Kevin McCarthy falls short on first two votes for speaker in historic defeat

Nolan D. McCaskill

House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Bakersfield) fell short of the necessary number of votes to succeed Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) as speaker in the first two rounds of balloting Tuesday.

McCarthy became the first majority party leader in a century to fail to secure the speakership on the first ballot and failed to win any additional votes on a second ballot.

The repeated failure to elect a speaker is a clear sign of the divisions in the Republican Party. It is also a potential blow to California. If McCarthy prevails, Congress will hand off power and influence from a California Democrat to a California Republican. Instead, both leaders could be relegated to the back benches — one by choice and the other by force.

Nineteen Republicans voted for candidates other than McCarthy on the first ballot, leaving him 15 short of the 218 votes needed to secure the post he has long sought.

Although Tuesday’s first-round outcome wasn’t a surprise, the fact that McCarthy and his allies were unable to move a single vote his way in the second round was shocking — and potentially fatal to his diminishing path to the speakership.

The House speaker election hasn’t required multiple ballots on a floor vote since 1923, when then-Rep. Frederick Gillett (R-Mass.) was elected on the ninth ballot.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), a co-founder of the ultra conservative House Freedom Caucus, nominated McCarthy ahead of the second round of voting, hoping to persuade right-wing skeptics of McCarthy to support the California Republican on the floor.

“I think Kevin McCarthy’s the right guy to lead us. I really do, or I wouldn’t be standing up here giving this speech,” he pleaded to colleagues in his nominating remarks. “Kevin told me the toughest times in life are when you get knocked down. The question is can you come back. And I’ve always seen him be able to do that.”

It’s not clear, however, that McCarthy can come back from two failed roll call votes. Shortly after Jordan nominated McCarthy, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), sitting just steps away from McCarthy, rose to nominate Jordan instead. Conservative Republicans who had voted for alternatives in the first round of balloting voted in unison the second time around for Jordan.

A small number of conservative Republicans had for weeks vowed to oppose McCarthy on the floor when the new Congress convened, even as he continued to negotiate with members and make concessions on rules changes. How the weeks-long stalemate between the majority of the House Republican Conference and the pocket of conservative antagonists will be resolved remains unclear after two rounds of votes.

At noon, when the 118th Congress formally convened, officials were seen removing the metal detectors that Pelosi had installed outside the floor in the aftermath of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. But by the time the second roll call completed shortly after 3 p.m., the chamber still lacked new leadership.

The House’s failure to elect a speaker on the first pair of ballots throws into chaos the beginning of a divided government in Washington, delaying the swearing-in of members of the House, GOP committee assignments and votes on the rules that will govern the new Congress.

The splits within the GOP were evident even before the roll was called. Gaetz (R-Fla.), Reps. Bob Good (R-Va.) and Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) remained seated as most Republicans stood and applauded Rep. Elise Stefanik’s (R-N.Y.) initial nominating speech for McCarthy.

Democrats, in contrast, were in complete unity as Rep. Pete Aguilar (D-Redlands) stood to nominate Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), who has little chance of becoming speaker in a House Republican majority. Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.) later nominated Biggs for speaker, to muted applause in the chamber.

On the other side of the Capitol, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) celebrated a historic feat of his own, delivering floor remarks to commemorate his new record as the longest-serving leader in the upper chamber.

Although Republicans lost the White House in 2020, the Senate in 2021 and a Senate seat in the 2022 midterms, McCarthy has guided House Republicans to gains in the previous two cycles. He has traveled the country raising huge sums of money and tying himself closely to former President Trump, who himself has been unable to persuade conservative members of the House to back McCarthy for speaker, a powerful post that would put him second in line to the presidency behind Vice President Kamala Harris.

House GOP candidates fell far short of expectations last cycle, leaving the party with a razor-thin 222-212 majority over Democrats until the late Rep. Donald McEachin (D-Va.) is replaced in a special election later this year, likely by the Democratic nominee. And Democratic leaders are already bullish on their prospects for taking back control of the chamber in 2024.

McCarthy handily won an internal House Republican Conference vote for speaker in November against Biggs, by 188-31. The full GOP leadership slate elected in November included Reps. Steve Scalise (R-La.) as majority leader, Tom Emmer (R-Minn.) as majority whip, Stefanik as conference chair and Richard Hudson (R-N.C.) as chair of House Republicans’ campaign arm, the National Republican Congressional Committee.

Only the speaker’s post requires a full vote of the House, during which the winning candidate must receive a majority of all members present and voting. The chaos on the House floor only feeds into Democrats’ narrative that House Republicans are incapable of governing.

After the House chaplain’s prayer — and before the roll call votes for speaker commenced — reporters seated above the House floor in the gallery heard Rep. Juan Vargas (D-San Diego) say, “Let the show begin.” And during his vote, Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) cast his vote for the “current vote leader,” Jeffries.

“The 118th Congress has yet to begin and Americans are already seeing how dysfunctional and disastrous GOP control of the House is going to be,” Rep. Suzan DelBene (D-Wash.), chair of the the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee — House Democrats’ campaign arm — said in a statement. “While House Republicans fight one another in unprecedented ways, and Kevin McCarthy gives into the most extreme flanks of the Republican party in desperate plays for their support, Democrats are clear minded, unified and eager to get to work for the American people.”

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

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