Kevin McCarthy elected Republican U.S. House speaker, but at a cost
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[January 07, 2023]
By David Morgan, Moira Warburton and Andy Sullivan
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republican Kevin McCarthy was elected speaker of
the U.S. House of Representatives early on Saturday, after making
extensive concessions to a group of right-wing hardliners that raised
questions about the party's ability to govern.
The 57-year-old Californian suffered one final humiliation when
Representative Matt Gaetz withheld his vote on the 14th ballot as
midnight approached, prompting a scuffle in which fellow Republican Mike
Rogers had to be physically pulled away.
McCarthy's victory in the 15th ballot brought an end to the deepest
congressional dysfunction in over 160 years. But it sharply illustrated
the difficulties that he will face in leading a narrow and deeply
polarized majority.
He won at last on a margin of 216-212. He was able to be elected with
the votes of fewer than half the House members only because six in his
own party withheld their votes - not backing McCarthy as leader, but
also not voting for another contender.
As he took the gavel for the first time, McCarthy represented the end of
President Joe Biden's Democrats' hold on both chambers of Congress.
"Our system is built on checks and balances. It's time for us to be a
check and provide some balance to the president's policies," McCarthy
said in his inaugural speech, which laid out a wide range of priorities
from cutting spending to immigration, to fighting culture war battles.
McCarthy secured the gavel only after agreeing to a demand by hardliners
that any lawmaker be able call for his removal at any time. That will
sharply cut the power he will hold when trying to pass legislation on
critical issues including funding the government, addressing the
nation's looming debt ceiling and other crises that may arise.
Republicans' weaker-than-expected performance in November's midterm
elections left them with a narrow 222-212 majority, which has given
outsized power to the right-wing hardliners who have opposed McCarthy's
leadership.
Those concessions, including sharp spending cuts and other curbs on
McCarthy's leadership, could point to further turbulence in the months
ahead, especially when Congress will need to sign off on a further
increase of the United States' $31.4 trillion borrowing authority.
Over the past decade, Republicans have repeatedly shut down much of the
government and pushed the world's largest borrower to the brink of
default in efforts to extract steep spending cuts, usually without
success.
Several of the hardliners have questioned McCarthy's willingness to
engage in such brinksmanship when negotiating with President Joe Biden,
whose Democrats control the Senate. They have raged in the past when
Senate Republicans led by Mitch McConnell agreed to compromise deals.
The hardliners, also including Freedom Caucus Chairman Scott Perry and
Chip Roy of Texas, said concessions they extracted from McCarthy will
make it easier to pursue such tactics this year - or force another vote
on McCarthy's leadership if he does not live up to their expectations.
"You have changes in how we're going to spend and allocate money that
are going to be historic," said Representative Scott Perry, the chairman
of the hard-right House Freedom Caucus.
"We don't want clean debt ceilings to just go through and just keep
paying the bill without some counteracting effort to control spending
when the Democrats control the White House and control the Senate."
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U.S. House Republican Leader Kevin
McCarthy (R-CA) celebrates being elected the next Speaker of the
U.S. House of Representatives in a late night 15th round of voting
during the fourth session of the 118th Congress at the U.S. Capitol
in Washington, U.S., January 7, 2023. REUTERS/Jon Cherry
One of those Democrats, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, warned
that the concessions McCarthy made to win the job may come back to
haunt him.
"Kevin McCarthy's concessions to the extremists in his party make it
far more likely that the MAGA Republican controlled House will cause
a government shutdown or a default with devastating consequences to
our country," Schumer said in a statement.
In a sharp contrast to this week's battles among House Republicans,
Biden and McConnell appeared together in Kentucky on Wednesday to
highlight investments in infrastructure.
McCarthy's belated victory came the day after the two-year
anniversary of a Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, when a
violent mob stormed Congress in an attempt to overturn
then-President Donald Trump's election loss.
This week's 14 failed votes marked the highest number of ballots for
the speakership since 1859, in the turbulent years before the Civil
war.
McCarthy's last bid for speaker, in 2015, crumbled in the face of
right-wing opposition. The two previous Republican speakers, John
Boehner and Paul Ryan, left the job after conflict with right-wing
colleagues.
McCarthy now holds the authority to block Biden's legislative
agenda, force votes for Republican priorities on the economy, energy
and immigration and move forward with investigations of Biden, his
administration and his family.
CONCESSIONS
But McCarthy has agreed to concessions that mean he will hold
considerably less power than his predecessor, Democrat Nancy Pelosi.
That will make it hard for him to agree to deals with Democrats in a
divided Washington.
Allowing a single member to call for a vote to remove the speaker
will give hardliners extraordinary leverage.
The agreement would cap spending for the next fiscal year at last
year's levels - amounting to a significant cut when inflation and
population growth are taken into account.
That could meet resistance from more centrist Republicans or those
who have pushed for greater military funding, particularly as the
United States is spending money to help Ukraine fend off a Russian
assault.
Moderate Republican Brian Fitzpatrick said he was not worried that
the House would effectively be run by hardliners.
"It's aspirational," he told reporters. "We still have our voting
cards."
(Reporting by David Morgan, Moira Warburton and Andy Sullivan;
Additional reporting by Gram Slattery, Jason Lange and Makini Brice,
writing by Andy Sullivan; Editing by Scott Malone, Cynthia Osterman
and William Mallard)
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