Constitution
McCarthy out as House Speaker
Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) became the first Speaker of the House ever to lose his job through a motion to vacate the chair.
Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) is no longer Speaker of the House, after a motion to vacate the chair carried. As the House now moves to choose a new Speaker, recriminations are rocking the House Republican Conference even more. Furthermore the speculation on who will succeed McCarthy has turned to one name above the rest.
McCarthy loses Speakership in a first for the House
Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) announced a motion to vacate the chair on Monday (October 2) at 7:38 p.m. EDT.
First came a motion to lay the motion to vacate on the table. It failed, 208-218. Tellingly, not a single Democrat voted for the motion to table. 207 Democrats voted against it, along with eleven Republicans. Two Republicans and five Democrats did not vote.
After that, the debate and vote on the motion to vacate took three hours and twelve minutes.
The motion carried, 216-210. Eight Republicans joined all the Democratic voting members in voting in favor:
- Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.),
- Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.),
- Eli Crane (R-Ariz.),
- Ken Buck (R-Colo.),
- Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.),
- Nancy Mace (R-S.C.),
- Matt Rosendale (R-Mont.), and
- Bob Good (R-Va.).
When he filed his motion, Gaetz might or might not have expected it to carry. But he clearly indicated he would blame the Democrats if it did not.
National Public Radio, however, dropped a hint that the Democrats would not care to save McCarthy’s job. An anonymous Democratic aide told NPR,
I can tell you I have been in a number of conversations and I have not heard one Democrat voice any interest in saving Kevin.
At least some establishment Republicans applied pressure on Gaetz to withdraw his motion. Unmoved, he shared on X:
Later he shared this on the House floor, provoking “boo” cries but carrying on in their teeth:
By yesterday morning, those who would vote with Gaetz to pass the motion to vacate were making up their minds. For example:
What next?
Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.) immediately took the post of Speaker pro tempore, as previously arranged. Among his first acts was to evict Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) from the “hideaway” office in the Capitol that she had used while Speaker. He then said he would have the Capitol Police “re-key” the office – modern parlance for changing the locks.
He also called a one-week recess, a decision Gaetz asked him to reconsider:
Rep. McCarthy announced he would not seek to regain his Speakership.
Immediate speculation centered on three names: Gaetz himself,
Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio),
and Donald J. Trump. Trump, for his part, has said he is concentrating on getting reelected President next year. Jim Jordan has officially offered himself as a candidate for the Speakership.
Never before has the House removed its Speaker in mid-term, though several have resigned rather than face such a vote. The last time a motion to vacate came to the floor was in 1910. Rep. Joe Cannon (R-Ill., of House Office Building fame), then Speaker, introduced a motion to vacate the chair against himself. As he predicted, the motion failed, 155-192. In 2015, Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) filed a motion to vacate the chair against Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio). The House referred that to the Rules Committee, but Boehner resigned before it could ever come to a vote.
Commenting on this historic moment, one observer remarked on the strength, or staying power, of the Republican insurgency:
Terry A. Hurlbut has been a student of politics, philosophy, and science for more than 35 years. He is a graduate of Yale College and has served as a physician-level laboratory administrator in a 250-bed community hospital. He also is a serious student of the Bible, is conversant in its two primary original languages, and has followed the creation-science movement closely since 1993.
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