Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., on Monday scrambled to line up enough Republican votes to win election as speaker of the House as a handful of right-wing holdouts continued to warn they will not support him.
With a narrow majority of just 222 seats, McCarthy cannot afford to lose the support of more than four GOP lawmakers to win the speaker’s gavel when the new Congress convenes on Tuesday.
The Republican leader has already proposed several key policy and procedural concessions in hopes of winning over members of the Freedom Caucus, most of whom are staunch supporters of former President Donald Trump.
But so far, he has been unable to secure a breakthrough to win the position as leader of the House Republican majority, even though there is no other serious Republican candidate for the post.
The House must elect a speaker before it can start any business starting Tuesday. If McCarthy fails to win a majority of all lawmakers who show up for the vote, more votes would take place until either he or someone else wins.
McCarthy, who is on the brink of achieving his longtime political dream of being speaker, is facing no serious challengers within the Republican caucus.
But at least five hard-line conservatives, including Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida, have categorically ruled out supporting him.
It’s unclear if they could be convinced to simply not vote, a move that might allow McCarthy to squeak through.
Even if he winds up winning, the drama does not bode well for McCarthy’s ability to stay in the top spot for long. Previous GOP speakers like Rep. John Boehner of Ohio and Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin were effectively hounded out of the job by the party's far right.
Some of the Freedom Caucus members say McCarthy is simply too moderate to win their backing.
Others are demanding that he commit to giving their members influential posts on powerful committees or agree to launch specific investigations into supposed wrongdoing by President Joe Biden or others.
McCarthy, who has Trump’s support for now, made a major new concession on Sunday when he agreed to consider allowing a change in the party rules that would permit a group of as few as five GOP lawmakers to trigger a vote that could topple the speaker.
Critics say that would effectively allow any group of representatives to hold the party hostage and prevent it from making difficult decisions or any compromises with Democrats.
In any case, McCarthy’s opponents have so far not said they would agree to the five-vote deal.
Some Republican moderates are seeking to put pressure of their own on the Freedom Caucus by raising the unlikely possibility that they could forge a deal with Democrats if McCarthy’s bid fails.
Although the intraparty wrangling mostly involves longtime lawmakers from solid Republican districts, newly elected Rep. Mike Lawler of New York has stepped up as a key moderate backer of McCarthy.
Lawler, who defeated Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney in one of the key upsets of the midterm elections, confronted Gaetz about his refusal to back McCarthy at a Sunday afternoon GOP gripe session.
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