McCarthy fails for 3rd long day in GOP House speaker fight

WASHINGTON — For a long and frustrating third day, divided Republicans kept the speaker’s chair of the U.S. House sitting empty Thursday, as party leader Kevin McCarthy failed again and again in an excruciating string of ballots to win enough GOP votes to seize the chamber’s gavel.

Pressure was building as McCarthy lost seventh, eighth and then historic ninth, 10th and 11th rounds of voting, surpassing the number of votes 100 years ago, the last time there was a prolonged fight to choose a speaker in a disputed election. By nightfall, despite raucous protests from Democrats, Republicans voted to adjourn and return Friday to try again.

With McCarthy’s supporters and foes locked in stalemate, the House could not formally open for the new session of Congress, swear in elected members nor conduct official business. And feelings of boredom, desperation and annoyance seemed increasingly evident.

One McCarthy critic, Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida, cast votes for Donald Trump — a symbolic but pointed sign of the broad divisions over the Republican Party’s future. Then he went further, formally nominating the former president to be House speaker on the 11th ballot. Trump got one vote, from Gaetz, drawing laughter.

Ahead of the second anniversary of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol by Trump supporters trying to overturn Joe Biden’s election, Democrats said it was time to get serious.

“This sacred House of Representatives needs a leader,” said Democrat Joe Neguse of Colorado, nominating his own party’s leader, Hakeem Jeffries, as speaker.

Alex Brandon, Associated Press

Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., votes for himself for speaker of the House for the ninth time Thursday in the House chamber in Washington.

McCarthy could be seen talking, one on one, in whispered and animated conversations in the House chamber. His emissaries sidled up to holdouts, and grueling negotiations proceeded in the GOP whip’s office down the hall. McCarthy remained determined to persuade Republicans to end the paralyzing debate that is blighting his new GOP majority.

McCarthy’s leadership team presented a core group of the Republican holdouts with a deal on paper for rules changes in exchange for their support, said one of the opponents, conservative Republican Ralph Norman of South Carolina, as he exited a late-day meeting. It included mandating 72 hours for bills to be posted before votes, among other things, though details were scarce.

Lest hopes get ahead of reality, he added, “This is round one.”

Holdouts led by the chamber’s Freedom Caucus are seeking ways to shrink the power of the speaker’s office and give rank-and-file lawmakers more influence — with seats on key committees and the ability to draft and amend bills in a more open process.

One of the holdouts’ key asks is to reinstate a rule that would allow a single lawmaker to seek a motion to vacate the chair — essentially to call a House vote to oust the speaker. It’s the same rule a previous era of tea party Republicans used to threaten the removal of GOP Speaker John Boehner, and McCarthy has resisted reinstating it.

The path ahead remained highly uncertain. What started as a political novelty, the first time since 1923 a nominee had not won the gavel on the first vote, devolved into a bitter Republican Party feud and deepening potential crisis.

Jeffries of New York won the most votes on every ballot but also remained short of a majority. McCarthy ran second, gaining no ground.

McCarthy’s right-flank detractors led by the Freedom Caucus and aligned with Trump, appeared emboldened by the standoff — even though the former president publicly backed McCarthy.

Rep. Scott Perry, R-Pa., the leader of the Freedom Caucus and a leader of Trump’s efforts to challenge the 2020 presidential election, asserted that McCarthy cannot be trusted, and tweeted his displeasure that negotiations over rule changes and other concessions were being made public. “When confidences are betrayed and leaks are directed, it’s even more difficult to trust,” he tweeted.

Andrew Harnik, Associated Press

Rep. John James, R-Mich., nominates Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., for speaker for the seventh round of voting Thursday in the House chamber.

Republican Party holdouts repeatedly put forward the name of Rep. Byron Donalds of Florida, assuring the stalemate that increasingly carried undercurrents of race and politics would continue. They also put forward Republican Kevin Hern of Oklahoma, splitting the protest vote.

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. Congress and on track himself to become speaker someday.

Another Black Republican, newly elected John James, nominated McCarthy on the seventh ballot as nominators became a roll call of the GOP’s rising stars. For the 10th, it was newly elected Juan Ciscomani of Arizona, an immigrant from Mexico whose speech drew chants of “USA! USA!”

Several Republicans appear unwilling to ever vote for McCarthy.

Ballots kept producing almost the same outcome, 20 conservative holdouts still refusing to support McCarthy and leaving him far short of the 218 typically needed to win the gavel.

The longest fight for the gavel started in late 1855 and dragged on for two months, with 133 ballots, during debates over slavery in the run-up to the Civil War.