McCarthy's race for speaker risks upending House on Day One

By LISA MASCARO

Associated Press

Dec. 17, 2022 11:25 AM PT

WASHINGTON —

In his quest to be House speaker, Kevin McCarthy is charging straight into history — potentially becoming the first nominee in 100 years unable to win the job on a first-round floor vote.

The increasing chances of a messy floor fight over the speaker’s gavel on Jan. 3, Day One of the new Congress, is worrying House Republicans, who have been meeting endlessly in private at the Capitol in an effort to resolve the standoff.

With a perilously slim 222-seat Republican majority in the 435-member House and facing a handful of defectors, McCarthy is working furiously to reach the 218 votes typically needed to become speaker.

“The fear is that if we stumble out of the gate,” the voters “will revolt over that and they will feel let down,” said Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.), a McCarthy ally.

Not since the disputed election of 1923 has a candidate for House speaker faced the public scrutiny of convening a new session of Congress only to have it descend into chaos, with one vote after another until a new speaker is chosen. It took a grueling nine ballots for a candidate to secure the gavel in 1923.

McCarthy, a Bakersfield Republican — who was first elected in 2006 and remains allied with former President Trump — has signaled he is willing to go as long as it takes in a floor vote to secure the job he has wanted for years. Trump has endorsed him and is said to be making calls on his behalf. McCarthy has given no indication he might step aside, as he did in 2015 when it was clear he did not have enough support to become speaker.

But he acknowledges the holdouts won’t budge.

“It’s all in jeopardy,” he told conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt on Friday.

The quandary reflects not just McCarthy’s uncertain standing with his peers, but also shifting norms in Congress. Party leaders who once had immense power — among them Cannon, Rayburn and now Pelosi, whose names adorn House meeting rooms and office buildings — are seeing it slip away in the 21st century.

Rank-and-file lawmakers have become political stars on their own terms, shaping their personal brands on social media and raising their own campaign funds. House members are less reliant on leaders to dole out favors in exchange for support.

If McCarthy can shore up the votes, he could emerge a weakened speaker, forced to pay a high price for the gavel. Or a brutal power struggle could instead embolden him as a leader.

“Does he want to go down as the first speaker candidate in 100 years to go to the floor and have to essentially, you know, give up?” said Jeffrey A. Jenkins, a USC professor and co-author of “Fighting for the Speakership.”

“But if he pulls this rabbit out of the hat ... maybe he actually has more of the right stuff,” Jenkins added.

Republicans met last week for another lengthy session as McCarthy’s detractors, mainly conservative stalwarts from the Freedom Caucus, demanded rule changes to diminish the power of the speakership.

Freedom Caucus members and others want assurances that they can help draft legislation and amend bills during floor debates. And they want enforcement of the rule that requires bills to be presented for review 72 hours before a vote.

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. Boehner and Ryan both retired early.

The central demand by McCarthy’s opponents may go too far for him: They want to reinstate a rule that allows any House member to file a motion to “vacate the chair,” allowing a floor vote to boot the speaker from office.

The Freedom Caucus’ early leaders, under Mark Meadows, the former North Carolina congressman who became Trump’s chief of staff, wielded the procedure to pressure Boehner and Ryan.

When Pelosi seized the gavel a second time, in 2019, House Democrats voted to do away with the rule and require a majority vote of the caucus to mount a floor vote against the speaker.

Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) said the 200-year-old rule was good enough for Thomas Jefferson, so he’d like to see it return.

“We’re still a long way from fixing this institution the way it needs to be fixed,” Roy said Thursday at the Capitol.

Even if McCarthy gives in to the demands of his party’s right flank, it’s not clear whether the faction will drop its opposition to his leadership.

Several House Republicans say they don’t think McCarthy will ever be able to overcome the detractors.

“I don’t believe he’s going to get to 218 votes,” said Rep. Bob Good (R-Va.), one of the holdouts. “And so I look forward to when that recognition sets in and, for the good of the country, for the good of the Congress, he steps aside, and we can consider other candidates.”

The opposition to McCarthy has prompted a counteroffensive from other House GOP groups, which are becoming more vocal in their support for him — and more concerned about the fallout if the new Congress opens with an internal party fight.

Rep. David Joyce (R-Ohio), who leads the Republican Governance Group, was wearing an “O.K.” button — for “Only Kevin,” he explained.

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.

Others have suggested threatening the detractors — for example, with loss of their committee assignments. But Rep. Dusty Johnson (R-S.D.), a leader of another conservative caucus, said: “Anybody who thinks that the holdouts are going to be bullied into compliance doesn’t understand how this town works.”

Retiring Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.) cautioned McCarthy against backing down.

“My advice to Kevin is, you got to go to the finish line,” he said. “You can’t fold the cards. You got to make these folks vote — and vote.”