Republican leader Kevin McCarthy surely could have seen defeat coming — the wave that swamped him has been building for years.
On Tuesday, the division that stymied the last two Republican speakers reached its logical conclusion: For the first time in 100 years, the majority party in the HouseFor Republicans, the political pain has probably only just begun, almost regardless of what happens Wednesday when the House reconvenes to try again.House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy fell short of the 218 votes he needed to succeed Nancy Pelosi as speaker in three roll call votes Tuesday.
Instead, their main power is to “throw sand in the gears” and try to block Democrats and less conservative Republicans from passing key legislation. That gives them little incentive to compromise — either on the speakership or, as Ryan and Boehner both discovered, on bills that leaders in both parties consider “must pass” legislation.
Whoever eventually emerges as speaker — McCarthy, in the increasingly unlikely possibility that he can win over his deeply entrenched opponents, or another candidate such as Rep. Steve Scalise of Louisiana — will face that same problem over and over in the next two years, Binder and others said. . The demands they have leveled at McCarthy have included procedural changes that would make it easier to repeat those efforts.“We are not going to be held hostage by a handful of members. We do not live in a dictatorship,” Rep.-elect Mike Lawler said in an interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press” as the House voted. The conservatives, he said, are “incapable of governing.”
Failure to raise the debt limit could cause the government to default on its obligations, which economists have warned could throw financial markets into chaos.
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