For the first time in a century, the US House of Representatives has failed to elect a Speaker as Republican nominee Kevin McCarthy lost three rounds of voting.
The House adjourned on Tuesday and will now vote again today (4 January).
The chaos and division in the Republican Party were laid bare as McCarthy could not garner the majority required to realise his decade-long dream of obtaining the speakership.
While the rebellion within his party has not ended McCarthy’s candidacy, his future remains uncertain.
What happened during the three rounds of voting for the Speaker? What went wrong for McCarthy and what lies in store for him now? Let’s take a closer look.
Failed to secure majority ballots
In the three consecutive rounds of voting, McCarthy could not secure the required 218 votes in the House.
While the Republicans hold 222 seats in the chamber, a bloc of 19 hard-right party lawmakers is posing a stiff opposition to the representative from California, notes BBC.
McCarthy bagged only 203 votes in the first round, trailing behind Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries, who was backed by all 212 Democrats.
Representative Andy Biggs of Arizona challenged McCarthy’s bid and won 10 votes, while nine Republicans voted for other candidates.
McCarthy secured 203 votes in the second round as well, with 19 rebel Republicans again voting for other candidates from the party, including McCarthy ally Representative Jim Jordan.
Notably, Jordan himself had nominated McCarthy for Speaker.
Representative Jim Jordan bagged the vote of rebel Republicans in the Speaker election. AP
McCarthy’s troubles increased by the third ballot as his earlier supporter Representative Byron Donalds announced his support for Jordan.
Due to his defection, McCarthy lost another vote in the last round and could only win 202 of the 218 necessary votes. Jordan, who voted for McCarthy, bagged 20 votes in the third round, as per CNBC.
“The reality is Rep Kevin McCarthy doesn’t have the votes,” Donalds said in a tweet.
“I committed my support to him publicly and for two votes on the House Floor 218 is the number, and currently, no one is there.”
“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,” he added.
Former US president Donald Trump, who had supported McCarthy’s bid earlier, remained low-key in his endorsement after the latter failed to win the majority votes.
When asked if he is still with McCarthy, Trump told NBC News, “We’ll see what happens”.
“I got everybody calling me wanting my support. But let’s see what happens,” the Republican leader added.
What happens to the House?
The House remains out of business without a Speaker who is the presiding officer and the institution’s administrative head.
“Swearing in members, naming committee chairs, engaging in floor proceedings and launching oversight investigations will all be delayed until a speaker is elected and sworn into office,” says Associated Press (AP).
Moreover, if McCarthy can win the Speaker’s gavel in today’s voting remains to be seen. But the House will keep voting until a candidate wins a majority.
As per New York Times (NYT), McCarthy and his allies are likely to resort to horse trading with rebel lawmakers to woo and win their support.
The Republican rank-and-file also has the option of nominating other colleagues if McCarthy again falls short of breaking the stalemate.
Lawmakers could also suggest cutting down the vote threshold needed to become the House Speaker and promote a plurality winner, notes NYT.
Political observers in Washington told BBC, it is also possible that McCarthy may bow out and extend support to his second in command, Representative Steve Scalise of Louisiana.
McCarthy is “essentially hostage to one side of his party,” Ruth Bloch Rubin, a political scientist at the University of Chicago, said, as per BBC.
The California Representative could also stick it out and win the speakership but would be left seriously weakened, BBC reported citing political observers.
“We stay in until we win,” McCarthy had told reporters earlier on Tuesday.
What went wrong for McCarthy?
The infighting visible in the House between moderate and hard-right Republicans was a long time coming, according to GOP observers.
“Kevin McCarthy has not made friends with certain segments of the caucus for a while, he’s made a lot of enemies,” a Republican lobbyist told BBC.
“There’s people who don’t like him for political reasons, for personal reasons,” the lobbyist noted.
McCarthy is being opposed by hard-right members of his party ever since the Republicans won the House in last November’s midterm elections by a razor-thin 222-213 majority.
The Republican has spent weeks negotiating with the rebel lawmakers. The ultra-conservative Freedom Caucus is demanding some committee assignments in exchange for their votes, which McCarthy has refused to accept, as per AP.
“For the last two months, we worked together as a whole conference to develop rules that empower all members, but we’re not empowering certain members over others,” McCarthy was quoted as saying by AP.
It is not yet over for Kevin McCarthy. AP
If reports are to be believed, during negotiations with his detractors, McCarthy at one point agreed to change the House rules to make it easier to unseat a Speaker.
“The fact he was negotiating with the Republicans at all made him look very, very weak to the point of being desperate,” the Republican lobbyist told BBC.
ALSO READ: How Kevin McCarthy’s bid for House Speaker could cause chaos in US Congress
When was such a stalemate last seen?
Last time, a similar deadlock was seen in 1923 when a Speaker could not be elected in the first round of voting. It took nine ballots and many days to elect a Speaker then.
With inputs from agencies
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