Members-elect of the U.S. House are again paralyzed over the vote for Speaker and, once again, they've voted to adjourn to try to unlock the jam over Kevin McCarthy (R- CA) behind the scenes.
Republican leader Kevin McCarthy flipped 15 colleagues to support him in dramatic votes for House speaker on Friday, making extraordinary gains on the fourth day and the 12th and 13th ballots of a grueling standoff that was testing American democracy and the Republicans' ability to govern.
CBS News Chief White House Correspondent Major Garrett talked about the issues the House faces with WCCO's Chad Hartman Friday, and points to the fact that Friday’s votes come on a very specific anniversary.
“It is not lost, I don't think, on very many Americans that on this is the second anniversary of January 6th, the most traumatic day of internal domestic terrorism perpetrated against the United States Congress,” says Garrett. “Since the Civil War, we don't have a functioning House of Representatives because some of the holdouts were advocates, and in the aftermath, apologists.”
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McCarthy still says he's confident he'll have the votes to be elected speaker when the House resumes at later Friday night. Garrett says even if that happens, it will happen come with a significant cost to McCarthy’s power in the House.
“With these holdouts, he’s going to have to whittle them down by at least half,” Garrett explains. “What more can he give away? What more can he give away? What more of the speakership power that he used to possess, can he afford to dilute?”
The stunning turnaround came after McCarthy agreed to many of the detractors' demands -- including the reinstatement of a longstanding House rule that would allow any single member to call a vote to oust him from office. That change and others mean the job he has fought so hard to gain will be weakened.
The disorganized start to the new Congress pointed to difficulties ahead with Republicans now in control of the House, much the way that some past Republican speakers, including Boehner, had trouble leading a rebellious right flank. The result: government shutdowns, standoffs and Boehner's early retirement.
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.
AP writers Mary Clare Jalonick and Kevin Freking contributed to this report.
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