By Carter Meagher

California Rep. Kevin McCarthy, 55th and current Speaker of the House. Photo credit: Jerry Carl from Wikimedia.

Early in the morning on Saturday, January 7, US Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R- CA) was voted in as the new Speaker of the US House of Representatives after Republicans narrowly gained the House majority in the midterm elections. However, it was not nearly as straightforward as many anticipated. Despite a Republican majority, the House took a historic 15 rounds of voting to establish McCarthy as speaker. 

In his acceptance speech, McCarthy addressed the potential for conflict with the Democrat-controlled US Senate and White House. “It’s time for us to be a check and provide some balance to the president’s policies,” McCarthy said.

Despite his initial promise to oppose the White House, McCarthy could still not convince the entire Republican majority to vote for him. Instead, he won the vote because six members of his own party abstained, refusing to vote for McCarthy or another candidate, lowering the threshold for a majority. 

Throughout the 15 rounds of voting, McCarthy had to make numerous concessions to far-right Republicans who refused to vote for him until he agreed to weaken the power of the speaker and put those defectors on essential committees. 

House of Representatives chamber floor during a joint meeting of the House and the Senate. Photo credit: NATO North Atlantic Treaty Organization on flickr.

Columnists like Jennifer Rubin of The Washington Post find these committee assignments worrying. In an opinion piece, Rubin warns about “MAGA crazies on committees.” She references Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R – GA) and Paul Gosar (R – AZ), who have now been reinstated to committees after having been removed by Democrats for aggressive and violent social media posts. McCarthy also appointed Rep. George Santos (R – NY) to two committees, even as Santos faces backlash for the many lies on his resumé. 

Despite Republican division, the Democratic Party stayed uncharacteristically unified, with each member casting a ballot for Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D – NY). Former Speaker Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D – CA) told reporters that the burden of selecting a new Speaker falls on the Republican Party. “They have to elect a leader from their ranks,” Pelosi insisted. 

According to my father, Dr. Richard Meagher, a professor of political science at Randolph-Macon College, the Democrats’ unity reflects “Democratic strength in the House in recent years.” 

“Democrats have been fairly successful in passing important legislation,” Meagher continued. “I think what we’ll see from the Republican majority is drama and theatrics. All bets are off for behavior and decorum and governance.” 

Decorum on the House floor has already taken a turn. After McCarthy failed to gain the Speaker’s gavel for the fourteenth time, many of his supporters blamed Rep. Matt Gaetz (R – FL) and his coalition of far-right extremists who wouldn’t vote for McCarthy. After Gaetz withheld his vote, once again denying McCarthy the gavel, his Republican colleague Rep. Mike Rogers (R – AL) had to be physically restrained by another congressman as he lunged toward Gaetz.

The drama didn’t stop when McCarthy finally won the Speaker’s gavel. The House voted along party lines to authorize the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government to investigate the Biden administration. 

According to John D. McKinnon of The Wall Street Journal, “Republicans in the House plan to scrutinize communications between the Biden administration and big technology and social-media companies to probe whether they amounted to the censorship of legitimate viewpoints on issues such as Covid-19 that ran counter to White House policy.” 

Republicans will reportedly focus on these investigations and cutting government spending over other pressing issues, like raising the debt ceiling. Both the White House and the Republican majority in the House of Representatives have stated that they will not consider a deal. 

Federal Reserve Board Chairwoman Janet Yellen speaks about global finance during a 2015 conference. Photo credit: International Monetary Fund on flickr.

The friction between President Joe Biden’s White House and the GOP-led House continues to stall bipartisan deals. As the US inches closer to defaulting on its debt, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen told reporters on January 13 that the Treasury Department will implement “extraordinary measures” to keep the government running if lawmakers do not come to an agreement. 

A student who pays close attention to politics, Maia Zasler (‘23) calls the proceedings “a perfect representation of American politics: chaos. It exposed an ongoing struggle for power inherent to our partisan system.” 

Despite it all, Zasler has hope for the future: “I’d like to believe voters are becoming more aware of the flaws and the short-comings in their elected officials, and will look to make more informed decisions when casting their ballots, demanding transparency, compromise, and, well, competency.”  

This kind of division, not only between the parties but also within them, has not been seen to this level since the antebellum period. Historically, there have been 14 speaker votes requiring multiple ballots, most of which occurred during the hostile period leading up to the Civil War. 

Gen. Nathaniel P. Banks statue on Waltham Common, Massachusetts. Photo credit: Kenneth C. Zirkel on Wikimedia.

The highest number of ballots was in 1856 for Congressman Nathaniel Banks of Massachusetts, with 133 ballots cast over the course of nearly two months. With Congress in turmoil over the debate on slavery, Democrats and an anti-slavery coalition, including the new Republican Party, refused to compromise. 

Although McCarthy’s speaker vote only stretched over four days, as opposed to two months, the disunity of the Republican Party and the polarization of the two chambers of Congress indicates more stalemates in the government’s future.