Neal and Gaetz: Kevin McCarthy should not have to live in the shadow of the House of Representatives, as he did in January
Rep. Richard Neal, D-Mass., said McCarthy’s decision to change the rules on who can propose a resolution to remove the speaker, allowing just one member to do it, “essentially puts the fringe in charge of the House of Representatives in terms of rulemaking.” Neal said he had a “Machivellian position” about that decision in January: “Once you seal the deal, you have to take the consequences.”
She pointed out that McCarthy did a television interview on Tuesday saying he didn’t need any help from Democrats so she didn’t see any reason to help him survive.
“I think Kevin McCarthy is one of the most unethical people I’ve ever had the chance to meet, and I think he does serious damage to our democracy,” said a moderate Democrat.
He spoke after a lengthy meeting of House Democrats in the basement of the Capitol. One by one lawmakers got up and had one minute to advise on what they thought the caucus should do and one by one Democrats railed on Speaker McCarthy’s record and his unwillingness to reach across the aisle.
It is on the Republican colleagues to join us in moving the Congress and the country forward according to Jeffries.
At issue, Gaetz said, is McCarthy’s refusal to adhere to promises he made to hard-line House Republicans earlier this year to win their support for the speakership in the first place — and McCarthy’s reliance on Democratic votes to narrowly avoid a government shutdown over the weekend.
Counting members turned into an intense project as a group of McCarthy’s critics sat in the back corner of the House floor with Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., the member who set the revolt in motion. McCarthy’s allies huddled together across the room as the speaker’s floor staff looked at notes.
McCarthy seems to be the majority of Republicans in the house, even as some of them tried to persuade Gaetz not to move forward with the vote, even as they were unhappy with McCarthy.
Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., vowed to protect McCarthy as Speaker of the House Select Committee on the House Way Forward
If the resolution does pass, the Clerk of the House will refer to a list of people who can act as speaker pro tempore in the absence of speaker. That list is kept secret and will only be made public in the event that the speakership is vacant.
“If you throw a speaker out that has 99 percent of their conference, that kept government open and paid the troops, I think we’re in a really bad place,” McCarthy told reporters in the Capitol Tuesday morning.
Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., made good on his long-standing threat to file a motion to vacate on Monday night, taking the first procedural step toward forcing a vote to remove McCarthy as speaker. McCarthy told reporters that he will bring up the motion to vacate today but it is not clear how much support he has.
McCarthy is accusing Gaetz of harboring a grudge over his refusal to quash a congressional ethics complaint against him over allegations of sexual misconduct and illegal drug use that emerged in 2021, telling CNBC on Tuesday morning that Gaetz has “personal things in his life that he has challenges with.”
Will I get removed for being a Republican who joined the Democrats? That’s the question here,” he said. If 98% of the conference want you to be speaker but you set up a congress with four people who can’t determine if they work with the other side, how strong is the continuity of the government itself?
Emerging from their weekly caucus meeting on Tuesday morning, Reps. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., and Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., told reporters that House Democrats agreed to vote together against saving McCarthy in any way.
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“There is reason after reason to just let Republicans deal with their own problems,” Jayapal said. “Let them wallow in their pigsty of incompetence and inability to govern.”
House Democrats have not taken a stance. Some have suggested recently that they might be willing to help McCarthy but not without a cost.
Massachusetts Rep. Katherine Clark, the House minority whip, told Morning Edition before Tuesday’s meeting that she was not aware of McCarthy having offered any concessions.
It is hard to trust someone who had a negotiation with the president of the United States and signed a deal, and walked away from it, but we are going to have to see if Kevin McCarthy offers something.
Clark noted that the GOP infighting — which she described as a “full-scale civil war” — has an impact on “people at home who are worried about the GOP’s attacks on Social Security, on our public schools, on the freedom of reproductive rights in this country.”
We’re going to look at everything that the House does and ask ourselves, what is the best way to make progress for the American people?