WASHINGTON — After three failed efforts to elect GOP leader Kevin McCarthy as the new House speaker Tuesday, the Republicans adjourned for the day to try and regroup from his historic defeat and a long, messy start for the new Congress.
The surprise end to Day One shows there is no easy way out for McCarthy whose effort to claim the gavel collapsed to opposition from conservatives. Needing 218 votes in the full House, McCarthy got just 203 in two rounds — less even than Democrat Hakeem Jeffries in the GOP-controlled chamber. A third ballot was even worse, with McCarthy losing 20 votes as night fell on the new House GOP majority, tensions rising as all other business came to a halt.
The House agreed to return at noon Wednesday.
McCarthy had pledged a “battle on the floor” for as long as it took to overcome right-flank fellow Republicans who were refusing to give him their votes. But it was not at all clear how the embattled GOP leader could rebound after becoming the first House speaker nominee in 100 years to fail to win the gavel with his party in the majority.
Without a speaker, the House cannot fully form — swearing in its members, naming its committee chairmen, engaging in floor proceedings and launching investigations of the Biden administration.
“We all came here to get things done,” said the second-ranking Republican, Rep. Steve Scalise, in a rousing speech urging his colleagues to drop their protest.
Railing against President Joe Biden’s agenda, Scalise said, “We can’t start fixing those problems until we elect Kevin McCarthy our next speaker.”
It was a chaotic start to the new Congress and pointed to a tangled road ahead with Republicans now in control of the House. A new generation of conservative Republicans, many aligned with Donald Trump’s MAGA agenda, want to upend business as usual in Washington, and were committed to stop McCarthy’s rise without concessions to their priorities.
“The American people are watching, and it’s a good thing,” said Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, who nominated fellow conservative Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio as an alternative for speaker.
It was the second time conservatives pushed forward a reluctant Jordan, the McCarthy rival-turned-ally, who earlier had risen to urge his colleagues, even those who backed him, to vote for McCarthy.
“We have to rally around him, come together” Jordan said.
Jordan got six votes in the first round, 19 in the second round and was on track to pick up a similar number in the third.
Smiling through it all, McCarthy huddled briefly with aides, then appeared intent on simply trying to wear down his colleagues.
But on the first vote a challenge was quickly raised by Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., a conservative former leader of the Freedom Caucus, who was nominated by a fellow conservative as speaker. In all, 19 Republicans peeled away, denying McCarthy the majority he needs as they cast votes for Biggs, Jordan or others in protest.
After a raucous private GOP meeting, a core group of conservatives led by the Freedom Caucus and aligned with Trump, were furious, calling the meeting a “beat down” by McCarthy allies.
“If you want to drain the swamp you can’t put the biggest alligator in control of the exercise,” said Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla.
“He eagerly dismissed us,” said Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo.
A viable challenger to McCarthy has yet to emerge.
The second-ranking House Republican, Scalise of Louisiana, could be a next choice, a conservative widely liked by his colleagues and seen by some as a hero after surviving a gunshot wound suffered during a congressional baseball game practice in 2017.
A speaker’s contest last went multiple rounds in 1923.
