WASHINGTON, D.C. – On a 216-210 vote, the House voted to oust Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy (R- CA). It’s the first time in our history a Speaker has been successfully voted out.
Representative Jack Bergman voted to keep McCarthy as Speaker. Now that McCarthy has been voted out, here’s what happens: the House will have to vote on a new permanent Speaker. We could see votes happen as early as possible or the House could vote on this later on. Without a Speaker, the Heuse is unable to move forward with legislative business. We spoke with Todd Belt, the George Washington University director of political management on this, he said this is not a good look for republicans.
“With the republican party not being unified and being hamstrung and not being able to do anything without some democratic votes if they can’t hold themselves together it really looks like a disorganized and ununified party and this is going to be difficult for them to go back to the voters and say ‘yeah put us back in,’” said Belt.
A group of far-right Republicans voted against keeping McCarthy. They said they are frustrated with McCarthy because he worked with democrats to help pass the short term spending bill and accused him of creating a secret deal to keep aid for Ukraine. Belt said this vote is already impacting the House’s legislative work to work to finalize the budget bills.
