A handful of hardline Republicans have refused to support McCarthy’s speaker bid, causing the Republican leader to offer a list of concessions, including limiting the powers of the speaker role, in an attempt to get enough votes to officially take the post.
McCarthy needs a majority of the votes, not counting present votes, to secure the spot. More than 20 House Republicans have refused to vote for McCarthy, preventing him from gaining a majority with Democrats securely behind their candidate Rep. Hakeem Jefferies (D-NY).
Republicans hold a 222-213 majority in the House at present. Assuming all members vote, McCarthy needs at least 218 votes to secure the spot.
The eleven failed House speaker votes make it the longest House speaker nomination in 164 years.
Democratic politicians, media personalities, celebrities, and left-leaning accounts were gleeful as McCarthy repeatedly failed to get the needed votes.
Meanwhile, others compared McCarthy’s failure to legendary streaks of ineptitude in sports.
Some pointed out the excruciating nature of the process, both for those watching at home and for those involved.
But to Leftists who wanted the progressive wing of the democratic party to “Force the Vote” by withholding support for Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) in 2021, the debacle was a sign their strategy could have gained concessions for the left wing of the party.
In 2020, progressive elements online wanted the “The Squad,” a group of young, newly elected, and ostensibly outsider politicians to withhold their votes for Pelosi as House speaker in 2021. Like Republicans in 2022, Democrats held a slim majority in the House at the time.
A handful of Democratic representatives could have refused to vote for Pelosi without concessions, delaying her appointment, just like Gaetz and the hardline Republicans are doing to McCarthy now.
Advocates for “Force the Vote” wanted the squad and other progressive members of the Democratic caucus to demand that Pelosi put a bill for single-payer health care or Medicare for All, to a House vote or give other concessions to the progressive wing.
While a single-payer health care bill would have likely failed, proponents say it would have revealed which Democrats would have voted against it, while highlighting the need for universal health care in the middle of a pandemic.
Fearing the debate may somehow benefit republicans, all members of the squad voted for Pelosi and she secured the House speaker role on her first vote in January 2021. She did not make any concessions to the progressive wing of the Democratic party.
Briahna Joy Gray also talked about the history of Force the Vote and how it relates to this week’s House speaker vote on her Rising show on The Hill TV.