5th January, 2023
Divided Republicans left the speaker’s chair of the U.S. House sitting empty for a third day Thursday, as party leader Kevin McCarthy failed anew in an excruciating string of ballots to win enough GOP votes to seize the chamber’s gavel.
McCarthy lost a seventh round and was gaining no ground in an eighth.
With his supporters and foes seemingly stalemated, feelings of both boredom and desperation seemed increasingly evident, with no end in sight.
The Republican speaker-hopeful is under growing pressure from restless Republican colleagues, and Democrats, to find the votes he needs or step aside, so the House can open fully and get on with the business of governing.
One McCarthy critic, Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida, cast his vote for Donald Trump, symbolic but pointed.
McCarthy could be seen talking, one on one, in whispered conversations in the House chamber, and met earlier with colleagues determined to persuade Republican holdouts to end the paralyzing debate that has blighted his new GOP majority.
“We’re having good discussions and I think everyone wants to find a solution,” McCarthy told reporters shortly before the House gavelled in its third session.
Despite endless talks, signs of concessions and a public spectacle unlike any other in recent political memory, the path ahead remained highly uncertain. What started as a political novelty, the first time in 100 years a nominee had not won the gavel on the first vote, has devolved into a bitter Republican Party feud and deepening potential crisis.
Democrat Hakeem Jeffries of New York was re-nominated by Democrats. He has won the most votes on every ballot but also remained short of a majority.
Republican party holdouts again put forward the name of Rep. Byron Donalds of Florida, assuring the stalemate that increasingly carried undercurrents of race and politics would continue.
Donalds, who is Black, is seen as an emerging party leader and counterpoint to the Democratic leader, Jeffries, who is the first Black leader of a major political party in the U.S. Congress, on track himself to become speaker some day.
For the eighth ballot, Republican Brian Mast of Florida, a veteran, appeared to wipe away a tear as nominated McCarthy, and insisted the California Republican was not like past GOP speakers who are derided by conservatives.
Republican Andy Biggs, a past leader of the chamber’s conservative Freedom Caucus, rose to again nominate Donalds.