House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy failed yet again Friday night to secure the House speakership despite negotiations and concessions that appeared to be leading toward a breakthrough, in a 14th vote that ended with a confrontation on the floor between him and holdout Matt Gaetz.
McCarthy received 216 votes in the latest round, falling short of clinching the post by just one vote, while Representative Hakeem Jeffries (D., N.Y.) won 212 votes. Two McCarthy opponents voted for Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio and another two voted for Representative Andy Biggs of Arizona. Representatives Lauren Boebert of Colorado and Matt Gaetz of Florida voted “present.”
McCarthy previously failed in a 13th attempt for the position on Friday afternoon, but had flipped more than a dozen GOP detractors over the course of the day, suggesting the factions were steadily coalescing around giving him the gavel. The 15th holdout, Representative Andy Harris, joined the pro-McCarthy coalition for the 13th vote.
Representatives Brecheen, Bishop, Cloud, Clyde, Donalds, Luna, Miller, Norman, Perry, Roy, Self, Spartz, Gosar, and Ogles were among the GOP hold-outs who voted for McCarthy on the prior vote. While McCarthy won a total of 213 votes during both ballots — more than the Democrats’ unanimous 212 votes for Representative Hakeem Jefferies — he needed 217 to win. On the first ballot Friday, the remaining seven hold-outs gave GOP Representative Jim Jordan four votes and GOP Representative Kevin Hern three votes.
Donalds, who was nominated on a few earlier ballots, told ABC News Friday that he’s confident McCarthy will be speaker. In a statement obtained by Politico explaining his reversal, Donalds said: “As we continue negotiations, I’m confident our conference is positioned to get the ball over the finish line. The Speaker’s Office must work for We The People, and I believed the concessions we’ve secured achieve this.”
In his statement on changing his vote to McCarthy, obtained by Politico, Self said: “My vote today was to show support for significant Rule changes to transform the House from being dysfunctional to functional. I believe we are on the precipice of transferring significant power from leadership to individual members and the American people.”
McCarthy announced earlier Friday that negotiations over the House speakership had been approaching an agreement although he did not confirm a deal. He assured that the members had been working “hard” and in “good faith,” according to Jake Sherman of Punchbowl News.
“I’m not telling you we have an agreement, I am telling you we are in a good position,” McCarthy told members on a House GOP conference call, Politico reported.
The House voted Thursday night to adjourn and reconvene on Friday at noon after McCarthy failed in an eleventh attempt for the speakership, the first time in 164 years that the vote went to nine rounds. The House voted five times on Thursday alone.
Representative Chip Roy is one of the leaders of the House rebels that have lobbied for more power on the important Rules Committee, the last checkpoint for bills before they advance to the House floor. Bloomberg reported that “hard-line conservatives want to claim four of the nine [Republican] seats on the House Rules Committee, which would give them outsized influence on what does — and what does not — get debated on the House floor.”
During the conference call, Representative McHenry reportedly said that Roy would not be chair of the Rules Committee, Sherman said.
On Thursday, Roy told National Review that he would not specify what number of seats he and other anti-McCarthy Republicans are demanding on the 13-seat panel. “That number has been floated in some previous conversations,” he added.
GOP Representative Ken Buck, who Politico claimed would return to Congress Friday to vote after it was rumored he’d be away for a medical appointment, had publicly suggested before Friday that he’d withdraw his support for McCarthy unless he secured a deal.
“Well, I’ve had a number of conversations with Kevin, and I just basically told him that at some point this needs to break loose. He either needs to make a deal to bring the 19 or 20 over, or he needs to step aside and give somebody a chance to do that,” Buck said on “CNN Newsroom.”
GOP Representative-elect Wesley Hunt, a McCarthy vote, flew back home to Texas Friday morning, a source with the details reportedly told Politico, absenting himself from the speakership vote proceedings to meet his newborn child.