Republican Representative Matt Gaetz of Florida filed a motion Monday evening to vacate House Speaker Kevin McCarthy from his leadership post, ushering in an intraparty fight over the speaker’s tenure ten months after McCarthy’s initial 15-ballot fight for the speaker’s gavel back in January.
“Bring it on,” McCarthy wrote in a social-media post Monday evening in reaction to the news.
Gaetz’s ouster resolution comes days after McCarthy pushed a stopgap spending bill to keep the government running that didn’t include hard-line demands to cut spending and address the country’s mounting debt, among other conservative demands.
But toppling the speaker from his leadership post won’t be easy. McCarthy boasts support from the vast majority of his conference, and only a handful of House Republicans — including Representatives Bob Good of Virginia, Eli Crane of Arizona, and Andy Biggs of Arizona — are publicly supportive of the effort. That means for Gaetz’s ouster effort to pass the House by a simple majority, the Florida Republican will likely need support from House Democrats.
Even some “yes”-leaning votes are skeptical that will pan out. GOP representative Tim Burchett told reporters Monday evening that he is leaning toward voting for McCarthy’s ouster, citing concerns that the speaker has not done enough in his capacity as House GOP leader to curtail federal spending and address the country’s mounting debt. But Burchett said he is doubtful the effort will go anywhere, adding that the resolution will likely die on the floor.
House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries has not yet signaled how he will whip his members. Democrats could offer to support McCarthy’s speakership bid in exchange for concessions in the form of legislative agreements or back-room committee-assignment deals. But it’s far from evident that there is enough support from Democrats to bail out the leader, who just last month opened an impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden over his son’s foreign business dealings. It’s also possible that the vast majority of Democrats will skip the vote en masse or simply vote “present.”
Gaetz is optimistic that support for his effort to push out McCarthy will grow over time, even if it requires multiple rounds of voting.
“Without me soliciting a response, a number of Democrats have told me that they’re gonna do whatever Hakeem Jeffries says,” Gaetz told a large crowd of reporters outside the Capitol on Monday evening after filing his motion. “If Hakeem Jeffries wants to adopt Kevin McCarthy, then he can adopt him, but then at least he won’t belong to me.”
In the meantime McCarthy’s allies are rushing to the speaker’s defense.
“I hear more members talking about McCarthy’s strengths this week than about his weaknesses,” GOP representative Dusty Johnson told National Review in an interview. “There’s a real rally-around-the-leader situation happening. Gaetz has made a big mistake.”
For now, Democrats are keeping their powder dry, no doubt enjoying the chaos on the right side of the aisle amid a presidential election cycle.
“I have not seen any appetite by Democrats to want to save McCarthy as our speaker here,” a smiling Democratic representative Ilhan Omar told National Review on the steps of the Capitol Monday evening.