Confrontations on the floor. A late night call from Trump. Jeffries makes history. Here’s how McCarthy finally clinched his bid for speaker.
The House has a speaker. Here’s what comes next
From CNN’s Clare Foran, Melanie Zanona and Sonnet Swire
Now that a House speaker has been selected following a days-long stalemate and members have finally been sworn in, the chamber can look toward picking back up business and organizing GOP-led committees.
Every new Congress must pass a new set of House rules, and doing so will be the top of the 118th Congress’ to-do list when the House reconvenes Monday.
With House Republicans’ majority, comes a newfound power to set the agenda — investigative and legislative.
Legislative agenda: House Republicans will be limited in their ability to pass bills through Congress with Democrats in control of the Senate and the White House — where the president can exercise veto power over legislation. Still, House Republicans will be able to push messaging bills that highlight their agenda.
In an exclusive, wide-ranging interview with CNN ahead of the 2022 midterm elections, then-House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy outlined his plans for power.
Those plans include:
- Tackling inflation
- Rising crime and border security
- He also left the door open to launching eventual impeachment proceedings, which some of his members have already begun to call for
There will also be some must-pass policy issues — like funding the government — that will test the ability of Republicans and Democrats to work together.
Read more about what Republicans plan to do with their new House majority here.
Hakeem Jeffries officially becomes the first Black lawmaker to lead a party in Congress
From CNN’s Shawna Mizelle
Hakeem Jeffries made history as the first Black lawmaker to lead a party in Congress, addressing the 118th Congress for the first time in the early hours of Saturday morning.
“As John Lewis would sometimes remind us on this floor, we may have come over on different ships but we’re all in the same boat now,” the New York Democrat said, referencing the late civil rights legend and longtime congressman.
“We are White. We are Black. We are Latino. We are Asian. We are Native American. We are Christian. We are Jewish. We are Muslim. We are Hindu. We are religious. We are secular. We are gay. We are straight. We are young. We are older. We are women. We are men. We are citizens. We are dreamers,” he continued. “Out of many we are one. That’s what makes America a great country. And no matter what kind of haters are trying to divide us, we’re not going to let anyone take that away from us. Not now. Not ever.”
Jeffries’ position was made official after the conclusion of a prolonged floor fight that culminated in Republican Kevin McCarthy becoming House speaker. While Republican quarrels prevented the election of a new speaker for days, ultimately going to 15 rounds of voting, Democrats displayed unwavering support for Jeffries, who consistently earned votes from all 212 members of his caucus as Republicans split their votes among multiple lawmakers.
Jeffries now leads the minority party in the House, succeeding California’s Nancy Pelosi, who served as speaker in the prior session of Congress when Democrats held the majority. In addition to being the first Black lawmaker to attain such a position, Jeffries is also the first person elected to lead House Democrats to be born after the end of World War II.
Dramatic reversals and fighting on the floor: How the historic contest for the speaker’s gavel came to an end
From CNN’s Melanie Zanona, Manu Raju, Annie Grayer, Lauren Fox and Jeremy Herb
Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz strode into House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy’s office on Monday night with a list of demands. Among them: The chairmanship of a key House Armed Services subcommittee.
McCarthy rejected the offer. That decision set in motion a chain of events that left Gaetz and McCarthy locked in open confrontation on the House floor late Friday night. Gaetz, McCarthy’s staunchest opponent, dramatically denied the California Republican the final vote he needed to become speaker – then Gaetz and the last holdouts abruptly changed course allowing McCarthy to win the speaker’s gavel on his 15th attempt.
Before the final vote, pandemonium erupted on the House floor after Gaetz waited until the very end of the 14th ballot to vote “present” when McCarthy needed one more “yes” vote. Stunned after believing he had the votes, McCarthy faced his most embarrassing defeat yet. His allies encircled Gaetz to try to find a way forward. McCarthy soon made a bee-line for discussion and started engaging Gaetz, too.
After McCarthy walked away from Gaetz, looking dejected, House Armed Services Chairman Mike Rogers moved toward the conversation and lunged at Gaetz, having to be physically restrained by Republican Rep. Richard Hudson of North Carolina. Rogers, an Alabama Republican who earlier in the week had warned the GOP dissidents they would lose their committee assignments, told Gaetz he would be “finished” for continuing to wreck the speaker’s vote.
Nearby, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia was trying to convince Rep. Matt Rosendale of Montana, another McCarthy holdout, to take her cell phone and speak to former President Donald Trump, who was on the line.
Finally, the House clerk announced for the 14th time that no one had the votes to be speaker. Republicans moved to adjourn the chamber until Monday. As the vote timer counted down, 218 Republicans had voted yes, a majority that would have sent McCarthy home for the weekend and left the House in paralysis at the hands of Gaetz and his allies.
But with less than a minute left to go in the vote, Gaetz moved toward the front of the chamber, grabbing a red index card to change his vote on adjournment. Gaetz walked toward McCarthy, and the two briefly exchanged words. McCarthy then raised his hand and yelled out, “One more!” as he triumphantly walked toward the front of the chamber to change his vote too. It was the GOP leader’s final negotiation capping an emotional roller coaster over the course of four days as he was held hostage by a narrow faction of his conference. Dozens of Republicans followed McCarthy and Gaetz to defeat the adjournment measure, and McCarthy’s victory, at last, was at hand.
Read a full timeline of the tumultuous week here:
McCarthy gives Trump credit for victory: “He was all in”
From CNN’s Manu Raju and Morgan Rimmer
Newly elected House Speaker Kevin McCarthy thanked former President Donald Trump for helping him get the votes, telling reporters: “I don’t think anybody should doubt his influence.”
“He was with me from the beginning — somebody wrote the doubt of whether he was there — and he was all in. He would call me and he would call others. And he really was — I was just talking to him tonight — helping get those final votes.”
McCarthy, who spoke with Rep. Matt Gaetz on the floor between the 14th and 15th ballot, told CNN’s Manu Raju: “At the end of the night, Matt got everybody there from the point that nobody voted against the other way, so it actually helped unite people.”
The new House speaker also thanked some of the core negotiators by name — Reps. Garret Graves, Patrick McHenry, Bruce Westerman, Scott Perry, Chip Roy and French Hill.
House drama: McCarthy said he is “1,000%” confident he will serve out his term, even with the new one-person threshold on the motion to vacate.
He also dismissed concerns that tonight’s drama on the floor is a taste of what is to come in the House over the next two years.
“I think by having the disruption now, really built the trust with one another and learned how to work together,” he said. “What we’re going to have to find in our mindset is that we have to frontload. We have to think about and work on the bills with a microcosm of the conference before we even start writing it. And that’s really what we learned here.”
118th Congress sworn into office, House is adjourned until Monday
From CNN’s Kristin Wilson
Members of the 118th Congress were sworn in early Saturday morning after days of deadlock in the House speaker election that prevented them from assuming their roles.
The new Congress features a record-setting number of women and several history makers, from the House’s first Gen-Z lawmaker to the longest-serving woman in congressional history.
Newly-elected House Speaker Kevin McCarthy was sworn in before the members, and now Congress can resume business.
The House is adjourned until 5 p.m. Monday.
The chamber is expected to vote on a House Rules package Monday.
Biden congratulated McCarthy on speakership, saying he’s prepared to work with Republicans
President Joe Biden issued a statement congratulating Speaker-elect Kevin McCarthy on his win.
In his statement, the president said:
“Jill and I congratulate Kevin McCarthy on his election as Speaker of the House. As I said after the midterms, I am prepared to work with Republicans when I can and voters made clear that they expect Republicans to be prepared to work with me as well. Now that the leadership of the House of Representatives has been decided it is time for that process to begin.”
“Now the hard work begins,” McCarthy said in first speech as House speaker
nhis first speech as House speaker, Kevin McCarthy told his colleagues, “Now the hard work begins.”
“What we do here today, next week, next month, next year, will set the tone for everything that follows,” he added.
McCarthy also used the remarks to “talk directly to the American people.”
“As speaker of the House, my ultimate responsibility is not to my party, my conference, or even our Congress,” McCarthy said. “My responsibility, our responsibility, is to our country.”
CNN previously reported that McCarthy denied that Rep. Matt Gaetz was offered chairmanship of a subcommittee in exchange for his “present” vote on speaker that ultimately helped him secure victory.
“No one gets promised anything,” McCarthy said.
This was the longest House speaker contest in more than 160 years
Analysis by CNN’s Zachary B. Wolf
This year’s House speaker election was the longest contest in 164 years, since the Congress during which states began seceding from the Union to kick off the Civil War.
It will take a long time to break any more records. The 1859 speaker contest went to 44 ballots before Rep. William Pennington, a Republican from New Jersey, won the post. An anomaly, Pennington only served in one Congress, the one where he was speaker, and lost a bid for reelection. He’s one of just three speakers to be thrown out of office by voters.
The US House of 1859 was a very different place. Pennington’s Republicans had the most members, with 116. But they did not have a majority of the 238 total members. There were also 83 Democrats, 19 Opposition Party members, eight Anti-Lecompton Democrats, seven Independent Democrats and five members of the American Party.
In the following Congress, which started in 1861, after Southern states seceded, House membership went down from 238 to 183 and Republicans had a very strong majority.
Key things to know about McCarthy’s House speakership win after days of negotiations and failed votes
From CNN’s Clare Foran, Manu Raju, Annie Grayer and Melanie Zanona
Kevin McCarthy was elected House speaker in the early hours of Saturday morning – a major victory for the California Republican that elevates him to a powerful position leading the GOP majority in the chamber and an outcome that followed days of painstaking negotiations and failed votes.
To secure the gavel, McCarthy and his allies worked to chip away at the opposition he faced from a bloc of hardline conservatives in what ultimately became the longest contest in 164 years.
Republicans can now turn their attention to their agenda after taking back control of the House. But the contentious, drawn-out fight over the speakership threatens to deepen divides between conservatives and moderates. The struggle McCarthy faced to lock down votes may serve as a preview of the kind of challenges he will face in trying to unite his conference in the future.
The deal-making McCarthy engaged in to win over critics also appears poised to leave him with a weaker hand to play in his new position of authority. McCarthy, though, has pushed back against that suggestion.
“I think at the end of the day we’re going to be more effective, more efficient and that definitely government is going to work,” he said Friday.
McCarthy picks up key support amid concessions: In a major shift, McCarthy and his allies successfully flipped more than a dozen GOP votes into his column Friday afternoon – the first sign of serious momentum in support of his speaker bid after a series of failed votes over the course of multiple days.
Here is a list of key concessions and promises McCarthy and his allies have made over the course of the negotiations, based on CNN reporting:
- Any member can call for a motion to vacate the speaker’s chair. This is significant because it would make it much easier than it is currently to trigger what is effectively a no confidence vote in the speaker. Conservatives pushed hard for this, while moderates are worried it will weaken McCarthy’s hand.
- A McCarthy-aligned super PAC agreed to not play in open Republican primaries in safe seats.
- The House will hold votes on key conservative bills, including a balanced budget amendment, congressional term limits and border security.
- Efforts to raise the nation’s debt ceiling must be paired with spending cuts. This could become a major issue in the future when it is time to raise the debt limit to avoid a catastrophic default because Democrats in the Senate and the White House would likely oppose demands for spending cuts.
- Move 12 appropriations bills individually. Instead of passing separate bills to fund government operations, Congress frequently passes a massive year-end spending package known as an “omnibus” that rolls everything into one bill. Conservatives rail against this, arguing that it evades oversight and allows lawmakers to stick in extraneous pet projects.
- More Freedom Caucus representation on committees, including the powerful House Rules Committee.
- Cap discretionary spending at fiscal 2022 levels, which would amount to lower levels for defense and domestic programs.
- Seventy-two hours to review bills before they come to floor.
- Give members the ability to offer more amendments on the House floor.
- Create an investigative committee to probe the “weaponization” of the federal government.
- Restore the Holman rule, which can be used to reduce the salary of government officials.
Read more about the vote here.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/politics/live-news/kevin-mccarthy-voted-house-speaker-01-07-23/index.html
