GOP leadership spat likely to be drawn out
Move comes as race for speaker enters uncertain territory.
Departing speaker delays elections for other key roles until his successor chosen.
The battle for the future of the House Republican Conference is not about to end any time soon.
Any chance of a quick and bloodless transition to a new slate of GOP leaders ended Monday when outgoing House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio postponed elections for the party’s No. 2 and No. 3 posts for weeks pending the outcome of the speaker’s race — which itself remains in doubt.
Closed-door, secret-ballot elections for all three posts — to nominate a speaker ahead of a decisive floor vote of the entire House, and to select a majority leader and party whip — had been set for Thursday amid the widespread presumption that Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy of California would claim the speaker’s chair.
McCarthy remains the heavy favorite to win the speaker nomination vote Thursday, but he is facing questions over whether he can keep Republicans united ahead of the
floor vote, which Boehner on Monday set for Oct. 29 — a day before he is set to leave Congress.
In that vote, all House members, Republican and Democrat, cast ballots.
If more than 29 of the 247 House Republicans abandon the party’s nominee, that can- didate would be likely to fail to garner the necessary 218 votes to claim the speaker’s chair, throwing the race into multiple ballots for the fifirst time since 1923.
Rep. Jason Chaffetz , R-Utah, who on Sunday launched a long-shot challenge to McCarthy, told reporters Monday that while McCarthy would likely win the nomination Thursday, he would be unable to win over a bloc of as many as 50 conservative Republicans who are opposed to maintaining the status quo in a GOP political environment dominated by such outsiders as Donald Trump and Ben Carson.
“If we don’t inject new blood into the leadership team, our constituents are going to be irate, at best,” he said. “This is a national wave. It’s not something that was driven by Jason Chaffetz. I’m just smart enough to recognize it and try to get ahead of it.”
But it is not at all clear that Chaffetz, who says he would be a more effective communicator than McCarthy, is any better positioned to unite Republicans. He declined to sketch his path to the speakership.
Monday’s announcement delaying the down-ballot leadership races may help McCarthy build support among his colleagues by reducing the perception that there is going to be a lock-step promotion of the existing leadership ranks.
“The American peo - ple, and more importantly, the Republicans in this country, are not going to be happy with just a shifting of seats,” said Rep. James B. Renacci, R-Ohio,, who had called for the delay. “If we’re just switching seats, there has to be a very good argument for that, and I think those individuals who take those seats have to be able to show they’re going to do things different .”