McCarthy struggles to get the votes

House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy (Calif.) moved farther away from locking up the Speakership on Wednesday afternoon, with a bloc of GOP critics not budging.

After six rounds of voting, the opposition to McCarthy stood at 20, with one additional Republican earlier in the day changing their vote from McCarthy to “present” and another signaling the GOP leader couldn’t count on their support much longer.

McCarthy’s allies spent hours into Tuesday evening, after three initial rounds of voting, trying to cajole support to get him to the 218-vote threshold needed to win — but movement went the other way as the House reconvened Wednesday.

“Democracy is messy by design,” McCarthy supporter Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.) said from the floor. 

Former President Trump‘s backing also wasn’t enough to shift the needle. He called on all Republicans to vote for McCarthy just hours before the chamber convened, though the block of Republicans opposed to McCarthy were undeterred.

Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) nominated Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.), who was the only Republican to flip his vote from McCarthy on Tuesday. Donalds pulled 20 Republican votes, while all 212 Democrats voted for Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.). 

Rep. Victoria Spartz (R-Ind.), who had voted for McCarthy in previous rounds and is thought to be mulling a future run for Senate, switched her vote to “present” in subsequent rounds.

At least one McCarthy backer, Rep. Ken Buck (R-Colo.), said the GOP leader should cut a deal with holdouts or consider stepping aside.

Why it matters: The House GOP finds itself in chaos that is stalling any work as they take control of the chamber after four years of Democratic leadership.

What they’re saying: The Hill’s Alexander Bolton checked in with Senate Republicans on the House drama.  

President Biden, who the White House said wouldn’t be weighing in on the Speaker vote, called the delay “embarrassing” when reporters asked him Wednesday. 

The divide over McCarthy as Speaker has also split Fox News hosts.

“House Republicans now are on the verge of becoming a total clown show if they’re not careful,” Sean Hannity said on his show Tuesday night. 

Tucker Carlson, meanwhile, called the situation “refreshing.” 

“If you prefer democracy to oligarchy, if you prefer real debate about issues that actually matter, it’s pretty refreshing to see it,” he said Tuesday night. 

This is NotedDC, looking at the politics, policy and people behind the stories in Washington. We’re The Hill’s Amée LaTour and Liz Crisp.

📨 Have a tip or something you want to share? Email us at ecrisp@digital-release.thehill.com and alatour@digital-release.thehill.com.

BRIEFLY

• The FBI has increased the reward for anyone who can provide information that leads to an arrest in the investigation of the placement of pipe bombs at both the Democratic and Republican party headquarters on Jan. 5, 2021.
  
• New York will be joining California in banning toxic “forever chemicals” from clothing, under a law signed by Gov. Kathy Hochul (D).
  
• The U.S. Postal Service can deliver prescription abortion drugs even in states that have curtailed access to abortion, according to the Justice Department.
  
  

Democrats seek to flip the ‘disarray’ narrative

Democrats are relishing the chaotic Speaker’s election as a chance to draw a contrast between themselves and Republicans by highlighting something they haven’t always been able to tout: unity.

While Tuesday was the first time in 100 years the Speaker vote entered multiple rounds, it was also the first time since 2009 that all voting House Democrats voted the same way for Speaker, as Catholic University politics professor Matthew Green pointed out. 

Incoming House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), who garnered all Democrats’ Speaker votes, told reporters Tuesday that House Democrats are “ready, willing and able to get to work on behalf of the American people, but we don’t have a partner on the other side of the aisle, because the Republican Conference has apparently been taken over by extreme MAGA Republicans.” 

House Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar (Calif.) put forth a similar message in a press conference Wednesday: “House Democrats are unified. You saw that yesterday. … The contrast between House Democrats and the chaos and confusion taking place on the other side of the aisle could not be more clear.” 

Some Democratic members punctuated the portrayal of the Speaker vote as a GOP spectacle with pictures of popcorn they planned to snack on throughout the afternoon Tuesday. 

• Just two years ago, Republicans — then in the minority — voted unanimously for Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) as Speaker (two members were absent and didn’t vote, putting McCarthy’s unanimous number at 209). Five moderate Democrats in 2021 voted against Pelosi as Speaker, with two voting for a different candidate and three voting “present.”
  
• In 2019, 15 Democrats voted against Pelosi (including three who voted “present”). That year, five Republicans voted for Rep. Jim Jordan (Ohio) over McCarthy. Reps. Scott Perry (Pa.), Andy Biggs (Ariz.) and Paul Gosar (Ariz.) supported Jordan in both 2019 and this week.

Worth noting: Rep. Abigail Spanberger (Va.) was one of the Democrats who didn’t vote for Pelosi for Speaker in 2019 and 2021. She voted with the caucus for Jeffries this year. In December, Spanberger was chosen by Frontline and Red-to-Blue representatives for the newly created battleground leadership representative position.

McCarthy has made several concessions to conservatives who’ve demanded rules changes in the new Congress. In the days leading up to the Speaker vote, McCarthy said he’d lower the threshold to force a vote to recall the Speaker from a majority to five GOP members and pledged to secure conservative representation on committees. In a letter Sunday, nine Republicans said McCarthy’s concessions were insufficient. 

McCarthy said Tuesday morning, “I will always fight to put the American people first, not a few individuals that want something for themselves. So we may have a battle on the floor, but the battle is for the conference and the country, and that’s fine with me.” 

What’s delayed without a Speaker

“The House is kind of frozen at this point,” Green, the Catholic University professor whose areas of expertise include political leadership and Congress, told NotedDC. 

Green said “pretty much all of the fundamental things that the House needs to organize and operate can’t get done until this vote is resolved.”  

• All House members are members-elect, as nobody has been sworn in yet (and that’s required for both returning and new members). That’ll happen after a Speaker is chosen.
  
• Discussing the lack of official committee assignments, Green said, “Some of those committees like Oversight that wanted to do investigations, they’re kind of stymied right now. They can’t subpoena documents.”

An additional delay for some committees: Knowing who their chairs will be.

While the House Republican Conference Steering Committee ratified uncontested committee chairs last month, as our colleague Emily Brooks reported, several contested chair spots remain undecided, including for the powerful Ways and Means Committee. The Speaker gets four votes on the steering committee. 

Politico reported last week on guidance from the House Administration Committee stating that, without a rules package by Jan. 13, committees won’t be able to process payroll, meaning staff won’t be paid in that case.

The delays will be temporary if a Speaker is chosen within a few days. But Green said Tuesday “the terms under which the Speaker is chosen could have lasting impact on committees and what they do.”

“[F]or example, if Kevin McCarthy feels he has to change the rules again to get the votes he needs, he might do things that put more conservatives on more committees or … gives them more chairmanships,” he said.

Six new laws taking effect in states this week 

Numerous new state laws are taking effect with the start of 2023. Here are six notable ones:

• Louisiana: A new law in the Pelican State aims to stop minors from viewing pornography online by allowing parents and other guardians to sue companies that don’t have adequate age verification protocols.
  
• New York: Private insurance plans that offer maternity care must now include abortion services in their plans.
  
• Pennsylvania: Fentanyl test strips, which allow drug users to make sure that they don’t accidentally have the dangerous opioid that has led to thousands of deaths, have been decriminalized and will be easier to access. The new law received broad bipartisan support.
  
• Georgia: Principals are now required to look into parents’ complaints about books and websites that could be harmful to students.
  
• New Jersey: More than a million drivers will have to pay more for their car insurance as the state increases the minimum amount of liability insurance they should have.
  
• California: The state’s new Freedom To Walk Act essentially legalizes jaywalking in most instances, except when “a reasonably careful person would realize there is an immediate danger of a collision.” 
  
  

LOBBY WORLD

The Hill’s Karl Evers-Hillstrom has a weekly roundup of news from the lobbying world:

• Former Rep. Mike Doyle (D-Pa.) joined K&L Gates as a government affairs counselor shortly after retiring from Congress.
  
• Nick Pickles has been tapped to lead Twitter‘s global government affairs efforts. 
  
• Erin Perrine, a former aide to House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), has joined Clout Public Affairs as communications director. 

Check out more moves here and send us your updates! 

QUOTABLE

“Kevin McCarthy will do a good job, and maybe even a GREAT JOB – JUST WATCH!”

– former President Trump on backing McCarthy in the Speaker’s race.

NUMBER TO KNOW

133

Rounds of votes it took for the House to elect a speaker in 1856. This was the longest Speaker battle in history, clocking in at two months. 

ONE MORE THING

A different political scene

While the House spent another day seemingly in a meltdown over the Speaker’s gavel, President Biden joined a bipartisan group of lawmakers in Kentucky to tout the $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure package that Congress passed last year.  

One guest of special interest: Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.).

• Scenes of Biden and McConnell made for a striking split-screen contrast with the House members’ fourth round of voting for Speaker, as most news outlets carried them side-by-side.
  
• The Brent Spence Bridge, which has been badly in need of repair for years, served as a backdrop to the event. It will be fixed with $1.6 billion from the law. 

“If you look at the political alignment of everyone involved, it’s the government is working together to solve a major problem at a time when the country needs to see examples like this, of coming together and getting an outcome,” McConnell said at the event.

Thanks for reading! Please consider signing up for more newsletters from The Hill.