McCarthy falls short in the first vote for speaker.

 

Updated

Jan. 3, 2023, 1:58 p.m. ET21 minutes ago

21 minutes ago

Catie Edmondson

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2023/01/03/us/house-speaker-vote

 

McCarthy falls short in the first vote for speaker.

WASHINGTON — Representative Kevin McCarthy of California lost his first vote for speaker on Tuesday and was in a pitched battle for the top job in the House, amid a rebellion among hard-right lawmakers that left the post up for grabs and prompted a historic struggle on the floor at the dawn of the new Republican majority.

 

The Republican mutiny, waged by ultra conservative lawmakers who for weeks have held fast to their vow to oppose Mr. McCarthy, dealt a serious blow to the G.O.P. leader and laid bare deep divisions that threaten to make the party’s majority ungovernable. But it did not end the California Republican’s bid for speaker, which he has vowed to continue, forcing multiple votes if necessary until he wins the top post. 

 

“We may have a battle on the floor, but the battle is for the conference and the country,” Mr. McCarthy said before the voting began, and following a fiery private meeting with Republicans in which he defiantly told his detractors, “I am not going away.”

 

House precedent dictates that members will continue to take successive votes until someone — Mr. McCarthy or a different nominee — secures enough supporters to prevail. But the House has not failed to elect a speaker on the first roll call vote since 1923, when lawmakers agreed to re-elect Frederick Gillett, a Massachusetts Republican, on the ninth ballot.

 

The failed vote on Tuesday showed publicly for the first time the extent of the opposition Mr. McCarthy is facing in his quest for the speaker’s gavel. Nineteen Republicans voted against Mr. McCarthy, instead throwing their support behind other conservative lawmakers.

 

Some of the defectors had telegraphed loudly that they would oppose Mr. McCarthy, such as Representatives Andy Biggs of Arizona, the former Freedom Caucus chairman, and Matt Gaetz of Florida. For weeks, discussions about defectors centered around a core group of five vocal conservatives.

 

But many others, such as Michael Cloud of Texas, who voted for Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio, and Josh Brecheen of Oklahoma, a freshman who voted for Representative Jim Banks of Indiana, had floated under the radar, and the number of defectors quickly approached what Mr. McCarthy’s team had privately hoped would be the worst case scenario.

 

What was supposed to be a day of jubilation for Republicans instead devolved into a chaotic display of disunity within the party as it embarks on its first week in power in the House. And it all but guaranteed that even if Mr. McCarthy eked out a victory — an outcome that appeared remote, given the stalemate at hand — he would be a diminished speaker beholden to an empowered right flank.

 

With Democrats holding together behind their leader, Representative Hakeem Jeffries of New York won more votes than Mr. McCarthy did for speaker — 212 to 203 — a symbolic victory since Mr. Jeffries did not have the support to claim the top job, but an embarrassing metric for the California Republican who has been campaigning for the post for years.   

During the first vote, Mr. McCarthy sat placidly on the House floor, as an aide next to him, as well as two of his top deputies, quietly tallied the growing stack of votes against him.

 

In a room in the basement of the Capitol ahead of the vote, Mr. McCarthy privately made the case that the lawmakers opposing him were selfishly disrupting what was supposed to be a day of unity for their own personal gain.

 

“I earned this job,” Mr. McCarthy said.

 

“Bullshit!” came the response from Representative Lauren Boebert of Colorado, one of the hard-right Republicans opposing him. (She later told a reporter she did not shout anything during the meeting, but would not say whether she had spoken up.)

 

“He’s worked hard,” Representative Ralph Norman of South Carolina, another of the defectors, said of Mr. McCarthy’s final plea during the meeting. “In his mind, he has.”

 

But Mr. Norman told reporters he still planned to oppose Mr. McCarthy.

 

Representative Scott Perry of Pennsylvania, the chairman of the Freedom Caucus, emerged from the meeting fuming.

 

“This meeting wasn’t about trying to inform people about what it takes to get to 218 and ask for what you want,” he told reporters. “This was about a beat down and a simulated unity in the room that doesn’t really exist.”

 

Mr. McCarthy’s allies were equally furious. One incoming committee chairman, Representative Mike Rogers of Alabama, who is set to lead the Armed Services Committee, declared during the meeting that those who opposed Mr. McCarthy should lose their committee assignments, according to people in the room.

 

Mr. McCarthy said before the vote that he was prepared to fight for the speakership on the House floor until the very end, even if it required lawmakers to vote more than once. The failed first vote will likely set off a round of haggling, as Mr. McCarthy attempts to win over a critical mass of defectors.

 

That will not be easy. Mr. McCarthy engaged in an excruciating weekslong lobbying campaign in an effort to sew up the votes needed for election, toiling to appease his right flank by embracing their tactics and agenda. He took a hard line against legislation to fund the government and avert a shutdown and called on Alejandro N. Mayorkas, the homeland security secretary, to resign or face potential impeachment proceedings.

 

Over the weekend, in a last-ditch effort to sew up the votes, he put forward his most significant offers yet, unveiling a package of rules governing how the House operates, including the so-called Holman rule, which allows lawmakers to use spending bills to defund specific programs and fire federal officials or reduce their pay.

 

His biggest concession was agreeing to a rule that would allow five lawmakers to call a snap vote at any time to oust the speaker. That had been a top demand of conservatives who had previously used the procedure to drive out then-Speaker John A. Boehner, Republican of Ohio.

 

But it was not enough to appease the obstreperous right flank of his party, who wanted any single lawmaker to be able to force such a vote. After Mr. McCarthy announced the concessions, nine more Republicans emerged — most of whom had previously expressed skepticism about Mr. McCarthy’s bid for speaker — to criticize his efforts to win them over as insufficient.