backed by Democrats and the White House, conservatives moved against him, making him the first speaker in history to be removed through a motion to vacate. “I may have lost this vote today, but as I walk out of this chamber I feel fortunate to have served,” McCarthy said at a press conference at the Capitol, alternating between upbeat assessment of his speakership and angry score-settling of those who ousted him.
House Democratic Caucus consensus
Probing “the weaponization of the F.B.I.” as McCarthy just mentioned, was a big priority of the hard-right flank of defectors. Chip Roy of Texas said earlier tonight that the defectors won an assurance that McCarthy would launch a select committee investigating the “weaponization of government” that would receive “the kind of budget and the kind of staffing” that the Jan. 6 select committee received. “The motion to vacate is accountability,” he added, referring to the measure allowing a snap vote to remove the speaker. Despite the divisions on display, Mr. McCarthy also emphasized the theme of unity in a speech after taking the speaker’s gavel, pledging open debate and an open door to both Republicans and Democrats. Reached for comment about the House's changing posture toward a motion to vacate, office directed NBC News to recent remarks from Johnson, R-La., which included his saying Saturday that he doesn't walk around the Capitol "being worried about a motion to vacate." Eleven far-right Republicans revolted against that deal by breaking a two-decade tradition that the majority allows floor debate even though lawmakers might oppose final passage.
Passage of a continuing resolution on the federal budget
“What we’re seeing is the incredibly shrinking speakership, and that’s most unfortunate for Congress,” former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Democrat of California, said as she entered the chamber on Friday afternoon. By Friday afternoon, Mr. McCarthy had won over 15 of the 21 Republicans who had defected, and he pressed into the night for more converts, a remarkable turnabout for a man who only days before appeared to be headed for defeat. His path was narrow until the end; only a few of the six remaining holdouts were seen as open to negotiating further. Kevin Owen McCarthy (born January 26, 1965) is an American politician who served as the 55th speaker of the United States House of Representatives from January to October 2023. Representative for California's 20th congressional district from 2007 until his resignation in 2023. Rep. Jared Moskowitz, D-Fla., a moderate who is on the Foreign Affairs Committee, blasted Greene’s effort to oust Johnson on Sunday when he was asked about her criticism of the foreign aid package.
GOP House hard-liners won’t compromise. They’re losing key fights because of it.
In 2016, Clark joined then-Georgia Rep. John Lewis and others in staging a sit-in on the House floor to protest the lack of votes on gun control legislation. Under pressure to step aside when there appeared to be no chance that he could clinch the speaker’s gavel, he hung on anyway. Late on Friday night, just as it appeared that Mr. McCarthy was finally going to win the speaker’s gavel that had eluded him for so long, it was suddenly yanked away from him at the last minute, in a highly charged moment on the House floor when his few remaining adversaries refused to bow.
In the shadow of the attack on the U.S. Capitol
There are more questions about how Mr. Rosendale and Mr. Crane may behave in the next round. Mr. Rosendale has signaled there are rules changes that could win him over, although it’s not clear what’s left to give him to appease him. Mr. Trump’s call into the chamber came on the two-year anniversary of the riot by his supporters to block congressional certification of Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s win over Mr. Trump. Even by the heated standards of the tensions that flared among House Republicans during their four-day push to elect a speaker, what happened on the House floor around 11 p.m.
“The empty chair is such poetry,” one onlooker said before the vote, pointing at the screen. WASHINGTON — Kevin McCarthy’s chaotic campaign for the speakership has become, for some in Washington, a spectacle to be consumed with the urgency of a major sporting event. The Democratic whip just sent out a note reminding members that they must be present on the House floor to be sworn in and reminding members to remain on the floor after McCarthy’s speech. The somber anniversary did not lead to comity on the House floor, as Mr. McCarthy’s fiercest holdout accused him in a bombastic speech of performing a fruitless exercise in vanity. Instead, he waited until the end of the roll call to vote “present.” Republicans cheered, but it was not enough. Yet Mr. McCarthy, who was willing to endure vote after humiliating vote and give in to an escalating list of demands from his opponents to secure the post, denied that the process foretold any dysfunction.
Kevin McCarthy wins House speakership on 15th vote
As the voting dragged on, it became clear that Representative Matt Gaetz of Florida, who has emerged as Mr. McCarthy’s chief adversary, would become the deciding vote. And when Mr. Gaetz voted “present,” depriving Mr. McCarthy of the majority support he needed, the California Republican blanched, stood up from his seat and walked across the House floor to speak to Mr. Gaetz himself. Talking with reporters, he gamely brushed off the notion that his historic and humiliating slog to election — the most protracted such contest since 1859 — foretold any troubles ahead for him in governing with an unruly and narrow majority.
What next after US Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy removed? - Al Jazeera English
What next after US Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy removed?.
Posted: Wed, 04 Oct 2023 07:00:00 GMT [source]
As McCarthy grasps for the speakership, ‘pork’ has become a focal point.
Pats on the back and smiles were exchanged, and many turned their attention away from the TVs. As the vote-casting began, a few people packed their bags, closed out their tabs and left. Mr. Trump called Mr. Gaetz, according to two people briefed on the call who spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly. CNN reported that Mr. Trump also called Representative Andy Biggs, who switched from voting against Mr. McCarthy to voting “present” on the 15th round. At the same time, Mr. Gaetz had reportedly sought a subcommittee chairmanship in the House Armed Services Committee. The prolonged election prompted tension and uncertainty in the Capitol, where lawmakers in both parties had grown impatient and bored awaiting the outcome of a high-stakes struggle that seemed at once monumental and absurd.
She started at the Los Angeles Times in 1998, previously covered multiple presidential, state and local races, and completed a Knight-Wallace fellowship at the University of Michigan in 2019. Huntington Beach Mayor Tony Strickland, who recalled entertaining and hosting poker nights when he shared a Sacramento house with McCarthy and Doug LeMalfa when the trio were in the state Legislature in the early 2010s, said he was proud of McCarthy and not surprised that he was successful. “He just thought we would be stronger if we went through it,” McCarthy said to hundreds of delegates and guests at a California Republican Party luncheon, his first speech to the state party since winning the post. "Kevin served the American people and his constituents in California’s Central Valley with honor for nearly two decades," Johnson said, accompanied by a photo of the two.
The 118th version of the Senate did the same this week, convening for a celebratory induction of new members and the swearing in of re-elected senators on Tuesday, then quickly fleeing the capital for three weeks to allow the House to occupy the political stage alone. Two Republicans who were absent for personal reasons from votes earlier in the day, Ken Buck of Colorado and Wesley Hunt of Texas, were expected to be back in time for the vote. That would mean Mr. McCarthy needs just two more in his column, and potentially just one if two or more of his opponents do not vote or vote present. Still, a large contingent of the crowd hung on, with a mixed but visible reaction to Representative Lauren Boebert, who had been a hard holdout, voting “present.” Some booed, and one yelled “sellout!
Three others — Bob Good of Virginia, Eli Crane of Arizona and Nancy Mace of South Carolina — face strong primary challenges. McCarthy has been working behind the scenes to end their congressional careers, strategizing and directing money and other resources to their opponents. Casey Burgat, an assistant professor at George Washington University, said it may be difficult to find a candidate to succeed McCarthy who can garner a consensus of support and who wants the gavel.
They prefer to protest, shut down the government and risk the GOP majority if Washington isn’t entirely overhauled. This stubborn adherence to ideological purity is causing the hard-liners to lose leverage in a House where the GOP has just a two-vote majority. Their intransigence means that Johnson — though he risks his job by doing so — has continued to turn to Democrats to pass high-priority legislation to keep the government funded and send foreign aid to U.S. allies such as Ukraine and Israel.
Two colleagues had spoken up to say they would join Greene in such a vote, giving her enough to defeat the speaker if all the chamber's Democrats voted to do the same. That's what the Democrats did when a motion to vacate the chair ousted the last Republican speaker, Kevin McCarthy, last fall. Just such a "motion to vacate the chair" was filed against Johnson in March by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga. But Greene has yet to make the motion "privileged," which under the rules would necessitate a vote within two days. The dayslong floor fight that preceded his elevation to the House’s top job foreshadowed a stormy tenure, at a time when former President Donald Trump remained the de facto leader of the party and deep divisions within the GOP raised serious questions about the party’s ability to govern.
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