McCarthy for Speaker – No Matter the Cost?

The second day of voting for the Speaker of the House ended early with no decision other than to come back and try again that evening. The House reconvened at 8 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 4, but called it a night less than half an hour later and without another vote. It seems a deal is in the works – but will it be enough? After six tries, front-runner Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) – who has already moved into the speaker’s office – still hasn’t secured the position officially. What happens if the seventh try on Thursday fails as well? Just how far will the California Republican and his followers go to secure the office?

A Deal in the Works

That McCarthy would face challenges from within his own party came as no surprise. In the November vote for party leadership, the California Republican defeated his challenger, Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ) – handily. But while 188-31 was an easy win at the time, having a couple dozen in the party dead set against McCarthy foreshadowed the trouble he now faces in his bid to become Speaker of the House. As Liberty Nation reported at the time, “a lack of unity now could cost the Republican Party dearly.”

Fast forward a couple of months, and the House finds itself on what will be day three of speaker elections. Six times legislators have voted; six times they have failed to deliver a simple majority to one of the three options. With the minority party only voting for the Democrat option – Rep. Hakeem Jeffries of New York – and the slim majority split between two Republican choices – the second of whom has varied – a deal must be reached in order for this stalemate to end.

To that end, McCarthy and his supporters have made concessions. He agreed to lower the threshold on the motion to vacate the chair, a procedural tool used to get rid of a sitting speaker. He agreed to reopen the Capitol and eliminate the pandemic protocols, get rid of staff labor unions, create new subcommittees and select committees to further investigations, and bring back the “Holman Rule,” which allowed members to make targeted cuts to specific bureaucrats’ salaries. Yet still the almost two dozen holdouts wouldn’t support him. Shortly after reconvening at 8 p.m. Wednesday night, however, McCarthy proposed yet more concessions: His PAC won’t spend in GOP open-seat primaries considered safe for the party, and, once in possession of the gavel, McCarthy will propose a rules change that would allow just one member of Congress to call for a vote to remove a sitting speaker.

McCarthy for Speaker – A Win at Any Cost?

But will the 20 or so representatives who have rallied behind first Jim Jordan of Ohio and now Byron Donalds of Florida be swayed – or are they simply dead set against having McCarthy as Speaker of the House? The answer to that question likely can’t wait much longer. Rep. Mike Rogers (R-AL), who is in line to chair the House Armed Services Committee, told the Daily Mail that if the “legislative terrorists,” as he calls them, don’t agree to back McCarthy by the end of the week, the majority of the party may seek support elsewhere.

Rather than weakening in resolve, Rogers said, the 200 Republicans behind McCarthy have hardened against the 20 who have dragged this process out. “And so that’s why I say I hope next week we come back – you’ll find a lot of us will – we’ll either see there’s a path, or we’ll go across the aisle,” Rogers explained. As unlikely as the idea might sound, Rogers says some rank-and-file members of both parties have brought up the idea. Could an agreement be reached to secure Democrat support for McCarthy? “Oh, we’ll give them something,” Rogers said. “One thing about votes in the minority: they’re always rentable. Sometimes they’re expensive, but they’re always rentable.”

Negotiations always mean concessions – but the question now is to whom are those given? When it’s the Freedom Caucus holding the leverage, the establishment Republicans are forced to make offers to reduce spending and establishment power. They’re forced to back investigations into the Biden family and business as usual in the Swamp. But when the Democrats are owed concessions, what will they be? Killing those aforementioned investigations? Deals on the debt limit and government funding? Perhaps enough votes will be promised to secure passage of some progressive legislation that would otherwise die in a party-line vote.

McCarthy could step down and call for his supporters to back Rep. Donalds, the Freedom Caucus’ choice – and perhaps enough of them would agree to give him the win, though Rep. Rogers, at least, seems as likely to support Democrat Hakeem Jeffries as he is to give in to the demands of “legislative terrorists” from his own party. Dealing with the Democrats to make McCarthy speaker would likely widen and deepen the fracture in the GOP, but unless Donalds and the others fall in line, what other option exists?