By: Garrett Carlton
On Jan. 3, the 118th Congress convened in Washington D.C. Congressmen and women, both young and old, were inaugurated on this day and the Speaker of the House McCarthy was elected.
However, when it was time to elect a Speaker, some weren’t going to follow suit in doing so. In order for a political party’s personal choice for their Speaker to be elected, they needed to have 218 or more congressional representatives to approve that choice for the Speaker of the House.
On the first ballot, House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy won 203 votes to House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries while 20 others either abstained or voted for a different candidate for Speaker.
According to CNN, this is the longest Speaker contest in 164 years, and it is the first time the Speaker has not been elected on the first ballot in 100 years.
On January 7th, McCarthy was elected Speaker of the House. On the 15th Ballot, Republican Mccarthy won the House speakership after winning a narrow 216 votes over his Democratic opponent because of the concessions he gave to 15 congressional republicans.
This means that it should be much easier than it actually was to trigger a vote of no confidence against the Speaker of the House. While this rule was pushed heavily by conservatives, moderates were worried it would weaken McCarthy’s power as Speaker.
During the Gridlock, there were reactions by many Democrats about the Republicans fighting over if they should elect Mccarthy as speaker. According to The Hill, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi criticized the GOP’s approach to the speakership election as it had reached its third day at the time, saying that Republicans’ “cavalier” attitude is “frivolous” and “disrespectful.”
There have also been Representatives from the House that have taken to Twitter to voice their criticism over the whole debacle.
On January 3, Ayanna Pressley, representative from Massachusetts, 7th congressional district, posted that “while republicans cater to insurrectionists and struggle to elect a speaker…. I’m grateful for Nancy Pelosi and historic tenure as Speaker of the House.”
On January 6th, after the Republicans concessions were given to Mccarthy, Ilhan Omar, a representative from Minnesota’s 5th congressional district, said on Twitter that “Mccarthy just agreed to a deal with far right insurrectionists that would hold the entire US and global economy hostage to extreme cuts to everything from housing to education, healthcare, and Medicare. While Democrats criticized the debacle, some Republicans gave their opinions on why they would or would not vote for McCarthy.
After McCarthy won the speakership on the 15th ballot, many Republican accounts and congressional members gave their congratulations to McCarthy afterwards and talked about How they were gonna restore sanity in the house. In the 118th congress, House republicans will restore the people’s
