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Tuesday, October 3, 2023
Today’s Paper



HOUSE SPEAKER VOTE

 * Updates
 * Vote Tracker
 * A Push to Oust McCarthy
 * Who Could Replace Him?
 * Gaetz’s Ethics Issues

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LiveUpdated 
Oct. 3, 2023, 4:19 p.m. ET2 minutes ago
2 minutes ago


SPEAKER VOTEHOUSE VOTING ON MCCARTHY’S FUTURE AS SPEAKER

If McCarthy loses this vote, the chamber will be left without leadership just
weeks before Congress must act to avoid a government shutdown. He lost an
earlier vote to stop the ouster.


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By The Associated Press
Live


The House is voting on whether to remove Speaker Kevin McCarthy from his
post.CreditCredit...Maansi Srivastava/The New York Times

LIVE See each member's vote on the motion to remove McCarthy ›

Answer Democrats Dem. Republicans Rep. Total
Yes
104 6 110
No
0 111 111


Pinned
Updated 
Oct. 3, 2023, 4:15 p.m. ET6 minutes ago
6 minutes ago

Catie Edmondson

Reporting from Capitol Hill


HERE’S THE LATEST ON THE SPEAKER FIGHT.

Members of the House are taking a historic vote on whether to strip Speaker
Kevin McCarthy of his gavel after he failed to stave off a rebellion from the
right wing of his Republican Party.

Mr. McCarthy could still survive if he can peel off some of his party’s
defectors and persuade a majority to oppose to the so-called motion to vacate
the speakership. But an initial vote reflected his weakness in the face of the
bid to remove him.

Representative Matt Gaetz of Florida prompted the challenge on Monday evening
when he brought up a resolution to declare the speakership vacant, which forced
the House to take up the matter of Mr. McCarthy’s fate. Earlier Tuesday,
Representative Tom Cole, Republican of Oklahoma and an ally of Mr. McCarthy,
moved to table that measure, which would have killed it, but the speaker fell
several votes short of succeeding.

Instead, Democrats and 11 Republican hard-liners rejected Mr. McCarthy’s
counterpunch in a 218-208 vote, allowing a vote on his removal to go forward. It
was only the second time in the modern history of the House of Representatives
that such a vote has been taken, and if it succeeds, Mr. McCarthy would be the
first speaker to be involuntarily removed.

Before the vote, a surreal Republican-on-Republican debate unfolded on the House
floor as members of the hard-right group of rebels railed against their own
speaker and verbally sparred with Mr. McCarthy’s defenders. Democrats listened
silently.

“He put his political neck on the line knowing this day was coming,” Mr. Cole
said, defending Mr. McCarthy for moving to avert a government shutdown and
adding that the speaker “did the right thing.”

“Think long and hard before you plunge us into chaos,” Mr. Cole warned the
speaker’s detractors, “because that’s where we’re headed if we vacate the
speakership.”

Here’s what else to know:

 * Mr. McCarthy’s critics took to the floor to savage him for what they
   characterized as a failure to wring steeper spending cuts out of the Biden
   administration and a lack of leadership. “Chaos is Speaker McCarthy,” Mr.
   Gaetz declared. “Chaos is somebody who we cannot trust with their word.”

 * In the days leading up to the vote, Democrats had wrestled with whether to
   help Mr. McCarthy survive, or at least to stay out of the effort to oust him.
   But in a closed-door meeting on Tuesday morning, Representative Hakeem
   Jeffries of New York, the minority leader, instructed fellow Democrats not to
   do so, citing Republicans’ “unwillingness to break from MAGA extremism.”
   Democrats did not participate in the floor debate over whether to oust the
   speaker.

 * There is no clear replacement for Mr. McCarthy if he is removed. “I think
   there’s plenty of people who can step up and do the job,” said Representative
   Tim Burchett of Tennessee, one of the rebels who voted to push Mr. McCarthy
   out, adding that he did not know who he had in mind for the job instead.

 * Along with Mr. Gaetz and Mr. Burchett, the Republicans who voted to allow the
   resolution to remove Mr. McCarthy to proceed were: Representatives Andy Biggs
   of Arizona, Ken Buck of Colorado, Eli Crane of Arizona, Warren Davidson of
   Ohio, Bob Good of Virginia, Nancy Mace of South Carolina, Matt Rosendale of
   Montana and Victoria Spartz of Indiana.

 * A vacancy in the speaker’s chair would essentially paralyze the House until a
   successor is chosen, according to multiple procedural experts. An interim
   speaker would be chosen from a list prepared by Mr. McCarthy and his staff at
   the beginning of the year, but staff intimately familiar with House rules say
   the role of that person would be to oversee a speaker election and little
   more.

 * The House and Senate must pass appropriations bills to fund the federal
   government before mid-November or there will be a shutdown. Among the reasons
   far-right Republicans are mad at Mr. McCarthy is that he relied on Democrats
   to pass a temporary spending patch last weekend to keep the government open.

 * Mr. McCarthy was unapologetic on Tuesday about keeping the government open.
   “If you throw a speaker out that has 99 percent of their conference, that
   kept government open and paid the troops, I think we’re in a really bad place
   for how we’re going to run Congress,” he said on Tuesday morning. In a
   closed-door meeting underneath the Capitol, he told Republicans he had no
   regrets about his speakership, and was interrupted several times by raucous
   standing ovations.

 * The proceedings playing out on Tuesday have taken place only once before in
   the House of Representatives, in 1910, when progressive Republicans tried to
   remove then-Speaker Joseph Cannon, a conservative known as “Uncle Joe,” for
   refusing to bring their priorities to the floor for a vote. He survived that
   vote, but was weakened as a result. In Mr. McCarthy’s case, they are the
   culmination of a monthslong power struggle between Mr. McCarthy and a group
   of far-right lawmakers who tried to block his ascent to the speakership in
   January and have tormented him ever since.

Show more
Oct. 3, 2023, 4:16 p.m. ET5 minutes ago
5 minutes ago

Kayla Guo

Bob Good of Virginia votes to remove McCarthy from his position, making six
Republicans against the speaker.

Oct. 3, 2023, 4:14 p.m. ET8 minutes ago
8 minutes ago

Karoun Demirjian

Warren Davidson, Republican of Ohio, voted against removing McCarthy as speaker,
despite having voted earlier to allow the motion to come up for a vote. That is
one more in McCarthy’s camp than on the last vote.




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Oct. 3, 2023, 4:10 p.m. ET11 minutes ago
11 minutes ago

Annie Karni

Representative Eli Crane of Arizona votes yes on the motion to remove the
speaker from office, bringing the number of Republicans voting yes up to four.
So far, Democrats have stuck together and voted yes all the way down.

Oct. 3, 2023, 4:06 p.m. ET15 minutes ago
15 minutes ago

Annie Karni

Representative Ken Buck, Republican of Colorado, votes yes on the motion to
vacate.

Oct. 3, 2023, 4:06 p.m. ET16 minutes ago
16 minutes ago

Catie Edmondson

Tim Burchett of Tennessee is a yes, another Republican to back the motion to
vacate.

Oct. 3, 2023, 4:05 p.m. ET16 minutes ago
16 minutes ago

Annie Karni

It’s a “no for now” from Representative Lauren Boebert of Colorado on the motion
to vacate.


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Oct. 3, 2023, 4:05 p.m. ET17 minutes ago
17 minutes ago

Catie Edmondson

The first Republican to vote to oust McCarthy is Andy Biggs of Arizona, the
former chairman of the Freedom Caucus. They might have to call the roll multiple
times if lawmakers are off the floor.

Oct. 3, 2023, 4:04 p.m. ET17 minutes ago
17 minutes ago

Annie Karni

Speaker Kevin McCarthy is seated next to his floor director, John Leganski, who
is taking notes. This is all really déjà vu all over again.

Oct. 3, 2023, 4:02 p.m. ET20 minutes ago
20 minutes ago

Karoun Demirjian

Matt Gaetz, the Florida congressman spearheading the move to oust the speaker,
hedges his predictions for the resolution to remove the spaker from his
position, telling the chamber “on this vote, I’m not so sure” of the outcome.
But he defends his crusade to oust McCarthy as just and the debate as valuable.

Oct. 3, 2023, 4:02 p.m. ET20 minutes ago
20 minutes ago

Catie Edmondson

The roll call vote is beginning now.


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Oct. 3, 2023, 4:00 p.m. ET22 minutes ago
22 minutes ago

Karoun Demirjian

Many of the influential Republicans speaking on McCarthy’s behalf owe their
political rise to the beleaguered speaker and may find their own stature in the
party thrown into jeopardy if he is stripped of his position.

Oct. 3, 2023, 3:59 p.m. ET22 minutes ago
22 minutes ago

Robert Jimison

Responding to criticism over fundraising text messages that have gone out during
the debate, Matt Gaetz, Republican of Florida, says he will take “no lecture”
from his colleagues that take money from lobbyists who have “hollowed out this
town.”

Oct. 3, 2023, 3:59 p.m. ET22 minutes ago
22 minutes ago

Karoun Demirjian

Elise Stefanik, Republican of New York, spoke of how Speaker Kevin McCarthy has
been courteous to the rank-and-file members, toasting their weddings,
celebrating their children and mourning the loss of loved ones. That personal
touch has been an element of McCarthy’s style and is part of what made him
popular among G.O.P. members — but based on the last vote, it’s likely not going
to be enough to preserve his speakership.

Image

Credit...Julia Nikhinson for The New York Times
Oct. 3, 2023, 3:58 p.m. ET23 minutes ago
23 minutes ago

Carl Hulse

McCarthy is evidently not going to testify on his own behalf.


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Oct. 3, 2023, 3:58 p.m. ET24 minutes ago
24 minutes ago

Carl Hulse

Democrats guffaw as Graves calls McCarthy “the greatest speaker in modern
history.” Nancy Pelosi and a few others would like a word.

Oct. 3, 2023, 3:57 p.m. ET25 minutes ago
25 minutes ago

Catie Edmondson

Many of McCarthy's allies are just openly accusing the rebels of being
attention-seekers. The debate is getting personal on the House floor.

Oct. 3, 2023, 3:56 p.m. ET25 minutes ago
25 minutes ago

Annie Karni

Representative Garret Graves of Louisiana, the Speaker’s unofficial crisis
consigliere, is railing against Gaetz for fundraising off of his high jinks.
“It’s disgusting,” he says, fuming with anger. He’s been angry about this since
the Speaker’s race, when Gaetz did the same thing.

Image

Credit...Kenny Holston/The New York Times
Oct. 3, 2023, 3:56 p.m. ET25 minutes ago
25 minutes ago

Catie Edmondson

Conservative rebels also plotted to oust then-Speaker John A. Boehner, but he
resigned from Congress and relinquished his gavel before it could come to a
vote.


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Oct. 3, 2023, 3:55 p.m. ET27 minutes ago
27 minutes ago

Catie Edmondson

The last time the House had a vote to oust the speaker like we’re about to see
was in 1910. That vote stemmed from angst among progressive Republicans that the
speaker at the time, Joseph Cannon, a conservative known as “Uncle Joe,” refused
to bring progressive legislation to the floor for a vote. He survived that vote
but was weakened as a result.

Oct. 3, 2023, 3:51 p.m. ET31 minutes ago
31 minutes ago

Annie Karni

Representative Matt Gaetz, the Florida Republican leading the charge to oust
Speaker Kevin McCarthy, describes the debt ceiling agreement McCarthy forged
with President Biden as the speaker’s “original sin.”

Oct. 3, 2023, 3:49 p.m. ET32 minutes ago
32 minutes ago

Annie Karni

The Republicans defending McCarthy are ticking off their achievements.
Representative Stephanie Bice of Oklahoma, for instance, just brought up the
“Parents Bill of Rights.” It’s worth noting that all of the bills they have
passed this year, aside from the must-pass bills they passed with Democratic
support, have had no chance of passing in the Democrat-controlled Senate or of
being signed into law by President Biden.

Oct. 3, 2023, 3:46 p.m. ET36 minutes ago
36 minutes ago

Catie Edmondson

Representative Patrick McHenry of North Carolina, a close McCarthy ally, asks
rebels why they would hand over “the keys” to a governing majority to Democrats.
He correctly says that the stopgap funding bill McCarthy passed through the
House forced the Senate to accept lower spending levels than what the Senate
majority wanted. “Why do Republicans think that’s a bad thing?” he asked,
adding, “We rolled the Senate.”

Image

Credit...Kenny Holston/The New York Times


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Oct. 3, 2023, 3:44 p.m. ET38 minutes ago
38 minutes ago

Carl Hulse

No matter the outcome, Speaker Kevin McCarthy virtually assured this day would
come when he gave into hardline conservatives and agreed to allow any member to
move to vacate the speaker’s chair as a concession to be elected in the first
place.

Oct. 3, 2023, 3:43 p.m. ET38 minutes ago
38 minutes ago

Catie Edmondson

One through-line in the speeches in favor of McCarthy today: Republicans control
only one wing of government -- the House -- and they are using it to eat each
other alive.

Oct. 3, 2023, 3:42 p.m. ET40 minutes ago
40 minutes ago

Catie Edmondson

Democrats are openly laughing on the House floor at a suggestion from one of
McCarthy's allies, Representative Mike Garcia of California, that Republicans
should present themselves to America as the no-drama party.

Oct. 3, 2023, 3:40 p.m. ET41 minutes ago
41 minutes ago

Carl Hulse

The “live” roll call vote puts a little extra pressure on members, since the
spotlight will be on. They cannot use a vote card to electronically record their
position or wait until the last minute when the outcome is already decided. It
adds to the seriousness of the event.


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Oct. 3, 2023, 3:38 p.m. ET43 minutes ago
43 minutes ago

Catie Edmondson

Matt Gaetz, the Florida representative leading the charge against Speaker Kevin
McCarthy, suggests again that his group of rebels will never vote to pass any
stopgap funding bills — the kind that will inevitably be needed again next month
to avoid a government shutdown. “We are here to eulogize the era of continuing
resolutions,” he said. “We will not do it. We will not pass these bills.”

Oct. 3, 2023, 3:37 p.m. ET45 minutes ago
45 minutes ago

Catie Edmondson

About 20 minutes of time is left for debate, nearly equally divided.

Oct. 3, 2023, 3:36 p.m. ET45 minutes ago
45 minutes ago

Carl Hulse

House floor staffers say the critical vote will be alphabetical and members will
be called on individually to announce their position publicly, just as when they
elected the speaker in the first place.

Oct. 3, 2023, 3:35 p.m. ET47 minutes ago
47 minutes ago

Catie Edmondson

A fundraising email just went out from Matt Gaetz’s campaign with the subject
line: “Help Vacate Kevin McCarthy.” “This is happening now,” the email says.


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Oct. 3, 2023, 3:30 p.m. ET51 minutes ago
51 minutes ago

Catie Edmondson

“Chaos” seems to be the word of the day on the House floor. “My colleagues here
today have a choice: be a chaos agent or get back to work,” says Representative
Ashley Hinson of Iowa, a McCarthy ally.

Oct. 3, 2023, 3:25 p.m. ET57 minutes ago
57 minutes ago

Catie Edmondson

Representative Thomas Massie of Kentucky, a libertarian with a mischievous
streak, is the only member currently serving in the G.O.P. conference who was an
author of the motion to oust then-Speaker John A. Boehner in 2015. He’s vouching
for McCarthy, calling his ouster “a terrible idea.”

Image

Credit...Kenny Holston/The New York Times
Oct. 3, 2023, 3:27 p.m. ET54 minutes ago
54 minutes ago

Catie Edmondson

Massie still has a copy of that resolution to oust Boehner hanging on the wall
of his office, he told me earlier this year.

Oct. 3, 2023, 3:24 p.m. ET57 minutes ago
57 minutes ago

Catie Edmondson

Representative Bruce Westerman, a McCarthy ally, says that the rebels should
“stand before this body and the American people and articulate your plan,"
adding “not your grievances or your wishes, but your plan.” They must convince
the McCarthy backers they have a better path. If they can’t do that, Westerman
said, their efforts amount to nothing more than an “overreaction” that is
“selfish, bad for conservative policy, and bad for America.”

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Oct. 3, 2023, 3:22 p.m. ET1 hour ago
1 hour ago

Karoun Demirjian

It’s rare you see this many members of the House all seated and listening with
rapt attention. Usually speakers address a near-empty chamber during debates,
but this afternoon, nearly every seat in the House chamber is occupied,
reflecting the uniqueness and momentousness of the vote they are about to take.


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Oct. 3, 2023, 3:19 p.m. ET1 hour ago
1 hour ago

Catie Edmondson

Representative Andy Biggs, Republican of Arizona, says that he doesn’t believe
the House will ever pass the 12 appropriations bills that Speaker Kevin McCarthy
had promised to move. Someone supporting McCarthy rather loudly muttered: “It
won’t now.”

Oct. 3, 2023, 3:13 p.m. ET1 hour ago
1 hour ago

Carl Hulse

Representative Matt Gaetz of Florida is carrying the load for the floor debate
in support of removing McCarthy, even though he has allies. It is one thing to
vote against the speaker; it is another to stand up in a packed House and
deliver a speech against him. So far just Representatives Bob Good of Virginia
and Andy Biggs of Arizona have been willing to join Gaetz.

Image

Credit...Drew Angerer/Getty Images
Oct. 3, 2023, 3:05 p.m. ET1 hour ago
1 hour ago

Carl Hulse

It is no doubt paining many Democrats to be on the same side as Representative
Matt Gaetz, but they just could not bring themselves to rescue McCarthy.

Oct. 3, 2023, 3:05 p.m. ET1 hour ago
1 hour ago

Catie Edmondson

A key contrast has been laid out here during the debate between those supporting
McCarthy and those opposing him: Bob Good of Virginia, one of the rebels, says
that polling showed that the public would have blamed President Biden and the
Democrats for a government shutdown. Tom Cole of Oklahoma, a McCarthy ally,
gravely — and correctly — replied that “the vast majority” of House Republicans
did not want a shutdown.


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Oct. 3, 2023, 1:27 p.m. ET3 hours ago
3 hours ago

Karoun Demirjian


HERE’S THE MATH ON THE VOTES THAT WILL DETERMINE KEVIN MCCARTHY’S FATE.

Image

The U.S. House of Representatives last week.Credit...Kenny Holston/The New York
Times


Kevin McCarthy’s fate could be determined by just a handful of votes. Precisely
how many he needs to survive — or how many his opponents need to oust him —
depends on how many House members show up to vote.

Before the House votes on the resolution to remove Mr. McCarthy, they will first
consider a “motion to table,” or kill it. That motion will be decided by simple
majority — as will the actual resolution to remove him, if the House moves on to
that step.

There are 433 actively serving members of the House — 221 Republicans and 212
Democrats. If every last one of them shows up to vote “aye” or “nay,” the
threshold for a victory for either side is 217.

In that scenario, presuming all Democrats vote against him, Mr. McCarthy can
afford to lose only four Republican votes — and there are already at least five
G.O.P. members who have publicly stated they plan to vote to oust him. So if all
members show up to vote, and the Democrats stick together in opposition to him,
Mr. McCarthy is in trouble.

“If 5 Republicans go with Democrats, then I’m out,” he told reporters on
Tuesday.

But the math isn’t necessarily that straightforward.

If fewer than 433 members show up to vote, the threshold for a majority goes
down. If two Democrats miss the vote, for example, Mr. McCarthy would need only
216 Republicans to survive, a potentially achievable goal if he and his deputies
can forestall any further defections beyond the five Republicans who are already
publicly declared against him.

The same thing would happen if a number of Democrats vote “present” instead of
affirmatively for or against Mr. McCarthy. “Present” votes do not count for or
against the passage of the resolution, so the majority would be calculated from
the ranks of those voting “aye” or “nay.” Four “present” votes, for example,
would mean that Mr. McCarthy could hang on with 215 votes in his favor.

It is also possible that a wayward Democrat or two might break rank with their
party and vote to preserve Mr. McCarthy as speaker, despite Representative
Hakeem Jeffries, Democrat of New York and the minority leader, having told his
members in a closed-door meeting that they ought to vote as a bloc against
keeping him in the job. Given the margins, even one or two Democratic votes for
Mr. McCarthy could determine the outcome.

Show more
Oct. 3, 2023, 1:01 p.m. ET3 hours ago
3 hours ago

Angelo Fichera


FACT CHECK: MCCARTHY CLAIMS CREDIT FOR SOME CONSERVATIVE VICTORIES IN THE HOUSE
THAT FELL FLAT IN THE SENATE.

Image

The U.S. Capitol on Monday.Credit...Haiyun Jiang for The New York Times


WHAT WAS SAID

“Look at what @HouseGOP has passed in just 9 months: ✓ Parents Bill of Rights ✓
Work requirements for welfare ✓ The largest spending cut in history ✓ The
strongest border security bill ever ✓ Permitting reform so we can build in
America again.”

— Speaker Kevin McCarthy on X


THIS NEEDS CONTEXT.

The House passed the legislation Mr. McCarthy is referring to, but some of it
did not become law.

Before the motion to oust him from his position was put forward, Mr. McCarthy
and Republican colleagues defended his record by sharing lists of purported
legislative victories under his watch. But none of those statements acknowledged
that some of the legislation fell flat in the Democrat-led Senate.

The Parents Bill of Rights Act, for example, passed the House in March but has
stalled in the Senate. The bill would require schools to make library catalogs
and curriculums public, and require parents to consent to requests by students
to change their pronouns.

In May, the House also approved a sweeping border security bill, the Secure the
Border Act, which faces similarly steep odds in the Senate.

In reaching a deal in the spring with Democrats that raised the debt limit,
Republicans did indeed help increase work requirements for food stamps and cash
welfare. Some more conservative members criticized those provisions as not going
far enough. The debt limit deal also included provisions intended to get energy
projects approved more quickly.

Still, Mr. McCarthy’s contention that the House secured the “largest spending
cut in history” is almost certainly an exaggeration. Republicans have claimed
the debt limit deal cuts spending by $2.1 trillion over a decade, but estimates
vary greatly, in part because the actual amount will depend on the actions of a
future Congress.

Show less


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Oct. 3, 2023, 1:00 p.m. ET3 hours ago
3 hours ago

Annie Karni

Reporting from the Capitol


NO REPUBLICANS HAVE PUT THEMSELVES FORWARD TO REPLACE MCCARTHY.

Image

Representative Steve Scalise, center, is the No. 2 Republican in the House and a
rival of Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s.Credit...Tom Brenner for The New York Times


If not Speaker Kevin McCarthy, then who?

That was the question hanging over the Capitol on Tuesday, as it became clear
that Democrats were not going to help Mr. McCarthy survive the vote to oust him.

That there isn’t an obvious answer to the question was part of Mr. McCarthy’s
ability to win the bruising battle for the job in the first place — he never let
a serious alternative emerge.

Nine months later, there still isn’t a clear candidate in waiting.

“I think there’s plenty of people who can step up and do the job,”
Representative Tim Burchett of Tennessee, one of the rebels bent on pushing Mr.
McCarthy out, said Tuesday morning, but he said he did not know who he had in
mind for the job instead.

Representative Eli Crane of Arizona, another one of the hard-line holdouts
against Mr. McCarthy, said he wasn’t there yet in terms of supporting someone
else.

“I don’t like to get the cart before the horse,” he said. “For me, right now,
this is just about representing my voters and holding the speaker accountable
for deals made and deals broken."

Some names were starting to be bandied about, even as all of the potential
successors vowed that they were not looking to replace Mr. McCarthy, whom they
said they still supported.

Representative Matt Gaetz, Republican of Florida, on Monday night said he was
open to supporting Representative Steve Scalise of Louisiana, the current No. 2
House Republican and a longtime McCarthy rival who is undergoing chemotherapy
treatment for blood cancer.

“I am not going to pass over Steve Scalise just because he has blood cancer,”
Mr. Gaetz told a horde of reporters as he left the Capitol on Monday night.

Representative Tom Emmer of Minnesota, the No. 3 Republican in the House who
serves as the majority whip, has also been mentioned by some of his colleagues
as a viable option. Mr. Emmer, who has hosted many late night sessions in his
office with various factions of the Republican conference, trying to help the
group find common ground, has gained the trust of the far-right members. But
they don’t view him as a particularly strong leader.

“He’s a good sounding board. He’s got some nice conference rooms. He doesn’t lie
to us,” Mr. Gaetz said of Mr. Emmer in an earlier interview. “We know he can’t
make anything happen.”

Another logical person to turn to would be Representative Patrick McHenry, the
longtime North Carolina congressman who is close with Mr. McCarthy and has
previously served in leadership. But Mr. McHenry would most likely resist any
attempt to draft him into the role. He chose not to run for a leadership role
last year, opting instead to lead the powerful financial services committee.

In a scramble, Representative Elise Stefanik, the top woman in leadership whose
role means she works closely with all members of the conference, could emerge as
another potential alternative. Serving as conference chair and overseeing
messaging for all House Republicans, she is widely seen as someone with big
political ambitions outside of the House — like potentially serving in a future
Trump administration.

Representative Tom Cole of Oklahoma, one of the longest serving Republicans in
the House who leads the Rules Committee, is also respected by both Republicans
and Democrats alike.

Show more
Oct. 3, 2023, 12:48 p.m. ET4 hours ago
4 hours ago

Annie Karni


MCCARTHY’S JOURNEY TO THE SPEAKERSHIP FORESHADOWED A FRACTIOUS HOUSE.

Image

Representative Kevin McCarthy of California talked to Representative Matt Gaetz
of Florida on Jan. 7 after Mr. Gaetz voted “Present” and the 14th speakership
vote for Mr. McCarthy failed on the House floor.Credit...Haiyun Jiang/The New
York Times


Back in January, a fight on the House floor dragged on for the better part of a
week as the Republicans, who were taking control of the chamber, struggled to
choose a new speaker.

Representative Kevin McCarthy of California was elected to the post early Jan. 7
after a historic five-day, 15-ballot floor fight, during which he granted major
concessions to right-wing holdouts and weathered a dramatic late-night setback
that underscored the limits of his power over the new Republican majority.

Mr. McCarthy clawed his way to victory by cutting a deal that won over a sizable
contingent of ultraconservative lawmakers on the 12th and 13th votes earlier in
the day, then wearing down the remaining holdouts in a tense session that
dragged on past midnight. He ultimately won with a bare majority after a
spectacle of arm-twisting and rancor on the House floor.

The protracted process foreshadowed how difficult it would be for him to govern
with an exceedingly narrow majority and an unruly hard-right faction bent on
slashing spending and disrupting business in Washington. The speakership
struggle that crippled the House before it had even opened its session suggested
that basic tasks such as passing government funding bills or financing the
federal debt would prompt epic struggles over the next two years.

Yet Mr. McCarthy, who was willing to endure vote after humiliating vote and give
in to an escalating list of demands from his opponents to secure the post,
denied that the process foretold any dysfunction.

“This is the great part,” he told reporters. “Because it took this long, now we
learned how to govern.”

Despite the divisions on display, Mr. McCarthy also emphasized the theme of
unity in a speech after taking the speaker’s gavel, pledging open debate and an
open door to both Republicans and Democrats. “You can see what happens in the
people’s House,” he said.

The floor fight dragged on for the better part of a week, the longest since
1859, and paralyzed the House, with lawmakers stripped of their security
clearances because they could not be sworn in as official members of Congress
until a speaker was chosen.

Among the concessions Mr. McCarthy made to the ultraconservative lawmakers was
allowing a single lawmaker to force a snap vote to oust the speaker at any time.


Show more


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Oct. 3, 2023, 12:10 p.m. ET4 hours ago
4 hours ago

Karen Yourish and Lazaro Gamio


FAR-RIGHT REPUBLICANS HAVE A HISTORY OF ANTAGONIZING MCCARTHY.

Image

Representative Lauren Boebert and Representative Bob Good entering the Capitol
last month.Credit...Kenny Holston/The New York Times


Most of the House Republicans who voted against Kevin McCarthy’s stopgap
spending bill last week have been a thorn in his side since before he was
elected speaker. They tend to cluster ideologically on the far-right end of the
political spectrum.

About three-quarters of the 21 Republicans who voted against Mr. McCarthy’s
temporary spending bill were supported by the campaign arm of the House Freedom
Caucus during the 2022 midterms. Six members of the group are serving in
Congress for the first time. (All 21 of them ultimately voted against the
temporary spending patch that passed the House on Saturday night. That bill then
passed the Senate and ultimately kept the government open.)

In January, 20 Republicans nearly derailed Mr. McCarthy’s ambitions to become
speaker by voting against him multiple times. Eleven of them were among those
who held out against his stopgap funding measure on Friday.

Mr. McCarthy’s five-day, 15-vote floor fight for speaker foreshadowed how hard
it would be for him to corral Republican lawmakers to unify behind basic tasks
like passing funding bills or raising the federal debt limit.


Show more
Oct. 3, 2023, 11:26 a.m. ET5 hours ago
5 hours ago

Annie Karni

Reporting from the Capitol


DEMOCRATS RAILED AGAINST MCCARTHY AHEAD OF THE VOTE IN WHICH HE NEEDS THEIR
BACKING.

Image

Representative Hakeem Jeffries, Democrat of New York and the minority leader,
last week after the House passed a 45-day stopgap measure to fund the
government.Credit...Kenny Holston/The New York Times


The leader of the House Democrats instructed his caucus to vote to remove
Speaker Kevin McCarthy after a party meeting on Tuesday morning became a bitter
venting session in which Democrats aired their disdain for the top Republican.

Hours before a vote in which Mr. McCarthy would almost certainly need their
support to survive, there was little sign that any Democrat — even the most
moderate — wanted to save him, according to lawmakers who emerged from the
closed-door gathering.

Democrats watched a video clip of an appearance Mr. McCarthy made on television
on Sunday — the morning after Democrats helped him push through legislation to
avert a government shutdown — in which he blamed them for trying to prompt a
shutdown.

The minority leader, Representative Hakeem Jeffries, Democrat of New York,
waited until after many members had spoken to issue his marching orders to the
caucus: that they should vote against any procedural motion brought to the House
floor that would delay the removal of Mr. McCarthy.

Democrats said they had plenty of reasons to comply.

“I think he’s likely the most unprincipled person to ever be speaker of the
House,” said Representative Abigail Spanberger, a centrist from Virginia who is
considering a run for governor. “He’s disdainful, he lies about us, he lies
about the process of governance. It’s not even a question of whether or not we
should take any particular action.”

Democrats, for the most part, view Mr. McCarthy as a lackey for former President
Donald J. Trump, and someone who has opened up a groundless impeachment inquiry
into President Biden in order to appease the far-right members. They don’t trust
him and regard him as someone who has made so many different promises to so many
different people that his word is meaningless.

“They need to work this out,” Representative Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut said as
she left the Democrats’ meeting. “This is not for us to get involved.”

Because of Republicans’ tiny majority and the size of the right-wing band of
rebels pushing to remove Mr. McCarthy, he would most likely need at least some
Democrats to support him or refrain from voting to survive.

Representative Mark Takano, a progressive from California, said that not one
member in the room rose to make the case for voting “present” on the matter,
which would lower the threshold for Mr. McCarthy to win a majority and stay in
his post.

Instead, even the most politically vulnerable Democrats from swing districts
have spoken out against him.

“If Kevin McCarthy hasn’t bothered to ask me or other Democrats for support,
then why would we be putting much time into talking about this?” Representative
Jared Golden of Maine, the co-chairman of the conservative Blue Dogs Caucus,
said on Monday.

Representative Marie Gluesenkamp Perez of Washington, who also faces a tough
re-election fight in a conservative district that Mr. Trump carried in two
consecutive presidential elections, wrote on X, formerly Twitter, that “so far
Kevin McCarthy is a lot more interested in appeasing guys like Joe Kent than
talking with independent voices like me,” referring to the Republican she beat
last year. Mr. Kent denied the legitimacy of the 2020 presidential election and
supported defendants charged in connection with the attack on the Capitol on
Jan. 6, 2021. She posted a picture of Mr. McCarthy and Mr. Kent posing together
and smiling.

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Oct. 3, 2023, 5:05 a.m. ETOct. 3, 2023
Oct. 3, 2023

Chris Cameron

Reporting from Washington


HERE’S WHAT HAPPENS NOW THAT GAETZ HAS MOVED TO OUST MCCARTHY.

Image

Representative Matt Gaetz filed a motion to vacate, starting a process where the
House must hold a majority vote to remove Speaker Kevin McCarthy from his post
within two legislative days.Credit...Haiyun Jiang for The New York Times


Representative Matt Gaetz pressed forward on Monday evening to force a vote on
removing Speaker Kevin McCarthy from his post, setting the stage for a dramatic
showdown this week between Mr. McCarthy and his far-right critics.

Mr. Gaetz, a Republican from Florida, made what is known as a motion to vacate.
Any single lawmaker can make such a motion, and the House must hold a vote
within two legislative days on whether to remove Mr. McCarthy from the
speakership, which requires a simple majority. Mr. McCarthy agreed to allow any
member to force such a vote during a protracted floor fight in January as a
concession to right-wing holdouts in exchange for the speakership.

Here’s what happens next.


MCCARTHY CAN’T AVOID A VOTE.

The resolution declaring the speakership vacant is privileged, meaning it takes
priority in the House’s legislative agenda and requires action within two days.

The House of Representatives convenes at 10 a.m. on Tuesday, and legislative
business begins at noon, the earliest that the motion could be acted upon.

Mr. McCarthy cannot avoid some sort of vote on the question, though he has some
options for trying to divert or at least delay the vote.


MCCARTHY CAN TRY TO KILL THE RESOLUTION.

The easiest and most likely course of action for the speaker is to move to table
Mr. Gaetz’s resolution, effectively killing it. That, too, requires a majority
vote of the House. Should he be successful, the fight would be over and Mr.
McCarthy would keep his job.

Should his motion to table be defeated, the House would move to a vote on the
resolution to remove him.

Another possible but less likely move for Mr. McCarthy would be to move to refer
the question to a congressional committee, effectively punting it to a group
made up of his allies. He engineered a similar move in June that sidestepped an
attempt to quickly impeach President Biden. That would also require a majority
vote.


MCCARTHY IS ALL BUT CERTAIN TO NEED DEMOCRATS TO SURVIVE.

The Republicans’ slim majority and the size of the far-right group pressing to
remove him means that Mr. McCarthy has little chance of winning any one of the
possible votes and keeping his job without at least some help from Democrats.

As of Monday, House Democrats had not signaled their intentions, and Mr.
McCarthy said Tuesday morning that he would not offer them anything in exchange
for their support.

It is extremely rare for members of the minority to vote for the opposing
party’s candidate for speaker. Democrats voted in unison for their leader,
Hakeem Jeffries of New York, in each of the 15 rounds of the speakership fight
in January. And Mr. McCarthy’s efforts to appease far-right members within his
party since then, including launching an impeachment inquiry into Mr. Biden last
month, have further frustrated Democrats.

If some Democrats did decide to help save Mr. McCarthy, the simplest way would
be for them to vote to oppose Mr. Gaetz’s ouster resolution, and vote to table
it. They could also help the speaker in a more passive way, either by voting
“present” — neither yes or no — or skipping the vote entirely. Both moves would
lower the threshold of votes he needs to survive.


IF THE OUSTER FAILS, MCCARTHY COULD FACE ANOTHER ONE.

Mr. Gaetz has said that he might keep trying to remove Mr. McCarthy over and
over again — even daily. There is nothing in the House rules to prevent this.
His move on Monday was only the third time in the 234-year history of the House
that a speaker has faced a motion to vacate.

Most recently, in 2015, Representative Mark Meadows of North Carolina filed a
motion against Speaker John A. Boehner, who resigned from Congress before the
House voted.


IF MCCARTHY IS REMOVED, THE HOUSE WOULD BE PARALYZED.

A vacancy in the speaker’s chair would essentially paralyze the House until a
successor is chosen, according to multiple procedural experts. An interim
speaker would be chosen from a list prepared by Mr. McCarthy and his staff at
the beginning of the year, but staff intimately familiar with House rules say
the role of that person would be to oversee a speaker election and little more.

Carl Hulse contributed reporting.

Show more
Oct. 2, 2023, 5:01 a.m. ETOct. 2, 2023
Oct. 2, 2023

Catie Edmondson

Reporting from Capitol Hill


GAETZ MOVES TO OUST MCCARTHY, THREATENING HIS GRIP ON THE SPEAKERSHIP.

Image

Representative Matt Gaetz’s animus toward Speaker Kevin McCarthy extends far
beyond the most recent funding skirmish.Credit...Haiyun Jiang for The New York
Times


Representative Matt Gaetz of Florida moved on Monday to oust Speaker Kevin
McCarthy from his post in an act of vengeance that posed the clearest threat yet
to Mr. McCarthy’s tenure and could plunge the House into chaos.

After days of warnings, Mr. Gaetz rose on Monday evening to bring up a
resolution declaring the speakership vacant. That started a process that would
force a vote within days on whether to keep Mr. McCarthy in his post. In doing
so, Mr. Gaetz sought to subject Mr. McCarthy to a rare form of political
punishment experienced by only two other speakers in the 234-year history of the
House of Representatives.

The move came just days after Mr. McCarthy opted to avert a government shutdown
the only way he could — by relying on Democratic votes to push through a stopgap
spending bill over the objections of an unmovable bloc of hard-liners in his own
party, including Mr. Gaetz.

It was a brief but tense interruption of the day-to-day proceedings of the
House. Mr. McCarthy was not present on the House floor when Mr. Gaetz made his
motion, but scores of Democrats crowded in the aisles to watch the spectacle.
The House adjourned shortly afterward, but under the chamber’s rules, Mr.
McCarthy and his leadership team will need to address it within two legislative
days.

“It is becoming increasingly clear who the speaker of the House already works
for, and it’s not the Republican conference,” Mr. Gaetz said earlier Monday,
making the case for Mr. McCarthy’s ouster. He added that the speaker had allowed
President Biden to take his “lunch money in every negotiation.”

Mr. Gaetz cited Mr. McCarthy’s dependence on Democrats to pass the funding bill
— which was necessary to avert a shutdown because Mr. Gaetz and 20 of his
colleagues opposed a temporary funding bill. And he accused Mr. McCarthy of
lying to his Republican members during spending negotiations and making a
“secret deal” with Democrats about funding for Ukraine, which he and dozens of
other conservatives have opposed.

The move is a significant escalation of the long-simmering power struggle
between Mr. McCarthy and a clutch of conservative hard-liners in his party. They
have dangled the threat of dethroning the speaker since he was elected, after
they subjected him to a painful round of 15 votes.

Mr. McCarthy, a chronic optimist who has shown a remarkable willingness to
weather political pain to maintain his grip on the speaker’s gavel, appeared
undaunted. Minutes after Mr. Gaetz filed the resolution, he wrote on social
media, “Bring it on.”

“I think it’s disruptive to the country, and my focus is only on getting our
work done,” Mr. McCarthy said earlier Monday. “I want to win the vote so I can
finish the job for the American people. There are certain people who have done
this since the day we came in.”

Mr. Gaetz’s animus toward Mr. McCarthy extends far beyond the most recent
funding skirmish. He emerged as Mr. McCarthy’s chief tormentor during the
speaker’s fight in January, when he suggested on the House floor that the
California Republican had “sold shares of himself for more than a decade,” and
never quite stopped.

Image

Mr. McCarthy knew that a dramatic about-face to team with Democrats on a
spending bill over the weekend might put his speakership at risk.Credit...Haiyun
Jiang for The New York Times

It was to appease Mr. Gaetz and the 19 other Republicans who opposed his
speakership that Mr. McCarthy agreed to change the rules of the House to allow
any one lawmaker to call a snap vote for his ouster.

After Mr. McCarthy struck a bipartisan deal with Mr. Biden in the spring to
suspend the debt ceiling, there were rumblings among the far right about moving
forward on a motion to vacate. They settled for shutting down the House floor
instead.

It was unclear how many Republicans planned to join Mr. Gaetz in his attempt to
dethrone Mr. McCarthy. Some archconservatives who have been critical of the
speaker have said in recent days that they would not support removing him now.

But Mr. Gaetz told reporters at the Capitol he had sufficient G.OP. backing to
prevail — unless Democrats voted to save Mr. McCarthy.

“I have enough Republicans,” he said. Four other Republicans, Representatives
Tim Burchett of Tennessee, Eli Crane and Andy Biggs of Arizona, and Bob Good of
Virginia, have said they were inclined to support the motion. More have signaled
openness to it.

It remained to be seen whether Democrats would help Mr. McCarthy maintain his
post. If they were to vote against Mr. McCarthy — as is almost always the case
when a speaker of the opposing party is being elected — Mr. Gaetz would need
only a handful of Republicans to join the opposition to remove him, which
requires a simple majority vote.

But Mr. McCarthy could hang onto his gavel if enough Democrats voted to support
him, skipped the vote altogether or voted “present.” In that situation,
Democrats who did not register a vote would lower the threshold for a majority
and make it easier to defeat Mr. Gaetz’s motion.

Some Democrats representing moderate and conservative-leaning districts have
indicated that they would be hard-pressed to punish Mr. McCarthy for working
across the aisle to prevent a shutdown.

But others said they saw no reason to bail him out, pointing to the string of
concessions Mr. McCarthy has made to appease his right flank. Those included
opening an impeachment inquiry into Mr. Biden and reneging on spending levels
negotiated with the president during the debt limit crisis.

In a statement, Representative Ilhan Omar, Democrat of Minnesota, savaged Mr.
McCarthy for his opposition to abortion rights and measures to combat climate
change. She called him “a weak speaker who has routinely put his self-interest
over his constituents, the American people and the Constitution.”

Mr. McCarthy “has made it his mission to cover up a criminal conspiracy from
Donald Trump, and is himself a threat to our democracy,” she said. “He literally
voted to overturn the 2020 election results, overthrow the duly elected
president and did nothing to discourage his members from doing the same.”

Mr. Gaetz’s antics have infuriated Mr. McCarthy’s allies, who view the Florida
Republican’s campaign as a publicity stunt motivated by personal animus. As Mr.
Gaetz waited to speak on the House floor on Monday, Representative Tom
McClintock, Republican of California, rose and chastised him to his face without
naming him. Mr. McClintock said he could not “conceive of a more
counterproductive and self-destructive course” than to try to remove the speaker
from one’s own party.

“I implore my Republican colleagues to look past their prejudices, their
passions, their errors of opinion, their local interests and their selfish
views,” Mr. McClintock said.

Even some Republicans who initially opposed Mr. McCarthy’s speakership indicated
on Monday that they would not back Mr. Gaetz’s drive to dethrone him.
Representative Chip Roy of Texas, an influential conservative, said on “The Sean
Hannity Show” that he believed “the speaker deserves the ability to finish this
year’s process.”

But he hinted that he would be open to getting rid of Mr. McCarthy if the
speaker moved to approve aid to Ukraine without also securing the southern
border.

“The gloves are off then,” Mr. Roy said.

There are a number of procedural sleights of hand that Mr. McCarthy and his
allies could use to try to avoid an up-or-down vote on whether to keep him as
speaker. He could hold a vote to table the resolution, which would effectively
kill it, or refer it to a committee made up of his allies.

Still, Mr. Gaetz’s decision pushes the House into rarely tested waters.

Only two other speakers have faced motions to vacate: once in 1910, and more
recently, in 2015, when Representative Mark Meadows, Republican of North
Carolina, sought to oust Speaker John A. Boehner. The House never voted on the
motion, but it contributed to Mr. Boehner’s decision to give up his gavel and
resign from Congress.

Luke Broadwater and Karoun Demirjian contributed reporting.

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