Johnson Has a Tough Job McCarthys Concessions Are Making It Tougher. The New York Times

Table Of Content

• GOP House hard-liners won’t compromise. They’re losing key fights because of it.
• McCarthy's speakership
• Many O.C. residents skeptical of election results, potentially swaying key races, poll finds
• McCarthy receives homecoming welcome from California Republicans after being elected speaker
• From Bakersfield to speaker of the House: Kevin McCarthy’s D.C. career in photos

A more recent threat against John Boehner in 2015 didn’t make it to a vote but led him to early retirement. It was a stunning moment for McCarthy, a punishment fueled by growing grievances but sparked by his weekend decision to work with Democrats to keep the federal government open rather than risk a shutdown. Moments later, a top McCarthy ally, Rep. Patrick McHenry, R-N.C., took the gavel and, according to House rules, was named speaker pro tempore, to serve in the office until a new speaker is chosen.

GOP House hard-liners won’t compromise. They’re losing key fights because of it.

At the Capitol, both Republicans and Democrats met privately ahead of the historic afternoon vote. The House then opened a floor debate unseen in modern times, and Republicans argued publicly among themselves for more than an hour. A new generation of conservative Republicans, many aligned with Trump’s Make America Great Again agenda, want to upend business as usual in Washington and are committed to stopping McCarthy’s rise without concessions to their priorities. Republican Party holdouts repeatedly put forward the name of Rep. Byron Donalds of Florida, ensuring continuation of the stalemate that increasingly carried undercurrents of race and politics. The rebels also won concessions on limiting spending as well as a commitment by an outside super PAC affiliated with McCarthy, the Congressional Leadership Fund, not to spend in open Republican primaries in safe seats. Charlie Brown never kicked the football, Ralph Bellamy never got the girl, but early Saturday morning, Kevin McCarthy finally became speaker.

McCarthy's speakership

The potential of a government shutdown began to take hold in July 2023, with the Freedom Caucus—in demonstrations of austerity and defiance toward McCarthy—opposing spending bills to fund the government. Following an unsuccessful motion to table by Representative Tom Cole, Republican Chair of the Rules Committee, Republican representatives debated McCarthy's speakership on the House floor. When the time for debate expired, the House voted to remove McCarthy, with insurgent Republicans and the minority Democrats voting against him. The speaker's chair was vacated and Patrick McHenry of North Carolina—a McCarthy ally—was made speaker pro tempore and the House went without a proper speaker until the October 25 election of Mike Johnson of Louisiana. McCarthy subsequently announced his resignation from Congress effective at the end of 2023. Jeffries’ position was made official after the conclusion of a prolonged floor fight that culminated in Republican Kevin McCarthy becoming House speaker.

Former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy announces retirement from Congress - BBC.com

Former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy announces retirement from Congress.

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Many O.C. residents skeptical of election results, potentially swaying key races, poll finds

"There's negotiations and then there's holding the rest of us hostage and 20 don't get to do that to 201 [members-elect]." On Wednesday, a group of House Republican veterans held a news conference on the speaker standoff, which they referred to as being held hostage. The House could not conduct any business, including swearing in new members, until a speaker was chosen. The relief in the chamber was palpable as each dissenter shifted their support in favor of McCarthy, with Republicans bursting into applause and offering standing ovations to their colleagues who moved the needle closer to resolution. "Without question in my mind, Speaker Emerita Pelosi will go down in history as the greatest speaker of all time," he said.

McCarthy receives homecoming welcome from California Republicans after being elected speaker

For years, Kevin McCarthy wanted to be speaker of the House in the worst possible way, and that’s precisely what he accomplished by winning the leadership post after 15 humiliating rounds of voting and days of give-away-the-store negotiations. Even if McCarthy is able to secure the votes he needs, he will emerge as a weakened speaker, having given away some powers and constantly under a threat of being voted out by his detractors. But he would also be potentially emboldened as a survivor of one of the more brutal fights for the gavel in U.S. history. After McCarthy finally won election in the wee hours, the House finally adjourned and let everyone go home. After McCarthy failed again during a 14th vote late Friday night — falling short by just one vote — members of the leadership team surrounded Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) to get him to change his mind after he voted present, effectively abstaining. It got so heated that Rep. Mike Rogers (R-AL), an ardent McCarthy ally, even lunged at Gaetz before being restrained by Reps. Richard Hudson (R-NC) and Garret Graves (R-LA).

McCarthy’s ouster from a job he long coveted was induced by far-right Republicans with the support of vengeance-minded Democrats. Hard-line Republicans joined with Democrats to remove the Bakersfield Republican from the speaker’s chair. Like most, the operative asked not to be quoted by name, to preserve his relationship with the ex-speaker. McCarthy declined to be interviewed, perhaps because of the ways — feckless, morally bankrupt — your friendly columnist has described him.

Fresh headaches for the GOP

The House has voted to remove Kevin McCarthy as speaker, marking the first time in history that a House speaker has been removed in this way. California Democrat Pete Aguilar mentioned the attack during his speech Friday night after nominating Democrat Hakeem Jeffries of New York for speaker. McCarthy emerged victorious after Republicans Andy Biggs and Eli Crane of Arizona and Bob Good of Virginia voted "present," which lowered the threshold of support the GOP leader needed to win. The result also meant elected representatives have finally been sworn in as members of the 118th Congress, and the House can get to work.

Why Rep. Robert Garcia will be ceremonially sworn in to office with a vintage Superman comic

McCarthy made a series of concessions to his critics in order to sufficiently mollify them and avoid a political deadlock. Gaetz, perhaps McCarthy’s most virulent critic in the House GOP, said in a floor speech earlier Friday that even if the California Republican won, his powers would be more similar to the speaker in the British House of Commons than the American House of Representatives. In other words, McCarthy would be more of a constitutional figurehead than a powerful party leader. Since Tuesday, the California Republican had faced an ongoing rebellion from hard-right members of his party who did not trust him to sufficiently adhere to conservative doctrine if given power.

Ousted House speaker McCarthy says Johnson shouldn’t fear losing job: ‘I don’t think they could do it again’ - The Guardian US

Ousted House speaker McCarthy says Johnson shouldn’t fear losing job: ‘I don’t think they could do it again’.

Posted: Mon, 25 Mar 2024 07:00:00 GMT [source]

It has led to some privately calling for more time at home in their districts, knowing little will probably get done the rest of the year. Prior to that, the last Republican speaker had been Nicholas Longworth of Ohio, who died in 1931. Technically, he died as speaker, but his party lost its majority before the next Congress convened and elected a Democrat to the job. Ryan, then just 45, was the youngest speaker in nearly 150 years but had already been party's vice presidential nominee on the 2012 ticket. Ryan also had a strained relationship with then-President Donald Trump, with whom he had a falling out during the fall 2016 campaign.

The rules of the 118th Congress state that "in the case of a vacancy in the office of speaker, the next member" named on a list submitted by McCarthy to the clerk of the House in January will become speaker pro tempore until a speaker is elected. A House reading clerk announced immediately after the vote that Rep. Patrick McHenry of North Carolina was the first name on McCarthy's list and therefore was appointed speaker pro tempore. Washington — The House on Tuesday voted 216 to 210 to remove California Republican Kevin McCarthy from his position as House speaker, a historic move that comes days after he reached an 11th-hour deal to avert a government shutdown with the help of House Democrats. Members told reporters that they expect to hold a candidate forum next Tuesday ahead of votes on a speaker, possibly as early as Wednesday. Many of the House Republicans who spurred on gridlock of the speaker elections this week were supportive of Trump's effort to challenge the results of the 2020 presidential election.

With Republican lawmakers growing irritable after days of fruitless voting, a heated argument broke out between several of them. But Representative Mike Rogers of Alabama, a McCarthy ally who is in line to become the next chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, took it to another level when he stepped toward Mr. Gaetz and had to be restrained. Those compromises delivered a breakthrough for Mr. McCarthy, who in votes on Friday afternoon won support from a sizable chunk of the Republicans who had consistently refused to back him — though he remained short of the majority to win. Mr. McCarthy agreed to allow a single lawmaker to force a snap vote at any time to oust the speaker, a rule that he had previously refused to accept, regarding it as tantamount to signing the death warrant for his speakership in advance. With Mr. McCarthy elected, he immediately turned to swearing in the 434 members of the House to officially seat the 118th Congress.

Typically, top leaders would be next in line for the job, but Majority Leader Steve Scalise is battling cancer and Majority Whip Tom Emmer, like any potential candidate, may have trouble securing the vote. Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries said in a letter to colleagues that he wants to work with Republicans, but he was unwilling to provide the votes needed to save McCarthy. It’s the end of the political line for McCarthy, who has said repeatedly that he never gives up, but found himself with almost no options remaining. Neither the right-flank Republicans who engineered his ouster nor the Democrats who piled on seem open to negotiating. All McCarthy managed to prove in his clumsy reach for power was a bottomless capacity to get pushed around and capitulate to extortion.

That speaker was Joseph G. Cannon of Illinois, notorious as the autocratic "Czar Cannon" during three two-year tours as speaker that ended with his party's historic defeat in 1910. Those eight years actually made Hastert the longest-serving Republican speaker in history. But any luster left after 2006 was lost when he went to prison for bank fraud charges stemming from hush money payments he had made to a former student he admitted to having sexually abused decades earlier. Greene had vowed to press her challenge after Johnson announced a strategy to pass $95 billion in aid to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan earlier this month.

When Republicans went to the Texas-Mexico border earlier this year, members of the Freedom Caucus rented their own bus so as not to mingle with the larger group. In 1994, two years into the presidency of Democrat Bill Clinton, Gingrich organized a campaign around a 10-item agenda called the "Contract with America." It provided a unified message for the party's nominees, who flipped more than 50 seats and stormed into the majority. The current state of internal politics among House Republicans is so unsettled that almost anything could happen at almost any time. When the House returns from its recess next week, Speaker Mike Johnson is now widely expected to resume his duties without immediately facing a motion to oust him. Some have suggested that those opposing McCarthy could simply vote “present,” lowering his threshold to win — a tactic Pelosi and Boehner used to win with fewer than 218 votes. Outgoing Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) and the last two GOP speakers, John A. Boehner and Paul D. Ryan, faced similar challenges, but were able to use their position to hand out favors, negotiate deals and otherwise keep opponents in line — for a time.

In addition to being the first Black lawmaker to attain such a position, Jeffries is also the first person elected to lead House Democrats to be born after the end of World War II. Clark’s ascension to a top House leadership position comes less than 10 years after she entered Congress representing Massachusetts’ 5th Congressional District, a Democratic stronghold outside Boston. She won a special election in 2013 to succeed Democrat Ed Markey, following his election to the Senate, and has comfortably won reelection ever since. A firm supporter of President Joe Biden’s agenda, Clark is a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus and has served on the powerful House Appropriations Committee. She is an advocate of gun reform, Medicare for All and raising the federal minimum wage.