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House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy is trying again Friday to muster a majority on the floor to win the race for speaker after falling short in 12 rounds of voting, now into its fourth day this week.
Though Republicans have not reached a deal yet, McCarthy predicted before the House convened Friday, “You’ll see some people who have been voting against me voting for me.” He was right — in the 12th round of voting over a dozen holdouts and a lawmaker who had said “present” in the past few rounds switched their votes in his favor.
This marked the first time he had a greater number of votes than Democrat Hakeem Jeffries, but McCarthy still fell short of a majority.
The speaker’s election has not exceeded nine rounds since before the Civil War.
As McCarthy left the House chamber Thursday night, he was still expressing optimism about his prospects of becoming speaker, though he declined to predict when the voting might go his way.
On Friday morning, just before a 10:15 a.m. GOP conference call to present the framework of a deal with some of the GOP holdouts opposing him, McCarthy told CBS News, “We’re going to shock you.” But after that conference call, two people on the call told CBS News no deal had been reached.
McCarthy made two key concessions to the 21 conservative holdouts on Wednesday. The first would lower the threshold for the motion to vacate the chair to just one House member, meaning that any single member could call for a vote to oust the speaker. The second would give the GOP holdouts the power to pick two of the nine members of the House Rules Committee, which holds considerable power over which legislation goes to the floor.
Despite those compromises, none of the holdouts supported McCarthy in any of the four rounds of voting on Thursday.
After the House adjourned for the day, McCarthy chose to adopt a philosophical view of the succession of failed votes.
“It’s better that we go through this process right now so we can achieve the things we want to achieve for the American public,” he said, adding, “It’s not how you start; it’s how you finish. And if we finish well, we’ll be very successful.”
The continuing impasse leaves the House effectively in limbo, since lawmakers must first elect a speaker before moving on to other business in the new Congress.
Democrats have remained united behind New York’s Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, the first Black party leader in either chamber of Congress. Jeffries and his lieutenants said Democrats “are united and are committed to staying in Washington for as long as it takes to get the Congress organized.”
Ellis Kim contributed to this report.
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