Washington, January 7 (BNA): Republican Kevin McCarthy was elected Speaker of the US House of Representatives early Saturday after making broad concessions to a group of right-wing hardliners that raised questions about the party’s ability to govern.
The 57-year-old suffered one final humiliation when Rep. Matt Gaetz abstained on the 14th ballot as midnight approached, leading to a scuffle in which fellow Republican Mike Rogers had to be pulled.
McCarthy’s victory on the 15th ballot brought an end to the deepest congressional dysfunction in more than 160 years. But he has made sharply clear the difficulties he will face in leading a narrow and deeply polarized majority.
He eventually won by a margin of 216 – 212. He was only able to be elected by less than half of the House of Representatives because six in his party withheld their votes – not only supporting McCarthy as leader, but also not voting for another challenger.
When he first got the gavel, McCarthy represented the end of President Joe Biden’s Democratic control of both houses of Congress.
McCarthy said in his inaugural address, which laid out a wide range of priorities from spending cuts to immigration, to fighting culture war battles.
McCarthy only got the sledgehammer after agreeing to the hardliners’ demand that any lawmaker could call for his removal at any time. It would severely cut the power he would retain when trying to pass legislation on crucial issues including financing the government, addressing the country’s looming debt ceiling and other crises that might arise.
Republicans’ weaker-than-expected performance in November’s midterm elections left them with a slim majority of 222-212, giving a huge boost to right-wing hardliners who opposed McCarthy’s leadership.
Those concessions, including sharp spending cuts and other constraints on McCarthy’s leadership, could point to more turmoil in the coming months, especially when Congress needs to approve another increase in America’s $31.4 trillion borrowing authority.
Over the past decade, Republicans have repeatedly shut down much of the government and pushed the world’s largest borrower to the brink of default in efforts to extract deep spending cuts, usually without success.
Many hardliners have questioned McCarthy’s willingness to engage in such brinkmanship when negotiating with President Joe Biden, in which the Democrats control the Senate. They revolted in the past when Senate Republicans led by Mitch McConnell agreed to iron deals.
The hardliners, including Freedom Caucus Chairman Scott Perry and Chip Roy of Texas, said the concessions they extracted from McCarthy would make it easier to pursue such tactics this year — or force another vote on McCarthy’s leadership if it did not live up to their expectations.
“You have changes in how we spend and allocate money that will be historic,” said Rep. Scott Perry, chairman of the far-right House Freedom Caucus.
“We don’t want clean debt ceilings just by continuing to foot the bill without some counter effort to control spending when the Democrats control the White House and control the Senate.”
One of those Democrats, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, has warned that the concessions McCarthy made to win office may come back to haunt him.
Schumer said in a statement: “Kevin McCarthy’s concessions to the extremists in his party raise the possibility that the Republican-controlled House of Representatives will cause a government shutdown or default with disastrous consequences for our country.”
In sharp contrast to this week’s battles between House Republicans, Biden and McConnell appeared together in Kentucky on Wednesday to highlight investments in infrastructure.
McCarthy’s belated victory came the day after the second anniversary of the January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol, when a violent mob stormed Congress in an effort to overturn President Donald Trump’s election loss.
This week’s 14 failed votes represents the highest number of votes cast for Speaker since 1859, in the turbulent years leading up to the Civil War.
McCarthy’s last bid for speaker, in 2015, collapsed in the face of opposition from the right. Two previous Republican speakers, John Boehner and Paul Ryan, left the post after falling out with colleagues on the right.
McCarthy now has the power to block Biden’s legislative agenda, force votes on Republican priorities in the economy, energy and immigration and advance investigations into Biden, his administration and his family.
But McCarthy agreed to concessions, which means he will retain much less power than his predecessor, Democrat Nancy Pelosi. That will make it difficult for him to agree to deals with Democrats in a divided Washington.
Allowing one member to call for a vote to remove a speaker would give hardliners extraordinary leverage.
The agreement would cap spending for the next fiscal year at last year’s levels – which amounts to quite a bit when inflation and population growth are taken into account.
That could face resistance from centrist Republicans or those who have pushed for greater military funding, especially as the United States is spending money to help Ukraine fend off a Russian offensive.
Moderate Republican Brian Fitzpatrick said he was not worried the House would be effectively run by hardliners.
“It’s ambitious,” he told reporters. “We still have our voting cards.”
AOQ