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      Americans Deserve Better From the House of Representatives

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      This article has been updated to include new information about Mr. McCarthy’s decision not to run for speaker again.The U.S. Capitol may be perched on a hill, but it is understandable why so many Americans look down on it.One of the main reasons is that their Congress, which ought to be a global beacon of liberal values, continues to succumb to self-inflicted paralysis. How else can it be that fewer than a dozen lawmakers from the outer fringes of the Republican Party are holding one of the world’s oldest democracies hostage to their wildest whims?On Tuesday a small group of Republicans effectively shut down all business in the House when they voted to oust Kevin McCarthy as speaker. Though 210 of 218 House Republicans supported him, he lost his job when just eight members of the caucus voted against him, joining all Democrats who voted.Without a speaker, the House can get nothing done. There will be no votes or even debate about paying for the government’s operations, though the money runs out in six weeks. There will be no discussion of how to help Ukraine or how to deal with the nation’s immigration crisis or any of the other crises facing Washington.Even before he lost his job, Mr. McCarthy and his caucus lurched the nation from debt limit crisis to shutdown crisis to win debating points that might help them in the next elections rather than pass meaningful legislation that addresses the nation’s challenges. We’re now in the middle of yet another pointless fight, this time over the funding of the federal government and the leadership of the House.Republicans in the House showed briefly, on Saturday, that they were willing to do the right thing and compromise to avoid a shutdown. In the upcoming votes to choose a new speaker, they can and should do that again, by showing their commitment to responsible governance. If Democrats can help achieve that, they should. The next candidates for speaker could win Democratic votes by promising a different course, one that brings both parties together for the common good. Any other candidate for the job will also face the same choice.Voters have given Republicans a majority of seats in the House and thus control over selecting the speaker, who sets the agenda in the House. Those voters, in turn, should expect the body to serve the people who elected them.It’s possible that the Republican Party is finally ready to again choose pragmatism over partisanship. Last weekend Mr. McCarthy sought and received the support of hundreds of Democrats to pass a continuing resolution to fund the federal government, a measure that pushed a potential government shutdown 45 days down the road.It’s hard to get excited about a victory in a fight that never needed to happen, especially at the last possible moment. But the saga reflects the reality of D.C. today: Bipartisan compromise has become the sole path to governing in the United States in 2023.Democrats have the White House and a one-seat majority in the Senate, while Republicans control the House of Representatives and appointed a supermajority of conservatives on the Supreme Court. President Biden’s executive authority extends only as far as the courts have allowed, while the only path through the Senate is with enough bipartisan support to skirt the shoals of a filibuster. The government, like the nation, is divided.But political polarization is not the excuse for inaction that so many grandstanding politicos too often take it to be. With a divided Congress, the only way to get any legislation passed is with some support from the center of both parties. A Congress that operated in a more bipartisan manner could move the country beyond its impasses over issues like immigration or the sustainability of the social safety net. A more confident center-right party that doesn’t genuflect to Donald Trump would have an easier time achieving those ambitious acts of self-governance.While that’s a tall order, it is not impossible: Just look at the past few days.Mr. McCarthy did the right thing on Saturday, outmaneuvering the radicals in his own party, led by Representative Matt Gaetz, to keep the federal government open. The next speaker needs to deprive Mr. Gaetz and his ilk of the weapon they’ve been using to force the House leadership into compliance with their demands. Congress represents more than 330 million Americans; Mr. Gaetz and his allies should not be given a heckler’s veto over the business of government.It was a conscious choice by the ousted speaker of the House to give them one. In the face of intransigence from his right flank, the next speaker should drop the anachronistic practice that demands Republicans bring up only legislation backed by a majority of their members. The so-called Hastert rule, named for Dennis Hastert, the disgraced former speaker, appears nowhere in the Constitution and can be used to prevent the House from moving forward with bipartisan legislation.A new speaker should also commit to plain dealing with Democratic colleagues and may need them to prevent another putsch. Mr. McCarthy lost faith among Democrats by failing to keep his word and honor a deal over spending caps that he negotiated with the White House in May. The next speaker might consider that a good starting point for negotiations.Once a new speaker is chosen, the House will have less than 45 days to avert yet another standoff over a shutdown, and members of good will in both parties will again need to show that they are willing and able to compromise; the Democrats could permit more spending on border security, and Republicans should continue the vital flow of aid to Ukraine, among other issues.The House Democratic leader, Hakeem Jeffries, said Tuesday that his caucus would “remain willing to find common ground on an enlightened path forward,” one that did not leave the public’s business at the mercy of a few extremists. Whichever leader Republicans now choose should agree to a similar path.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      Matt Gaetz Is Polarizing, in Both Congress and His Florida District

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      In an overwhelmingly Republican district, Mr. Gaetz is admired for shaking up the House, but he also has plenty of critics.He is polarizing in Washington and polarizing at home. And in both places these days, he is getting more attention than anyone might expect, given his lack of seniority and thin legislative record.As Representative Matt Gaetz of Florida orchestrated the ouster of Speaker Kevin McCarthy on Tuesday, constituents in his overwhelmingly Republican district had plenty of thoughts about their congressman’s actions and suddenly robust national profile.“If we got rid of the speaker of the House, hopefully we get someone in there who doesn’t make backdoor deals with Democrats,” said Sandra Atkinson, the chairwoman of the Republican Party of Okaloosa County, adding that Republicans were proud of him for following through on his word.Critics in his district saw a political moment that was about ego and ambition and little more.“He is following through on using chaos as both a performative art — that phrase is overused but it’s true — and because he’s frustrated he’s not getting his own way,” said Phil Ehr, a Democrat who ran against Mr. Gaetz in 2018 and is now running for the U.S. Senate. “In some ways, he’s acting like a petulant child.”Yet for all of his time spent picking fights — and, his critics say, little time crafting legislation — Mr. Gaetz remains broadly popular in his district, a stretch of the western Florida Panhandle, where he won re-election last year by nearly 36 percentage points. His skirmishes in Washington, and a federal investigation that revealed embarrassing details about this private life, have done little to bruise him.Palafox Pier in Pensacola, Fla., on Tuesday. Mr. Gaetz remains broadly popular in his district, a stretch of the western Florida Panhandle where he won re-election last year.Elijah Baylis for The New York Times“There’s a lot of people who like Matt Gaetz,” said Joel Terry May, 67, a local artist, as he showed off a painting in downtown Pensacola to visitors from New Orleans. “He speaks for the people, and he speaks out.”Mr. May, who grew up in Alabama, remembers a time when former Gov. George C. Wallace visited his school back in the 1960s.“People didn’t like George Wallace nationally, but the people who elected him and represented him did,” he said. “That’s what Gaetz also understands. When you represent somebody, you want them to maintain the feel of the people. People want to see Washington work. They want their representatives to have a pulse on the area.”Mr. Gaetz is widely disliked by his peers in Congress but is grudgingly acknowledged to be smart and crafty, and certainly a master of drawing attention to himself. Mr. Gaetz was re-elected last year while under the cloud of an investigation in a federal sex-trafficking case that ultimately resulted in no criminal charges against him. (A congressional ethics review is pending.) Twice, women have been arrested after throwing their drinks at him.Now, his support for a far-right posture that could shut down the federal government — directly affecting many of the people he represents — is unlikely to dent him, his critics acknowledged.“He is loved by the First Congressional District,” said Mark Lombardo, who unsuccessfully challenged Mr. Gaetz in last year’s Republican primary.Mark Lombardo, who unsuccessfully challenged Mr. Gaetz in last year’s Republican primary. campaigning in Pace, Fla., last year. Gregg Pachkowski/Pensacola News Journal/ USA TODAYMr. Lombardo attributed his loss, among other things, to Mr. Gaetz’s family ties — his father, Don Gaetz, is a wealthy and well-known former president of the Florida Senate who on Monday filed to run for the Senate again after stepping down in 2016 — and his devotion to former President Donald J. Trump. Mr. Gaetz is one of Mr. Trump’s closest allies in Congress and has backed him for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination over Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida.“He was Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump,” Mr. Lombardo said of the congressman, “and the First District is all about Trump.”No other congressional district in the country has as many military veterans, a group that could have been badly hurt by a shutdown. Yet even his critics concede that Mr. Gaetz remains popular among them.Barry Goodson, 70, a registered Democrat and retired Army veteran who once helped organize people against a plan backed by Mr. Gaetz to privatize some of Northwest Florida’s sandy-white beaches, said he worries his health care providers at the Department of Veterans Affairs would suffer under a shutdown.“I still can’t understand why Gaetz hates negotiating rather than working out something for the people in the district,” he said.“A chaos agent is not good for public policy,” said Samantha Herring, a Democratic national committeewoman in Walton County. “It’s not good for getting highway funds, education and veterans affairs.”And Mr. McCarthy’s ouster left even some fans of Mr. Gaetz with questions about exactly what had been accomplished.“That just makes me support him even more,” said Tim Hudson, 26, a lifelong Pensacola resident, upon learning on Tuesday about the congressman’s successful ouster of Mr. McCarthy.Elijah Baylis for The New York TimesJohn Roberts, chairman of the Escambia County Republican Party, said that Republicans, even those typically sympathetic to Mr. Gaetz’s views on other policies like immigration and the national debt, generally supported keeping Mr. McCarthy as speaker.“It’s not like we’re mad at Matt Gaetz; he’s still a good congressman,” he said. “But I think this was probably the wrong move.”But as the House smoldered and shook, other backers of Mr. Gaetz said they were all in.Tim Hudson, 26, a lifelong Pensacola resident, has voted for Mr. Gaetz. Upon learning on Tuesday about the congressman’s successful ouster of Mr. McCarthy, Mr. Hudson offered only more praise.“That just makes me support him even more,” Mr. Hudson said.He added that the ouster of Mr. McCarthy “speaks to how the world really is right now. We’re tired. We’re fed up. We want to see people start getting things done.”Susan C. Beachy More

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      Five key takeaways from McCarthy’s historic ouster as US House speaker

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      The US House of Representatives voted to remove Kevin McCarthy from the speaker’s chair on Tuesday, making McCarthy the first speaker of the House in US history to be removed from the job.McCarthy, who had only been in the post for nine months, set the wheels in motion for his removal last weekend when he collaborated with Democrats in an effort to fund the government and avoid a shutdown. That move prompted the hard-right congressman Matt Gaetz of Florida to introduce a motion on Monday night to oust him.Despite efforts from McCarthy and his allies to put a stop to Gaetz’s proposal, their motion failed in a vote by 208 to 218. A final vote was held on Tuesday afternoon and saw eight hard-right Republicans joining 208 Democrats to remove McCarthy from his post. The final vote was 216 to 210, in favor of McCarthy getting the boot.Here are five takeaways from the tumultuous event:The House has a new – temporary – speaker: Patrick McHenryAs we’ve noted above, this is the first time in history that a speaker has been removed so the House has entered uncharted territory.According to House rules, McCarthy would have been required to draft a list of names for the clerk of fellow members, in the event of his vacancy. According to Rule I, clause 8, whomever McCarthy put next on that list “shall act as Speaker pro tempore until the election of a Speaker or a Speaker pro tempore”.That person was the North Carolina Republican Patrick McHenry, who has now taken over as House speaker pro tempore, or “for the time being.” McHenry is the chair of the financial services committee, and voted against removing McCarthy.Given McCarthy’s chaotic 15-ballot election in January, it seems all but certain that another multiple ballot election will ensue.This may open the door for Steve ScaliseRepresentative Steve Scalise of Louisiana, currently the No 2 House Republican, has been mentioned as McCarthy’s potential successor. Gaetz notably called out the longtime rival of McCarthy on Monday in a chat with reporters.“I am not going to pass over Steve Scalise just because he has blood cancer,” Gaetz said.Scalise, who is currently undergoing chemotherapy treatment for blood cancer, announced his diagnosis in August, calling the illness “very treatable” and noting that it had been detected early.We’ll likely continue to see a galvanized GaetzGaetz, who had been critical of McCarthy long before the latter took the speakership, lambasted the disgraced politician shortly after his ousting as “a creature of the swamp”.“He has risen to power by collecting special interest money and redistributing that money in exchange for favors,” Gaetz said on Tuesday during an interview on CNN. “We are breaking the fever and we should elect a speaker who is better.”Gaetz doubled down on his vote of confidence for Scalise, telling the network in response to a question of whether he would now nominate Scalise: “I think the world of Steve Scalise. I think he would make a phenomenal speaker.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionGiven that Gaetz used the vote to boot McCarthy as a means to fundraise for himself, he is expected to make more trouble for the House in the coming weeks.The GOP is now in full-fledged ‘chaos’No one likes to live in unprecedented times, but – yet again – here we are. Eight Republicans voting in favor of removing McCarthy illuminates the burgeoning fissures amid the GOP. Those eight included representatives Andy Biggs of Arizona, Ken Buck of Colorado, Tim Burchett of Tennessee, Eli Crane of Arizona, Bob Good of Virginia, Nancy Mace of South Carolina, Matt Rosendale of Montana, and Gaetz.The former Republican vice-president Mike Pence, speaking at an event at Georgetown University in Washington, DC, said: “Chaos is never America’s strength and it’s never a friend of American families that are struggling. I’m deeply disappointed that a handful of Republicans have partnered with Democrats to oust Kevin McCarthy as speaker of the House.”House Rules committee chairman Tom Cole told CNN things are now unclear.“Nobody knows what’s going to happen next, including all the people that voted to vacate … they have no plan. They have no alternative at this point. So it’s just simply a vote for chaos,” Cole said.Neither side of the aisle knows what’s going to happen next with some saying it looks ‘apocalyptic’During his attempt to keep McCarthy as speaker, congressman Tom McClintock of California declared that “if this motion carries, the House will be paralyzed”.“We can expect week after week of fruitless ballots while no other business can be conducted. The Democrats will revel in Republican dysfunction and the public will rightly be repulsed,” McClintock said.He went on to predict that Democrats would then “enlist a rump caucus of Republicans to join a coalition to end the impasse. This House will shift dramatically to the left and will effectively end the Republican House majority that the voters elected in 2022. And this, in turn, will neutralize the only counterweight in our elected government to the woke left control of the Senate and the White House at a time when their … policies are destroying our economy and have opened our borders to invasion.”Lest he hold back at all, McClintock continued ominously: “There are turning points in history whose significance is only realized by the events that they unleash. This is one of those times. We are at the precipice. There are only minutes left to come to our senses and realize the grave danger our country is in at this moment. Dear God, grant us the wisdom to see it and to save our country from it.” More

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      Who is Matt Gaetz, the congressman who led the ouster of Kevin McCarthy?

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      All it took was a single-page resolution for the congressman Matt Gaetz, a hard-right Republican from Florida, to set in motion a move unprecedented in Congressional history: the ousting of a House speaker.On Tuesday, a handful of conservative rebels joined Gaetz in voting to depose Kevin McCarthy, the Republican speaker. By a vote of 216-210, the effort succeeded, plunging the Republican-controlled House once again into chaos and cementing Gaetz’s position as one of Capitol Hill’s chief antagonists.It has also brought renewed media attention to a controversial politician who thrives on it.“Florida Man. Built for Battle,” reads Gaetz’s bio on X, formerly Twitter.Gaetz followed his father into politics more than two decades ago. After serving in the Florida statehouse, Gaetz was elected in 2016 to represent a ruby-red chunk of the Florida panhandle.Since his arrival in Washington, the pompadoured lawmaker has built a political brand as a far-right provocateur, courting controversy seemingly as a matter of course.Like Donald Trump, to whom he is fiercely loyal, Gaetz is more interested in sparring with political foes than in the dry business of governance, according to his critics. On Capitol Hill, he has repeatedly disrupted House proceedings, including once barging into a secure facility where Democrats were holding a deposition hearing.In 2018, he was condemned for inviting a Holocaust denier to Trump’s State of the Union address. A year later, he hired a speechwriter who had left the Trump administration after speaking at a conference that regularly attracts white nationalists.Months after the January 6 attack on the Capitol, Gaetz embarked on an “America First” tour with Marjorie Taylor Greene, the far-right Georgia congresswoman, in which they amplified the former president’s false claims of fraud in the 2020 election. He also continued to attack Republicans critical of Trump, using language that reportedly alarmed McCarthy, who feared the lawmakers’ words could incite violence.Earlier this year, Gaetz led the bid to block McCarthy from becoming speaker, relenting on the 15th round of balloting after McCarthy consented to concessions. Among promises McCarthy made to hard-right lawmakers was to allow any member to bring a motion to remove the speaker from the leadership position.Gaetz and other far-right members threatened to deploy the tactic if McCarthy relied on Democratic votes to pass any spending legislation, as he did over the weekend to narrowly avert a government shutdown. On Monday, Gaetz filed the motion that resulted in McCarthy’s removal.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionGaetz has argued that he is acting in the interest of the American people and Republican voters who want McCarthy to stand up to the president, even if that means risking a debt default or a government shutdown.McCarthy has charged that Gaetz was motivated by vengeance after McCarthy declined to interfere in a congressional investigation into Gaetz’s conduct. Over the past two years, the House ethics committee has been leading an inquiry into allegations of sexual misconduct, including sex trafficking and sex with a minor, illicit drug use and misuse of campaign funds, among others.In February, the justice department declined to bring charges against Gaetz. Gaetz maintained his innocence throughout.“I am the most investigated man in the United States Congress,” Gaetz told reporters on Monday, insinuating that the inquiry was an effort to smear him. “It seems that the ethics committee’s interest in me waxes and wanes based on my relationship with the speaker.”In recent months, speculation has swirled that Gaetz has his sights set on higher office. About his future political ambitions, the Florida congressman was dismissive of both the suggestion he planned to run for governor or the US Senate. “If I want to go to a retirement community,” the 41-year-old told reporters, “I’m going to The Villages, not the United States Senate.” More

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      What is a ‘motion to vacate’, the procedure that ousted Kevin McCarthy?

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      The Republican US House speaker, Kevin McCarthy, has been removed from office after a move by members of his own party to oust him because he passed a stopgap funding measure with Democratic support to avoid a government shutdown.The end of his speakership came on Tuesday after representative Matt Gaetz, a hardline Republican lawmaker, filed what is called the “motion to vacate”.Here’s a quick look at what a motion to vacate is and how it works.What is a motion to vacate?The motion to vacate is the House’s procedure to remove its speaker. The chamber’s current rules allow any one member, Democrat or Republican, to introduce the motion. If it is introduced as a “privileged” resolution, the House must consider it at some point, although it could be delayed with procedural votes.It only needs a simple majority to pass. The motion to vacate passed with 216 to 210 votes.How can one member do this?McCarthy endured a brutal 15 rounds of voting in January before being elected as speaker, during which he agreed to multiple concessions increasing the power of Republican hardliners.One was the decision to allow just one member to put forward a motion to vacate, which meant that hardliners could threaten McCarthy’s speakership at any time.This was a change from the rules in place under his Democratic predecessor, Nancy Pelosi, when a majority of one party needed to support a motion to vacate to bring it to the floor.Who was behind the push to oust McCarthy?The Republican representative Gaetz, a firebrand from Florida and perpetual thorn in McCarthy’s side, had repeatedly threatened to file a motion to vacate. The speaker has been unfazed. In a 14 September closed-door meeting of House Republicans, McCarthy dared Gaetz to bring a motion to the floor.Has the motion to vacate been used before?The motion was first used in 1910, when the Republican speaker Joseph Cannon put forward the motion himself to force detractors in his own party to decide whether they supported him or not, according to the House Archives. The motion failed.In 1997 the Republican speaker Newt Gingrich was threatened with a motion to vacate. Although he managed to tamp down resistance and avoid an actual resolution being filed, he resigned in 1998 after disappointing results in the midterm elections that year.In 2015 Republican the representative Mark Meadows filed a motion to vacate against the Republican speaker John Boehner. It did not come to a vote, but Boehner resigned a few months later, citing the challenges of managing a burgeoning hardline conservative faction of his party.McCarthy has become the first House speaker in US history to have been removed from office. More

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      House speaker contender Steve Scalise reportedly said he was ‘David Duke without the baggage’

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      Steve Scalise, the Louisiana Republican who some in his party reportedly want to elect as speaker of the US House of Representatives after the stunning and historic removal of Kevin McCarthy, was once reported to have called himself “David Duke without the baggage”.Duke, 73, is a former Grand Wizard of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, an avowed white supremacist who has run for Louisiana governor, the US House and Senate and for president and who in 2003 was sentenced to 15 months in jail for mail and tax fraud.Scalise, now 57, was elected to Congress in 2008. He became Republican House whip in 2014 and was elected majority leader in 2022, as a hardline conservative acceptable to the far right of his party, which has now successfully rebelled against McCarthy.Ahead of McCarthy’s removal, Scalise implored his fellow Republicans “to keep doing this work that we were sent to do” rather than focus on ejecting the speaker.“This isn’t the time to slow that process down,” said Scalise, denying interest in the speakership.Immediately after the vote to remove McCarthy, however, the ringleader of the motion to vacate, Matt Gaetz of Florida, used his first remarks to say Scalise would be “a phenomenal speaker”. He also said Tom Emmer of Minnesota or Tom Cole of Oklahoma might be good choices.The speakership may offer Scalise a tempting prize: if he is elevated into the role, he will become the highest-ranking member of Congress ever to come from Louisiana.His fellow Louisianan, Duke, last made national headlines when he supported Donald Trump for president in 2016 – support Trump was slow to disavow.Two years before that, Scalise ran into controversy, and his remark about Duke surfaced, after a blogger revealed Scalise’s attendance at a white supremacist conference organised by Duke in 2002.Scalise, whose district includes a large suburban area of New Orleans, said he had been seeking “support for legislation that focused on cutting wasteful state spending, eliminating government corruption and stopping tax hikes”, but “wholeheartedly condemn[ed]” the views of the group concerned.He also said attending the conference “was a mistake I regret”, as he “emphatically oppose[d] the divisive racial and religious views that groups like these hold”.Citing his Catholicism, Scalise said “these groups hold views that are vehemently opposed to my own personal faith, and I reject that kind of hateful bigotry. Those who know me best know I have always been passionate about helping, serving and fighting for every family that I represent. And I will continue to do so.”Duke, however, told the Washington Post: “Scalise would communicate a lot with my campaign manager, Kenny Knight. That is why he was invited and why he would come. Kenny knew Scalise, Scalise knew Kenny. They were friendly.”That wasn’t the end of it. The controversy deepened when Stephanie Grace, a Louisiana politics reporter and columnist, told the New York Times that at the start of Scalise’s legislative career, while “explaining his politics”, he told her “he was like David Duke without the baggage”.Grace said she thought Scalise had “meant he supported the same policy ideas as David Duke, but he wasn’t David Duke, that he didn’t have the same feelings about certain people as David Duke did”.Scalise did not comment on Grace’s remarks. But Chuck Kleckley, the Republican speaker of the Louisiana state house at the time, told the paper comparisons between Scalise and the Klan leader were “not fair to Steve at all”.Nonetheless, the Duke controversy has followed Scalise throughout a career in Republican leadership which has seen him survive being seriously wounded in a mass shooting at congressional baseball practice, in 2017; become one of five Louisiana Congress members to vote against certifying some election results hours after the deadly Capitol attack of 6 January 2021; become majority leader in 2022; and, in August this year, announce a cancer diagnosis.The 2017 shooting was an assassination attempt. The gunman, a leftist extremist who was killed by law enforcement, legally bought the rifle used to shoot Scalise and three others despite a history of run-ins with police.Despite that, through legislation he has sponsored and co-sponsored, Scalise has staunchly advocated to keep guns as accessible to the public as possible, citing the right to bear arms enshrined in the US constitution’s second amendment.In the aftermath of his own shooting, Scalise told reporters: “I was a strong supporter of the second amendment before the shooting and, frankly, as ardent as ever after the shooting in part because I was saved by people who had guns.”Last month, discussing his recent diagnosis of multiple myeloma, Scalise said aggressive treatment meant his outlook was improving.Should Scalise eventually secure the speaker’s gavel, he will surpass the New Orleans Democrat Hale Boggs as the most powerful member of Congress ever to come from the state. Boggs was House majority leader before his plane disappeared over Alaska in 1972. More

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      Kevin McCarthy ousted as US House speaker by hard-right Republicans

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      After leading a successful effort to avoid a government shutdown over the weekend, Kevin McCarthy has been removed from his role as US House speaker, ousted by hard-right members of his Republican party less than a year after his election.The ouster of McCarthy represents the first time in US history that a speaker of the House has been removed from office, marking an ignominious end to a short and fraught tenure.The vote to oust McCarthy followed a motion to vacate the chair from the Florida Republican congressman Matt Gaetz. After McCarthy’s Republican allies failed to block the motion from moving forward, a final vote was held on Tuesday afternoon. Eight hard-right Republicans joined 208 Democrats in supporting McCarthy’s removal, as 210 Republicans tried and failed to keep the speaker in place. McCarthy needed a simple majority of voting members to keep his gavel but failed to cross that threshold.“The resolution is adopted,” congressman Steve Womack, the Arkansas Republican who presided over the session, announced after the vote. “The office of speaker of the House of the United States House of Representatives is hereby declared vacant.”Following the declaration, congressman Patrick McHenry, a North Carolina Republican, was designated by McCarthy as the acting speaker until a new House leader is elected. Upon taking the gavel, McHenry quickly called for a recess.“In the opinion of the chair, prior to proceeding to the election of a speaker, it will be prudent to first recess for the relative caucus and conferences to meet and discuss the path forward,” McHenry said.McCarthy’s removal capped a tumultuous nine months in the House, defined by clashes between the speaker and the hard-right flank of his conference. Despite his repeated efforts to appease them, his willingness to collaborate with Democrats to prevent economic chaos sealed his fate. With the narrowest of majorities in the House, Republicans now face the unenviable task of electing a leader who can win nearly unanimous support across a deeply divided conference.Gaetz sought McCarthy’s removal after the speaker worked with House Democrats to pass a stopgap spending bill, known as a continuing resolution, to extend government funding through 17 November. Gaetz also accused McCarthy of cutting a “secret side deal” with Joe Biden on providing additional funding to Ukraine, which has become a source of outrage on the right. McCarthy denied the existence of any secret deal.The House and the US Senate passed the stopgap bill with overwhelming bipartisan majorities, averting a shutdown that could have left hundreds of thousands of federal workers without pay for an extended period.Tuesday’s vote was the first to remove a House speaker in more than 100 years and the first successful such vote in American history. Other recent House speakers, including former Republican leader John Boehner, had previously been threatened with a motion to vacate but never had to endure a full effort to remove them.The referendum starkly illustrated McCarthy’s tenuous grasp on the gavel since needing 15 rounds of voting to secure the House speakership in January.McCarthy has never won the support of many Republicans to his right. Additionally, many of his fellow Republicans felt McCarthy did not secure their side sufficient concessions in the deal that averted the shutdown.“The speaker fought through 15 votes in January to become speaker, but was only willing to fight through one failed [continuing resolution] before surrendering to the Democrats on Saturday,” Bob Good, a Republican congressman from Virginia, said in a floor speech on Tuesday. “We need a speaker who will fight for something, anything besides just staying or becoming speaker.”Before McCarthy learned his fate Tuesday, the House Democratic leader, Hakeem Jeffries, indicated his caucus would not help McCarthy save his job. In the end, every present House Democrat voted in favor of ousting McCarthy.“House Democrats remain willing to find common ground on an enlightened path forward. Unfortunately, our extreme Republican colleagues have shown no willingness to do the same,” Jeffries said in a “Dear Colleague” letter sent Tuesday. “Given their unwillingness to break from [Make America Great Again] extremism in an authentic and comprehensive manner, House Democratic leadership will vote yes on the pending Republican Motion to Vacate the Chair.”With the speaker removed, all work in the House will grind to a halt until a new leader is elected. More

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      Kevin McCarthy faces House vote on motion to remove him as speaker

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      The House will hold a vote on Tuesday afternoon on removing Kevin McCarthy from the speaker’s chair, with hard-right members prepared to oust the Republican leader just nine months after he was elected.Congressman Matt Gaetz introduced a motion to vacate on Monday night, as the hard-right lawmaker from Florida continued to rail against McCarthy for collaborating with Democrats to avoid a government shutdown over the weekend.McCarthy and his allies had tried to quash Gaetz’s rebellion by introducing a procedural motion to table, or kill, the proposal earlier on Tuesday. That motion failed in a vote of 208 to 218, teeing up the final vote on removing McCarthy. Eleven House Republicans voted against the motion to table.The House math is difficult for McCarthy. With such a narrow majority, McCarthy can only afford to lose four Republican votes and keep his gavel, assuming every House Democrat votes against the speaker. When the House held the vote on the motion to table on Tuesday, five Democrats and two Republicans were recorded as absent. But with 207 Democrats voting in unison against the motion to table, Gaetz had more than enough votes to advance his motion to vacate.House Democratic leaders revealed shortly before the procedural vote on Tuesday that they were urging caucus members to vote “yes” on the motion to vacate the chair. After meeting with members on Tuesday morning, the House Democratic leader, Hakeem Jeffries, said his caucus was “unified in our commitment to put people over politics”.“House Democrats remain willing to find common ground on an enlightened path forward. Unfortunately, our extreme Republican colleagues have shown no willingness to do the same,” Jeffries said in a “Dear Colleague” letter. “Given their unwillingness to break from [Make America Great Again] extremism in an authentic and comprehensive manner, House Democratic leadership will vote yes on the pending Republican Motion to Vacate the Chair.”Speaking to reporters after a meeting with his conference on Tuesday morning, McCarthy appeared somewhat resigned to his fate, even as he said he was “confident” he could hang on.“If five Republicans go with Democrats, then I’m out,” McCarthy acknowledged.A reporter said: “That looks likely.”McCarthy replied: “Probably so.”If the motion to vacate is successful, McCarthy will have an opportunity to choose a temporary speaker until an election is held. In January, the House required 15 rounds of voting to elect McCarthy as speaker, and a second election could prove even more prolonged and contentious.Even as he stared down the potential end of his speakership, McCarthy expressed no regret about working with Democrats to keep the government open. The stopgap bill passed by the House on Saturday will keep the government funded through 17 November, averting a shutdown that could have forced hundreds of thousands of federal employees to go without pay.“At the end of the day, keeping the government open and paying our troops was the right decision. I stand by that decision,” McCarthy said. “If I have to lose my job over it, so be it, but I’m going to fight for the American public, and I’ll continue to fight.”Although it appears Gaetz has the votes to remove McCarthy, some other hard-right Republicans who opposed McCarthy when he ran for the speakership in January were more cautious about ousting him.Congressman Ralph Norman, a hard-right Republican of South Carolina who initially opposed McCarthy’s speakership bid, urged his colleagues to focus their attention on passing full-year funding bills.“I have been profoundly disappointed in several elements of Speaker McCarthy’s leadership, but now is not the time to pursue a Motion to Vacate,” Norman said on X. “Instead, Congress desperately needs to devote its full attention to passing these appropriations bills within the next 43 days.”But another 10 or so hard-right lawmakers lined up in support of the motion to vacate, likely sealing McCarthy’s fate. Despite the grim state of affairs, McCarthy’s allies took to the House floor to defend his reputation.“The overwhelming majority of my party supports the speaker that we elected. We’re proud of the leadership he’s shown,” said congressman Tom Cole, a Republican of Oklahoma. “There’s a second group – a small group. Honestly, they’re willing to plunge this body into chaos and this country into uncertainty for reasons that only they really understand. I certainly don’t.”Stepping up to the mic, Gaetz rejected Cole’s argument, instead insisting that the current state of the House represented an unacceptable status quo.“My friend from Oklahoma says that my colleagues and I who don’t support Kevin McCarthy would plunge the House and the country into chaos,” Gaetz said. “Chaos is speaker McCarthy. Chaos is somebody who we cannot trust with their word.” More