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Ousted U.S. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy.
McCarthy is ousted as House speaker. What comes next?
In a historic first, the most powerful Republican has been ousted.
After just nine months on the job, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy was booted on Tuesday when Democrats joined eight Republicans in backing a vote calling for his ouster. Crucially, the vote was brought by the right flank of McCarthy’s party.
How’d we get here? A handful of anti-establishment, far-right Republicans have opposed McCarthy’s speakership from the get-go, but the immediate trigger was the speaker’s decision to work with Democrats over the weekend to pass a temporary spending bill to avoid a government shutdown. Though that stopgap measure, which will expire on Nov. 17, did not include more aid for Ukraine, McCarthy did agree to introduce a separate measure to dole out more funds to Kyiv, infuriating far-right members of his caucus.
The House is now in uncharted territory. The bruised and battered McCarthy, who appeared to relish the job he fought tooth and nail for back in January, said late Tuesday that he would not put his hat back in the ring, and it's unclear who might replace him. Going forward, the tear-it-all-down wing of the party, though small, likely won’t be inclined to back any lawmaker they consider to be part of the GOP establishment they despise, and so it’s unclear who – if anyone – will be able to reap the 218 votes needed to become speaker.
The repercussions are huge. As Congress controls the purse strings, the House and Senate must pass appropriation bills to fund the federal government before the current measure lapses in mid-November. Failure to do so could cause major losses for the US economy (more on that here).
Given the unprecedented nature of the situation, it’s unclear how long it’ll take to vote on a new speaker and whether the temporary speaker, Rep. Patrick McHenry of North Carolina, a McCarthy ally, will bring bills to the floor for a vote.
While this chaos dims the chances of the House passing a spending bill before the mid-November deadline, it also makes the future of US aid to Ukraine increasingly murky. That’s because the right flank of the GOP vehemently opposes ongoing aid to Ukraine, and a new speaker might not want to push the matter given how it panned out for McCarthy.
Despite the fact that a majority of US lawmakers support ongoing aid for Ukraine, it’s the speaker of the House who decides which bills come to the floor for a vote.
A sign of the depths of disarray? When CNN’s Jake Tapper asked a GOP lawmaker on Tuesday evening whether he anticipates a new speaker will be tapped soon, he replied: “I have no earthly idea, brother.”
Jon Lieber, head of Eurasia Group's coverage of political and policy developments in DC, shares his thoughts on what’s likely to come next after McCarthy’s ouster. Tune in here.
U.S. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) speaking at a press conference
Marjorie Taylor Green’s television
Hard to say what was going on there, but Greene certainly might be on edge these days: After all, she is in danger of being snuffed out … of the Freedom Caucus.
The powerful group of ultra-conservative populist GOP lawmakers has reportedly reached a “consensus” against Greene, who has clashed colorfully with other Caucus members (she called Lauren Boebert a “little b*tch” in a dustup about a proposal to impeach Joe Biden). Beyond that intramural bad blood, Greene is close to House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, whom the Caucus distrusts as an establishment shill and has frequently refused to vote with.
If she’s booted from the Caucus, it could exacerbate already-high tensions between the Caucus and the GOP leadership – a big issue as McCarthy tries desperately to maintain party unity with just a slim 10-vote majority in the House.
Will a GOP House speaker be able to control an unruly caucus?
The US Senate race could go either way, but most pundits and polls point to the House of Representatives turning red after Tuesday’s midterm elections.
Republicans need a net gain of just five seats to flip that chamber, and they are on track to do just that, and then some. Indeed, most polls suggest a double-digit gain for the GOP – not a red wave per se but still a sizable win.
Noise: Much attention has been focused on the impending political fortunes of Rep. Kevin McCarthy, the Republican from California who is all but assured to become House speaker next year. In this role, McCarthy will be the leader of all proceedings in the lower chamber, where important business gets done, including government appropriations and impeachment proceedings.
Signal: After four years in opposition, Kevin McCarthy will be eager to take the gavel from current Speaker Nancy Pelosi. But Republicans are a divided tribe, and McCarthy will have his work cut out for him in keeping his caucus together.
This discord is in large part due to ongoing agitation from the Freedom Caucus, the most conservative bloc within the House GOP formed seven years ago in hopes of pushing the party further to the right. The bloc — currently made up of around 35 members — has already tried to alter House rules to give individual lawmakers more power.
Exactly how much power the caucus wields will depend on the size of the GOP majority, but McCarthy has already made clear that he’ll have to acquiesce to at least some of their demands. For example, while the Californian has been a proponent of aid to Ukraine, he has suggested that maintaining the current level of support may not be possible because “they just won’t do it.”
The two most recent Republican House speakers — John Boehner and Paul Ryan — were forced into early retirement due to ugly internal party politics. Will McCarthy be next?