PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — U.S. House Republican Party leader Kevin McCarthy lost a historic 11th round of votes for Speaker of the House early Thursday evening.
Pressure was building as McCarthy lost seventh, eighth, ninth, 10th and 11th rounds of voting Thursday, surpassing the number it took the last time this happened in a prolonged fight to choose a speaker in a disputed election. House members adjourned until noon EST Friday.
A group of 20 far-right Republicans continued to hold out and vote against McCarthy, with some like Rep. Matt Goetz, R-Fla. voting for alternative candidates like former President Donald Trump. Democrat Hakeem Jeffries of New York was continually re-nominated by his fellow party members. He has won the most votes on every ballot but still remained short of a majority.
“There has never been more than one vote in the past 100 years. The last time this happened was 1923,” said Drexel University political science professor Bill Rosenberg. The longest 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.
“These 20 that are really what's holding it up, they come from very safe, very, very conservative districts," said Rosenberg, "and they have nothing to lose, because they're going to keep getting elected.”
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He said representatives aren’t authorized to do anything until they choose a speaker.
“They can't authorize any bills. People that work for Congress are going to maybe not get paid pretty soon. New congresspeople can't really move into their offices, because there's no real authority in place,” Rosenberg explained.
“God forbid we find some type of national emergency. They would not even be able to act.”
Rosenberg says these repeated failed rounds of voting speak to McCarthy’s inability to lead the Republican caucus.
“What we're facing, really, is the fact that Kevin McCarthy has been trying to become speaker of the House for over 10 years. And quite frankly, I think that a lot of people in the Republican caucus find him offensive,” said Rosenberg.
McCarthy's right-flank detractors in the Republican Party appeared intent on waiting him out, as long as it takes.
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Rep. Scott Perry, R-Pa., the leader of the Freedom Caucus, asserted that McCarthy cannot be trusted, and tweeted his displeasure that negotiations over rule changes and other concessions were being made public.
“When confidences are betrayed and leaks are directed, it’s even more difficult to trust," he tweeted.
“The 20-or-so members of the Republican right-wing caucus, they're gleefully sort of saying, ‘Well, we're going to emasculate the speaker of the House and give him no power,'" said Rosenberg.
"The Democrats are sort of content to let the Republicans implode and as a result, show that they're the party that's able to govern.”
Rosenberg said McCarthy’s repeated failures to attain the speakership also are not a good look for Trump.
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“Trump tried to get some of his people into Congress, and he was successful getting some right-wing people,” Rosenberg said.
“As he's tried to reach out to a few of them to try and get them to go ahead and vote for Kevin McCarthy, it's not working out, so he's looking rather weak himself.”
Rosenberg predicts behind-the-scenes negotiations eventually will lead to a House Speaker being chosen.
“I see it as a very short-term solution,” he said because he believes House Republicans will still face problems in their caucus regarding what to do about important policies.
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“Some of these same 20 people don't want to really fund what's going on in Ukraine, but as [Ukrainian President] Volodymyr Zelenskyy makes note of, the fact that it's not just about saving Ukraine. It's about saving democracies around the world.”
While Rosenberg said the disarray we’re seeing isn’t new, it could foreshadow more division yet to come in the Republican caucus during this session of Congress. Signs of issues among House Republicans date back to at least 2015, with two Republicans resigning the speakership.
“Speaker {John] Boehner ended up resigning because he couldn't, as he and Paul Ryan [who resigned in 2018] said, they couldn't herd the cats. They couldn't get the people that are on the extremes to go along with the rest of the caucus,” said Rosenberg.
“That's why Boehner stepped down [in 2015], that's why Ryan [in 2018] stepped down, and that's why Kevin McCarthy doesn't want to step down. He doesn't want to make it so that the speaker has no power. He's trying to hang in there, but it doesn't look like it's working.”