Chaos on Capitol Hill as McCarthy withdraws Speaker bid
‘It’s best to have a new face,’ says majority leader
House Republicans will gather Friday morning to begin figuring out who, if anybody, is in charge.
Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy shocked his colleagues Thursday by abruptly dropping out of the race for speaker at the beginning of a meeting that was prepared to nominate him for the job. That left the party with no obvious front-runner, except Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., who has said several times he is not going to run.
McCarthy met with colleagues at an early morning forum and made his case to become the next speaker, then announced at the noon nominating gath- ering that he was dropping out. “I just think it’s best to have a new face,” he said afterward. Many conservatives who have chafed under Boehner’s leadership expressed support for other candidates, and it was clear McCarthy would not get the 218 votes he needed Thursday to guarantee he would win a vote for speaker on the House floor, which had been set for Oct. 29.
“Over the last week, it has become clear to me that our conference is deeply divided and needs to unite behind one leader,” McCarthy, R-Calif., said in a statement released by his office. “I have always put this conference ahead of myself. Therefore, I am withdrawing my candidacy for speaker of the House. I look forward to working alongside my colleagues to help move our conference’s agenda and our country forward.”
After McCarthy dropped out, it was unclear where Republicans would turn for a new leader after House Speaker John Boehner departs. Republicans of all stripes have said in recent weeks that Ryan, chairman of the Ways and Means Committee and the 2012 Republican
vice presidential nominee, would be able to unify the fractured party. Ryan had backed McCarthy and said Thursday that he would not run for the post. In a statement, Ryan called McCarthy the “best person to lead the House” and expressed his disappointment in the day’s news. He said it was time for the party to “seek new candidates for the speakership.”
“While I am grateful for the encouragement I’ve received, I will not be a candidate,” he said.
Colleagues pressed him to reconsider. “Most of the members know that that’s really our only path forward at this point,” said Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., a close ally of Boehner’s. The job requires a lot of institutional knowledge and credibility, Nunes said, and “really from the start of this, Kevin and Paul were the only two we had of that caliber.”
Boehner said in a statement that he will stay on until he is replaced. “I will serve as speaker until the House votes to elect a new speaker,” he said. “We will announce the date for this election at a later date, and I’m confident we will elect a new speaker in the coming weeks.”
McCarthy will not step down as majority leader, which means that the scramble that had begun for his job and other leadership positions also is on hold. Boehner had said the party would not select other top leaders until after the speaker vote.
Conservatives, led by members of the House Freedom Caucus, demand rules changes that would reduce the speaker’s authority and allow more conservative amendments to come to the floor for a vote. Nunes suggested other rules changes that would give the speaker more authority to punish Republicans who vote against leadership positions.
Freedom Caucus members agreed Wednesday to back Rep. Daniel Webster, R-Fla., for the nomination, in part to preserve their ability to negotiate with McCarthy for rules changes. Rep. Jason Chaffetz, RUtah, who jumped into the race Sunday, said Thursday he was “shocked” by McCarthy’s withdrawal, but he remains a candidate for the job.
“It’s all wide open,” said Rep. Tim
It’s all wide open. There’s probably 10 people that picked up 10 votes”
— Rep. Tim Huelskamp, R-Kan.
Huelskamp, R-Kan., a Freedom Caucus member. “There’s probably 10 people that picked up 10 votes” in the wake of McCarthy’s departure.
Rep. Greg Walden, R- Ore., who leads the House Republican campaign operation, said he would consider serving as interim speaker, but he wasn’t sure that was a good idea — and Huelskamp said he would be unacceptable to conservatives. Rep. Bill Flores, R-Texas, chair of the Republican Study Committee, a kind of conservative think tank in the House, said, “I don’t know that we can get a new speaker before Nov. 5.” That is the date the Treasury Department says the nation will begin to default on debts unless Congress raises the debt limit. Flores said he expected Boehner to stay at least through that deadline.
McCarthy’s rise to the top post was hampered by his comments on Fox News last week suggesting that the House Select Committee on Benghazi was set up largely to damage Hillary Clinton’s political fortunes. McCarthy has since apologized and said that was neither what he meant nor the intent of the committee, which was created to investigate the attack Sept 11, 2012, on a diplomatic compound in Benghazi.
Conservatives accused McCarthy of undermining the committee’s work. McCarthy said part of the reason he was stepping down was because “I should not be a distraction” from the committee’s work.
Conservative activists who railed against McCarthy reveled in his announcement. “We just proved that the grass roots can rise up and get things done,” said Larry Ward, whose Constitutional Rights PAC launched a “Fire McCarthy” website a week ago.
White House spokesman Josh Earnest said that while it’s “easy to poke fun at the chaos” in the GOP, “the fact is the challenge that is facing the next Republican speaker of the House, regardless of who it is, is the same challenge that John Boehner faced, is the same challenge that Kevin McCarthy would have faced, and that is simply to unite a divided Republican caucus.”