Kevin McCarthy’s Speakership Struggle
Like many of you, I watched the house speakership election go on to more than one ballot for the first time since exactly one century ago in 1923. A handful of far-right Republicans refused to vote for Kevin McCarthy, who was the Majority Leader of the House, even though Republicans hold an extremely narrow House majority. Republicans had a majority with 222 House seats and needed 218 votes to elect a Speaker of the House. So what went wrong? Twenty far-right Republicans voted against Kevin McCarthy. Matt Gaetz even cast a lone vote for Donald Trump, while others voted for either Jim Jordan, Kevin Hern, or Byron Donalds.
If McCarthy is the majority leader, then we should expect his caucus to align with him. The question that we’re looking at today is why Kevin McCarthy took so long to become elected Speaker of the House.
There were several reasons why some House Republicans were reluctant to vote for McCarthy. For one, casting a vote against McCarthy is a way for members of the House to gain attention from the media and increase fundraising, social media presence, and additional supporters. Some saw McCarthy as too much of an establishment Republican; this worried Republicans about a primary challenge in future elections. Establishment Republicans have not been very popular with Republican primary voters recently. Other Republicans did not agree with McCarthy until he agreed to make several concessions on the rules of the House, including creating a committee on the weaponization of the federal government. Other settlements included not raising the debt ceiling unless paired with spending cuts or not interfering with incumbent primaries in safe seats during future elections. A debt ceiling fight would make Biden more unpopular and could risk the global financial system. A debt ceiling is a limit on how much the country can borrow. If it is not raised, the government will no longer pay interest on the debt. According to Moody's Analytics, failing to increase the debt ceiling could result in a government default, cost 6 million private sector jobs, and cause interest rates to rise significantly. We can expect gridlock with a Democratic Senate and Biden in the oval office in Washington for at least two more years. Hopefully, soon, there will be a compromise on the debt limit.
