Last week it took a few extra days and 15 ballots to elect a Speaker of the House for the new Congress, something unusual but not unprecedented. Two people (my wife said 'write a blog post', a friend said ' explain this like I'm 5') asked for this, so I'll do my best.
We'll start with the absolute basics. Every two years all 435 congressional districts, for every member of the House of Representatives (MoC), has an election in November. On January 3rd following the election the members of the incoming House elect a Speaker, this is often referred to as who holds 'the gavel.' It's the first action item and nothing else can happen, swearing in, adopting rules etc. until resolved. To be elected Speaker, someone needs an outright majority of votes, a plurality won't do it. Since every member needs to be sworn in it's normal that every member is present. So, with that in mind, the magic number is 218 votes, though that number can be lowered if there are 'present' votes (not making a selection) or anyone is not in attendance for whatever reason, thereby decreasing the total. I'll mention briefly the frequently brought up fact anyone can be elected Speaker, including people not elected to Congress, but I don't believe this has ever happened.
In the 2022 election Republicans won more House seats than Democrats, with the breakdown currently 222 Republicans and 212 Democrats. There's one vacant seat for a MoC (Donald McEachin) who died following reelection last year. Since Republicans now have more seats than Democrats, they were expected to win the speakership from Nancy Pelosi. The obvious choice was Kevin McCarthy, who's been in Republican House leadership since 2011 and the head of the Republican House caucus since 2019 following Paul Ryan's retirement. McCarthy has led this group for the last four years in the minority and widely has their support. He's been in charge of raising money for them, getting them elected etc. But he doesn't have the full support of every member.
In general Republicans, especially in the House, are a little wild at heart. This is particularly true compared to House Democrats who've shown great loyalty to Nancy Pelosi. To much ado, during the election for Speaker there was a rebellion of sorts, from about 20 members of the Republican caucus. With such a slim majority, it only took five to prevent the election of Kevin McCarthy. So, following his failure on the first ballot (and those later), McCarthy needed to find a way to gain enough support to reach an outright majority or step aside for someone that could. This was a real challenge. McCarthy is the choice for the vast majority of the House Republicans. The sizable group (~200 members) didn't want him to step aside, even if they would in theory support someone else (like maybe his #2, Steve Scalise). But there were enough rebels with the current House makeup to force something to happen.
A quick note. It's possible that Democrats could've helped McCarthy in a situation such as this. But why would they? It's too juicy a narrative that Republicans are a mess and they were just going to let it play out. So every Democrat, all 212, voted for their new conference leader, Hakeem Jeffries (the 82 year old Pelosi is stepping aside), on every ballot except one (where he got 211). Besides, if McCarthy had cut a deal across the aisle it would've upset a huge portion of the Republican voting base. Not an astute first move as Speaker.
Let's get to why this happened. The quickest, most simple answer is a sizable portion of Republicans nationally don't trust McCarthy. This includes much of the voting base, Republican media (Fox News hosts et al.) and a small number of elected MoCs. For one his ratings from conservative groups (e.g. Club for Growth, CPAC, Conservative Review), reflecting his votes etc., have consistently been lower than these groups would like. One could make the argument having a Speaker closer to the average Republican MoC is a good thing, but that's not how these groups see it. It's hard to blame them for wanting leadership to reflect their values, as that's rarely been the case.
There's also that McCarthy is a holdover from previous Republican House leadership, from the days of John Boehner, Paul Ryan and Eric Cantor. Conservatives repeatedly saw this group as stymying their efforts through bad deals and the wrong priorities. A major aspect of this has been the budget since Republicans took the House in 2010 (Obama's first midterm). Through the time since, including Pelosi's second Speaker stint, all government funding has happened through 'continuing resolutions' ('CRs') or omnibus bills. CRs keep all government funding as-is, with the only negotiation how long they should last. Omnibus bills, like the one just passed in December, are massive, singular bills that set all government funding in one fell swoop. A consistent theme, whether it's been CR or omnibus, has been dealmaking behind closed doors, excluding even most of Congress, until an agreement is made by leaders of the House/Senate/White House, followed by an immediate vote, often before the large bills can be read in their entirety. This is how Congress has worked for 10-12 years now, with essentially no public debate, no allowance of amendments, no time and requiring steadfast belief in leadership, regardless of which party controls the chambers. In the past, Federal government budgets were broken up into ~12 different appropriations bills that went through appropriate committees and had debate and individual votes at different stages of the process. This is what we'll call 'regular order.'
Back to the Speaker election. We can break down the hold-outs into two camps. The first, including more than half of the rebellion, wanted substantive changes to how the House functions and an undoing of the consolidated power in the Speaker. Get back to regular order, no more CRs or omnibus bills, more time to read bills up for a vote, etc. There was also much discussion around the 'motion to vacate,' basically the method for removing an elected Speaker. This group, so I heard, was led by Congressmen Chip Roy (TX- 21st). The second group, often labeled (incorrectly, imo) 'hard-core conservatives,' were basically not going to vote for McCarthy no matter what, partially as a representation of the base and partially because they enjoy being troublemakers and the center of attention. These are members like Congressman Matt Gaetz (FL-1st) and Congresswoman Lauren Boebert (CO-3rd), who are easy to liken to the Joker.
I'm not sure what McCarthy's plan was coming in, as it seems pretty clear this wasn't a coronation. He had about two months to get everything lined up and couldn't (perhaps proving his critics point that he's not up to the job politically), and the result was a big internal fight between Republicans out in the open. The NYT has a nice breakdown of the ballots in you care to dig into those details.
Basically, McCarthy lost support from the first ballot to the 11th. If you're wondering why there were so many, the rules require either continuous ballots until a winner is found or an adjournment of the session, so this is bound to happen as everything is sorted out on the fly. There was clearly no major movement in these first 11 ballots, toward McCarthy or a different candidate, though who the rebels voted for changed several times. The big breakthrough on the 12th ballot was when McCarthy's group agreed to a deal with the camp led by Roy, on the rules and how the House was going to function. But that still wasn't enough. McCarthy needed a bit more, and from the camp that opposed him personally. The biggest individual moment was on the 14th ballot, on the night of Friday January 6th. McCarthy was clearly confident he had the votes, but when they were all counted he had 216, out of 432 cast. He has literally half a vote shy of winning. So he walked up to one of the few remaining hold-outs, Gaetz, and they had a mini-showdown on the floor. I was only paying attention on Twitter, so I can't speak firsthand, but apparently the tension was palpable. When McCarthy walked away another MoC came over and yelled at Gaetz, before someone else covered his mouth and dragged him away. It was a pretty wild situation. Apparently a stalemate remained and there was a vote to adjourn. But then something changed and a 15th ballot was quickly readied instead. On this final ballot all remaining hold-outs voted present instead of another candidate, and this was enough. McCarthy would be Speaker.
To me this is largely a positive development. Yes there was some drama drama but the McCarthy, the preferred candidate of the elected Republicans, still won and also promised some changes of which I'm a fan. Simpler rules and bills, more open debate, fewer backroom deals are all very good, in theory (there's a reason so much power was consolidated in the Speaker, after all). There's no doubt the slim Republican majority and its more unruly members will continue to be a story. We're going to see what happens with the motion to vacate and increased presence of Freedom Caucus members on important committees, for example. In other words, now the real chaos begins.
While we likely can't count on Republicans suddenly learning to govern, we're going to see how this group does. I'm a little more hopeful of an improved the process than I was a week ago. Fights like this are good, actually, and a sign of healthy democracy in action, even if you don't particularly like the people involved in them.
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