For weeks now, five Republican holdouts – Matt Gaetz, Andy Biggs, Bob Good, Ralph Norman, and Matt Rosendale – have been threatening to tank the latest McCarthy bid for Speaker ahead of Tuesday’s vote.
Conservatives demanded concessions, like lowering the threshold needed for a “Motion to Vacate,” which would make it easier to remove him from power. Unfortunately for McCarthy, not only are the concessions not doing much to move the needle, but they seemed to have backfired altogether.
Per Politico, on Sunday evening, McCarthy announced on a private conference call that he would give his antagonists one of their top demands: The threshold to trigger a vote ousting a speaker would shrink from half the GOP conference, as had been agreed to by a majority of the members, to five dissatisfied lawmakers. But hours later, a group of nine House conservatives issued a letter saying that’s not good enough.
That’s in addition to the five “Never McCarthy” lawmakers who have already declared they’re opposing McCarthy. He can only afford to lose only four votes if all House members cast votes Tuesday, January 3rd.
Nine GOP Members: “Regrettably, however, despite some progress achieved, Mr. McCarthy’s statement comes almost impossibly late to address continued deficiencies ahead of the opening of the 118th Congress on January 3rd.”
The additional nine are:
U.S. Representative Scott Perry (PA-10)
U.S. Representative Chip Roy (TX-21)
U.S. Representative Paul Gosar (AZ-04)
U.S. Representative Dan Bishop (NC-09)
U.S. Representative-Elect Andy Ogles (TN-05)
U.S. Representative Andy Harris (MD-01)
U.S. Representative-Elect Anna Paulina Luna
(FL-13)
U.S. Representative Andrew Clyde (GA-09)
U.S. Representative-Elect Eli Crane (AZ-02)
HERE’S THE LETTER:
“The problem is people don’t trust Kevin McCarthy and a number won’t vote for him. Those are just the facts,” one lawmaker told Politico. “The list [of demands] that we offered was not for guaranteed support but rather the kinds of things that might move some of his detractors.”
