A monitor in Statuary Hall displays House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., as he sits in the chamber at the start of a tenth ballot to elect a speaker of the House, at the Capitol in Washington, Thursday, Jan. 5, 2023. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
Capitol Hill faced another day of votes for the next House speaker as Kevin McCarthy failed to gain support in the seventh, eighth, ninth, tenth, and eleventh rounds of voting.
Each of the Republican leader's attempts to win the speakership failed with 20 Republicans refusing to back him and another voting Present, even after the he made several concessions Wednesday evening.
McCarthy agreed to a rules change that would allow just one member to call for a vote to oust the speaker, a major concession that many defectors had asked for and initially something McCarthy had strongly opposed. He also agreed to allow more members of the Freedom Caucus to serve on the powerful House Rules committee.
The seventh and eight votes showed the reluctance of some defectors to ever support McCarthy as speaker.
“You never have to ask me again if I’m a no on Kevin McCarthy, I will never vote for Kevin McCarthy,” Rep. Bob Good, a consistent voter against McCarthy, told reporters Thursday morning. McCarthy can only afford to lose the support of four Republicans, given the slim majority they have.
But even after eight defeats, McCarthy has shown no signs of giving up the bid, in part not wanting to set a precedent that such a small faction of the party can have so much control.
The California Republican told reporters Thursday he was “confident” they would get to a solution and that lawmakers were having “good discussions,” but would not predict when he would have the votes by.
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The Social Security Administration’s acting commissioner has stepped down from her role at the agency over Department of Government Efficiency requests.
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum says her government is not ruling out filing a civil lawsuit against Google if it maintains its stance of calling the stretch of sea between northeastern Mexico and the southeastern United States the “Gulf of America.” Sheinbaum, in her morning press conference on Thursday, said the president’s decree to change the name of the Gulf of Mexico is restricted to the “continental shelf of the United States” because Mexico still controls much of the body of water. “We have sovereignty over our continental shelf,” she said.
