(C) Common Dreams
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House G.O.P. Paralyzed on Day 1 as Right Wing Blocks McCarthy Speakership [1]
['Catie Edmondson']
Date: 2023-01-03
Mr. Jordan, a onetime rival who has since allied himself with Mr. McCarthy, pleaded with his colleagues to unite behind the California Republican.
“We need to rally around him and come together,” Mr. Jordan said.
But on Tuesday, Republicans refused to do so. The failed votes showed publicly the extent of the opposition Mr. McCarthy faces in his quest for the speaker’s gavel. With all members of the House present and voting, Mr. McCarthy needs to receive 218 votes to become speaker, leaving little room for Republican defections since the party controls only 222 seats. He fell short again and again, drawing only 203 on the first two ballots.
By the third ballot, only one lawmaker had changed his position — Representative Byron Donalds of Florida, a member of the Freedom Caucus who shifted his support to Mr. Jordan, leaving Mr. McCarthy with 202. Mr. Donalds later told reporters that he was open to voting for Mr. McCarthy again, underscoring the unwieldy nature of the process.
“Our conference needs to recess and huddle and find someone or work out the next steps, but these continuous votes aren’t working for anyone,” Mr. Donalds said in a statement.
A quintet of Mr. McCarthy’s detractors including Mr. Biggs, the former Freedom Caucus chairman, and Mr. Gaetz had telegraphed loudly for weeks that it would oppose him for speaker.
But many others, such as Representative Michael Cloud of Texas and Josh Brecheen of Oklahoma, an incoming freshman, had remained quiet and kept their opposition under the radar. As they made their positions known during the first vote, the number of defectors piled up, quickly approaching what Mr. McCarthy’s team had privately hoped would be the worst case scenario.
The result was that what was supposed to be a day of jubilation for Republicans instead devolved into a chaotic display of disunity within the party. 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.
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[1] Url:
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/03/us/politics/kevin-mccarthy-speaker-vote.html
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