WASHINGTON — The new Congress opens with House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy grasping for his political survival, with the potential to become the first nominee for speaker in 100 years to fail to win initial support from his own colleagues in a high-stakes vote for the gavel, AP reported.
Lawmakers convene on Tuesday to a new era of divided government as Democrats relinquish control of the House after midterm election losses. While the Senate remains in Democratic hands, barely, House Republicans are eager to confront President Joe Biden’s agenda after two years of a Democratic Party monopoly on power in Washington.
But first, House Republicans must elect a speaker.
McCarthy is in line to replace Speaker Nancy Pelosi, but he heads into the vote with no guarantee of success. The California Republican faces entrenched detractors within his own ranks. Despite attempts to cajole, harangue and win them over — even with an endorsement from former President Donald Trump — McCarthy has fallen short.
The noontime showdown could very well devolve into a prolonged House floor fight, a spectacle that divides the Republican Party, weakens its leadership and consumes the first days of the new Congress.
“This is a lot more important than about one person,” said Doug Heye, a former Republican leadership senior aide. “It’s about whether Republicans will be able to govern.”
House Republicans will huddle behind closed doors early in the morning, ahead of the floor action, as newly elected lawmakers arrive for what’s traditionally a celebratory day. Families in tow, the members of the new Congress prepare to be sworn into the House and Senate for the start of the two-year legislative session.
A new generation of Trump-aligned Republicans are leading the opposition to McCarthy, inspired by the former president’s Make America Great Again slogan. They don’t think McCarthy is conservative enough or tough enough to battle Democrats. It’s reminiscent of the last time Republicans took back the House majority, after the 2010 midterms, when the tea-party class ushered in a new era of hardball politics, eventually sending Speaker John Boehner to an early retirement.
Typically it takes a majority of the House’s 435 members, 218 votes, to become the speaker. With just a slim 222-seat majority, McCarthy can afford only a handful of detractors. A speaker can win with fewer than 218 votes, as Pelosi and Boehner did, if some lawmakers are absent or simply vote present.
