As Rich notes, Kevin McCarthy (R., Calif.) has made a number of concessions in negotiations with Chip Roy (R., Texas) and the dissenters who are negotiating in good faith (to be distinguished from the dissenters who are Never McCarthy). A deal may be coming into view, even considering McCarthy’s latest and seventh failed speaker vote this afternoon.
Predictions are a dicey business, especially when one is not on the scene. Still, I sense there is wiggle room for the Never McCarthy faction: They’ve pledged never to vote for him under any circumstances, but — to my knowledge — they haven’t pledged to refrain from voting present. As I explained a couple of days ago, a present vote can lower the total a speaker nominee needs to get in order to win a majority of those voting for a named person (which is the standard).
Although there are 435 seats in the House, currently there are only 434 members-elect (they haven’t been sworn in yet for this Congress) because Representative A. Donald McEachin (D., Va.) died in late November. If every member-elect votes for a named candidate, it would require 218 to win the necessary majority. In the last vote that took place Wednesday (the sixth since voting started Tuesday), the totals were:
Hakeem Jeffries (D., N.Y.) 212
Kevin McCarthy (R., Calif.) 201
Byron Donalds (R., Fla.) 20
Present 1
Representative Victoria Spartz (R., Ind.) cast the one “present” vote. She voted for McCarthy in the first few rounds, and has said she voted present in order to encourage more negotiations to settle the impasse. That suggests that Spartz could get back to the McCarthy column, given that there have been negotiations she hoped to prompt.
As I noted in last night’s column, the Never McCarthy faction could be greater than five. The best guess in the reporting seems to be six.
The trick with the arithmetic of “present” votes is that they don’t work for McCarthy unless he gets more votes than Jeffries; otherwise, they work for Jeffries, who could also be elected with fewer than 218.
So, let’s say the negotiations overnight were sufficiently productive that McCarthy now has all but the six hardcore nos. If that happened, McCarthy could be elected speaker if the six could be persuaded to vote “present” rather than for a named person who has no chance of winning.
To play it out, six “present votes” would mean a total of 428 members voting for a named person. That would reduce the number needed for a majority from 218 to 215. If McCarthy’s Wednesday tally (201) were supplemented by 14 of the dissenters based on the deal Rich describes, plus Spartz, he would be at 216, one more than necessary to prevail.
Again, this hinges on the Never McCarthys being willing to vote present. Since this would allow them the face-saving rationale that they did not break their vow never to vote for McCarthy, they would appear utterly unreasonable not to go along. How much that would matter to them, I can’t say, but they’d certainly come under enormous pressure to vote “present.”