House Republicans plowed through the second day of the new Congress, with no clear off-ramp from their political chaos over electing leader Kevin McCarthy as the new speaker
Yet McCarthy wasn’t giving up, even after the fourth, fifth and sixth votes produced no better outcome and he was left trying to call off a night-time session. Even that was controversial, as the House voted 216-214 — amid shouting and crowding —to adjourn for the night.
Seeing no quick way out of the political standoff, Republicans voted abruptly late in the day to adjourn for a few hours as they desperately searched for an endgame to the chaos of their own making. They were due back in the evening, but McCarthy wanted to take a break until Thursday. She said, “To all Americans watching right now, We hear you. And we will get through this — no matter how messy.”
“This country needs leadership,” said Rep. Chip Roy, a Texas Republican noting the first time in history two African-Americans were nominated for the high office. Lawmakers from both parties rose to applaud.that no nominee for House speaker could take the gavel on the first vote. Tensions flared among the new House majority as their campaign promises of competent leadership stalled out. Not since 1923 had a speaker's election gone to multiple ballots. The longest and most grueling 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.
As the spectacle dragged on, McCarthy's backers implored the holdouts to fall in line for the California Republican. And a McCarthy-aligned campaign group, the Conservative Leadership Fund, offered another concession, saying it would no longer spend money on elections “in any open-seat primaries in safe Republican districts." The far-right lawmakers complained their preferred candidates for the House were being treated unfairly as the campaign fund put its resources elsewhere.
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