US Congress – McCarthy elected House Speaker after 15 ballots

 Kevin Owen McCarthy, Congressman-elect from the 29th district of California has been elected in a dramatic fashion to become Speaker of the 118th Congress of the United States.

On Friday January 6, on the second anniversary of the insurrection, the United States Congress came the closest it has ever been to fisticuffs when the in-coming Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee Mike Rogers from Alabama.

Before the 14th ballot, Congressman Matt Gaetz considered the leader of the rebellious, “never-Kevin” House Republicans had apparently given his word to McCarthy that he would vote ‘present’ to lower the threshold for him to win the Speakership with less than 218 votes, which had eluded McCarthy for the previous 13 ballots.

As the roll was called alphabetically, Gaetz did not respond and waited to be the last person to be recalled. At the time, with McCarthy having garnered 215 votes would have been elected Speaker had Gaetz kept his word.

But he voted against McCarthy to the chagrin of fellow Republicans who literally surrounded him to convince him to change his vote, which he refused.

Instead, he insisted on an Adjournment vote which was carried out and concluded. But shortly before the vote closed, drama unfolded.

The House camera happened to be trained on McCarthy speaking with Gaetz. It is not certain what was said but McCarthy scrambled to the voting desk holding a red card to change his vote from ‘yay’ to ‘nay’ against adjournment.

Several other Republicans consequently changed their votes to defeat the Adjournment, paving the way for the 15th ballot.

In the final analysis, the final vote tally on the 15th ballot recorded 216 Republican votes for McCarthy, 212 Democratic votes to Hakeem Jeffries and six ‘present’ votes.

In the ensuing protocol for McCarthy to assume his Speaker role, the new Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries had to formally hand over the Speaker’s gavel to the New Leader since majority was shifting from the Democrats to the Republicans.

McCarthy opened his speech by quipping “That was easy, wasn’t it” in references to the historic 15 ballots that it took to get elected.

“Hakeem, I gotta warn you; two years ago, I received 100% of my Conference votes.” McCarthy joked in a signal to the new Minority Leader that his may have received 100% of his votes today, but when the time comes for him to be voted Speaker of the House, he might face a similar dilemma.

McCarthy spoke to his counterpart Hakeem Jeffries saying “I promise our debate will be passionate, but they will not be personal – I make that commitment to you.”

Although the Congressional session began on the second anniversary of the insurrection, McCarthy was elected when the clock had past midnight onto the 7th day of January.

DNT News, USA