House hard-line Republicans wont compromise Theyre losing key policy fights because of it.

Table Of Content

• ‘How the hell does that even happen?’ McCarthy exits Congress amid confusion over who can run to replace him
• Column: We’re wiping out the Southern California steelhead trout. Time to fix that
• Bipartisan lawmakers "interacted more this week than we have in the last four years," GOP congressman says
• The divisions playing out in the Capitol this week have posed problems for Kevin McCarthy at home, too.
• Biden officials indefinitely postpone ban on menthol cigarettes amid election-year pushback
• Democratic Party
• California holds the key to GOP power in the House. McCarthy’s retirement makes everything harder

Prior to the GOP's 40-year sentence as the minority party, several of its speakers had risen to the top rung largely on their personal popularity among their colleagues. One was Joseph Martin of Massachusetts, who led the party in the House during two brief interludes of majority status after World War II. Both lasted only the minimum two years, the first ending with Democratic Harry S. Truman's surprise White House win in 1948. Martin was back four years later when Eisenhower was first elected president in 1952, but that tour at the top was cut short by his party's sharp losses two years later.

‘How the hell does that even happen?’ McCarthy exits Congress amid confusion over who can run to replace him

It is easier to find detractors on his far-right flank than die-hard supporters, in what should be friendly home turf for California’s top Republican — one of the reddest cities in one of the bluest states in the country. The two clerks, Tylease Alli and Susan Cole, have been an integral part of what is now the fifth longest speaker election, and television viewers have noticed. Mr. Gaetz, Mr. McCarthy’s chief antagonist, has accused the G.O.P. leader of selling his soul to lobbyists and of pursuing the speakership because of his own vanity. The House is back to the floor for its 14th vote for speaker, and the one that Representative Kevin McCarthy is saying will finally clinch the deal for him. A bartender switched the channel from basketball to C-SPAN about 10 minutes before the vote was set to start, but it was only when the session was called to order that the rowdy crowd turned its attention fully to the screens, hooting and clapping. The dramatic moment was captured on C-SPAN’s video cameras, which, lacking the typical restraints placed upon them in a House with a speaker, were free to show whatever moments from the floor its operators deemed newsworthy.

McCarthy will not run for speaker again after House votes to oust him - CNN

McCarthy will not run for speaker again after House votes to oust him.

Posted: Tue, 03 Oct 2023 07:00:00 GMT [source]

Column: We’re wiping out the Southern California steelhead trout. Time to fix that

After three days of vote after vote and late-night negotiations inside the Capitol, McCarthy finally achieved his long-desired goal of wielding the speaker’s gavel. And in recent weeks, hardliners within his party blocked his efforts to pass a temporary spending bill to avoid a government shutdown. If the House speaker election has felt endless to you, take a second to imagine the experiences of the chamber’s reading clerks — the two people who have read out the names of every representative in attendance, and recorded their votes, 13 times now, with a 14th expected Friday night.

Bipartisan lawmakers "interacted more this week than we have in the last four years," GOP congressman says

To end the blockade, McCarthy directed the House Appropriations Committee to cut $3 billion from the spending agreement, which resulted in difficult votes for vulnerable Republicans. When Republicans return to Washington on Monday, they will continue to struggle to pass anything without Democratic help. Their inability to agree has made them appear publicly and privately chaotic, misunderstood and afraid they will lose the majority in November.

The divisions playing out in the Capitol this week have posed problems for Kevin McCarthy at home, too.

Former House speaker Kevin McCarthy announces he is leaving Congress - The Associated Press

Former House speaker Kevin McCarthy announces he is leaving Congress.

Posted: Wed, 06 Dec 2023 08:00:00 GMT [source]

While he pulls down $100,000 to $150,000 a speech, according to one political ally, McCarthy could make a good deal more with much less effort by capitalizing on his connections in Washington and Sacramento. Here’s a photographic look at some of the highlights of McCarthy’s time on Capitol Hill. McCarthy broke with former President Trump and many fellow Republicans by supporting U.S. aid for Ukraine and likening Vladimir Putin to Hitler. He said, without the slightest hesitation, that Joe Biden won the 2020 election, shooting down Trump’s persistent lies about his defeat. He’s traveling the country giving six-figure speeches, playing pundit and elder statesman on TV, holding forth at high-brow political forums and, not least, plotting vengeance against those behind his unceremonious ouster as House speaker. She has written for outlets including the Washington Examiner, Daily Signal and Alexandria Times.

Eight Republican rebels, led by Matt Gaetz of Florida, forced out the speaker midsession for the first time in history. That night, McCarthy said he feared “the institution fell today” and quipped that he made a mistake in helping get some of those eight GOP lawmakers elected. The ouster came after Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz acted Monday night to force a vote on a motion to vacate the office of the speaker, following through on a threat he made last week to take the gavel from the California Republican while the threat of a shutdown loomed. Mr. Johnson’s predicament was on vivid display on the House floor on Thursday as a group of ultraconservatives huddled around him in a heated back and forth.

Democratic Party

He swore in the chamber’s members, ending days of paralysis at the start of Republican rule. On November 17, 2010, the House Republican Conference selected McCarthy to be the House majority whip in the 112th Congress. In this post, he was the third-ranking House Republican, behind Speaker John Boehner and majority leader Eric Cantor.

McCarthy won an internal Republican conference vote in early November, with 188 votes to Andy Biggs's 31, but some members of the conference continued to oppose his bid for speaker. But McCarthy and hard-liners could never agree once the spending bills got to the floor and even rejected including a conservative border security bill, known as H.R. Left with few options, McCarthy chose to work with Democrats and keep the government open using a process known as suspension of the rules, which requires a two-thirds majority. This is a provision long in the House rules that allowed any individual member to offer a motion to “vacate the chair,” which would initiate a new election for speaker at any time. This tool carried great symbolism in the negotiations with McCarthy’s detractors; it was the threat used by the right in 2015 to eventually force Boehner out of the speaker’s office.

The Republican leader claws his way to the post in a dramatic late-night vote.

Both Democrats and Republicans made strides in diversifying their congressional ranks in the November midterm elections, with several historic milestones reached and a record number of women elected. The president also released a statement in the early hours of Saturday after McCarthy was elected House speaker in the 15th round of voting. The relationship fissured after Jan. 6, 2021, when pro-Trump rioters attacked the Capitol stoked by lies of a stolen election, and Mr. McCarthy delivered a speech on the House floor condemning Mr. Trump’s role.

The special election must be conducted 126 to 140 days after the governor’s proclamation. McCarthy, 58, represents a solidly Republican district based in Bakersfield, California, which his party is expected to hold onto when it comes before voters again in a special election. "I will continue to recruit our country’s best and brightest to run for elected office," McCarthy added.

Donalds, who is Black, is seen as an emerging party leader and a GOP counterpoint to the Democratic leader, Jeffries, who is the first Black leader of a major political party in the U.S. Pressure has grown with each passing day for McCarthy to somehow find the votes he needs or step aside. The incoming Republican chairmen of the House’s Foreign Affairs, Armed Services and Intelligence committees all said national security was at risk. McCarthy drew false equivalence between the griping of sour-grape Democrats who lost elections and the pernicious legal and tactical fights Trump and his allies waged to overturn Biden’s victory. "It's hard enough as a leader, especially with a four-seat majority, but then you start having the infighting here," Burgat said. Unlike in January, when the House could not begin its work until a speaker was elected, McHenry will serve in the role temporarily until a new speaker wins the gavel.

That means House Republicans could lose just three votes before they require Democratic support to pass measures. WASHINGTON (AP) — Speaker Kevin McCarthy was voted out of the job Tuesday in an extraordinary showdown — a first in U.S. history, forced by a contingent of hard-right conservatives and throwing the House and its Republican leadership into chaos. On the 15th ballot, a total not reached since before the Civil War, McCarthy finally got the absolute majority of votes necessary to be elected speaker of the House. By a vote of 216 to 212 for Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) with six voting present, he finally won the longest speaker’s election since Rep. William Pennington (R-NJ) won after 44 ballots on the eve of the Civil War. Mark Z. Barabak is a political columnist for the Los Angeles Times, focusing on California and the West.

All three met with Mr. Trump or White House officials as they discussed how to fight the election results, according to evidence gathered by the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack. Former President Donald J. Trump made a crucially timed call to Representative Matt Gaetz on Friday night after the Florida congressman voted “present” and sunk Kevin McCarthy’s 14th effort to be elected House speaker. The vitriolic attack on the top candidate for speaker from a member of his own party led some of Mr. McCarthy’s supporters to walk off the House floor while he spoke. And by the end of the day, with the majority of the detractors finally coalescing around Mr. McCarthy, Mr. Gaetz appeared to have softened his tone. As Minority Leader, McCarthy supported Donald Trump's debunked claims of voter fraud after Joe Biden won the 2020 U.S. presidential election and initially participated in efforts to overturn the results.

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. Rep. Carlos Gimenez, R-Fla., was handpicked by McCarthy in 2020 to run for a House seat that had swung back and forth between Democrats and Republicans for several elections. McCarthy’s instinct turned out to be right and Gimenez won that election over an incumbent Democrat. Seema Mehta is a veteran political writer who is covering the 2024 presidential race as well as other state and national contests.

A similar showdown in 2011 under Boehner led to the United States’ credit rating being reduced for the first time in history. But unlike then, far-right conservatives in the House will have a lot more power, and the Republican speaker will be in a much weaker political position. McCarthy had to grant numerous concessions to Congress’ most conservative members to win the speakership, and even then it took 15 rounds of voting — the first time in a century that a speaker was not elected on the first ballot. He called the experience, a spectacle that played out on live national television, a test from God.