05 January 2023 - United States House of Representatives fails to elect a Speaker
Speaker fight stagnates as House Republicans fail to find consensus
Amy B Wang, Marianna Sotomayor and Jacqueline Alemany (The Washington Post, 04/01/2023)
House Republicans’ standoff over who should be speaker dragged on Wednesday as growing animosity and outright disdain left the country without a lower legislative chamber for the second day in a row.
The House adjourned Wednesday evening after a raucous scramble as Democrats tried to block Republicans from approving the motion to adjourn. The drama capped another contentious day in which Republican Kevin McCarthy (Calif.) again failed three times to get the necessary 218 votes to take the speaker’s gavel. A group of McCarthy allies and a group of hard-right holdouts, who have now six times voted against McCarthy, huddled for hours in a Capitol office to continue negotiations after an earlier adjournment.
House Speaker election explained: What to know
Emily Brooks (The Hill, 03/01/2023)
Opposition to House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy (Calif.) for Speaker from a handful of Republican members has the potential to derail his bid and set a marker in history as the first multiple-ballot Speaker election in a century.
No matter what happens, the day is sure to hold surprises and plenty of political drama.
How the Speaker’s Election Could Devolve Into Chaos
Catie Edmondson (The New York Times, 04/01/2023)
The election of the House speaker on the floor of the chamber is usually a largely ceremonial exercise devoid of surprises.
But if Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, the Republican leader, is unable to put down a rebellion among a group of hard-right lawmakers before a midday vote on Tuesday, the result could be a whirl of chaos not seen on the House floor in a century.
The Humiliation of Kevin McCarthy
Russell Berman (The Atlantic, 04/01/2023)
Shortly before 4 p.m.yesterday, Kevin McCarthy, the man who desperately wanted to be House speaker, had just suffered two brutally public rejections in a row. For some reason, he was unbowed. “We’re staying until we win,” McCarthy assured a crush of reporters waiting for him outside a bathroom in the Capitol.