Scott McKay, publisher of the Hayride, said the continued failure of U.S. Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) is due to the legislative process in Washington, D.C. being broken.
“This thing has been really strange in that like he moves all of his stuff into the speaker's office and he runs around talking about how he's earned the job before he's got 218 votes,” McKay said. “What this has kind of shown is it's all about Kevin McCarthy and the moment calls for something totally different. The moment calls for it being all about the movement, it being all about finally allowing Congress to serve the needs of constituents rather than K Street.”
Chicago’s Morning Answer host Dan Proft said the failure calls into question McCarthy’s understanding of the composition of Congress.
“This is a question of his competence, his political IQ. Is (this) the complete misunderstanding or lack of understanding of these 20 holdouts?” Proft asked. “He thought he could just sort of become by behavior, make himself the presumptive speaker and everybody would fall in line. How do you not know the attitudes of so many members of your caucus?”
McKay said from the beginning, the Freedom Caucus offered a lot of rule changes that were necessary.
“If you compare the House of Representatives to practically any state legislature, what you're going to find is it is a much less effective and much less functional legislative body than any of those,” he said. “Of course, nobody is really super happy with their state legislature either. But at least you have things like members being able to bring amendments on the floor or you have a single subject rule on legislation and things like that. The way Congress works, it's a dictatorship. It's almost useless to be a member of Congress because it's not a functioning legislative body.”
McCarthy has failed to secure the speaker slot after 11 consecutive losing votes.
Speaking at a press conference representing a group of 20 detractors, mostly from the House Freedom Caucus, U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) said the group feels McCarthy is too indebted to lobbyist interests.
“We will not be voting for Kevin McCarthy today,” Gaetz said at a press conference. “Take no joy in this discomfort that this moment has brought, but if you want to drain the swamp, you cannot put the biggest alligator in charge of the exercise. I am a Florida man and I know of what I speak. We offered Kevin McCarthy terms last evening that he rejected. We sought a vote in the first quarter of 118th Congress on term limits. He refused. We wanted a budget from the Republican Study Committee that balances on the floor in the first quarter. He refused. We wanted the border plan that the Texas delegation put together on the floor. He refused time and again. His viewpoints, his positions, they shift like sands underneath you.”
Gaetz has suggested the only way the group will vote for McCarthy is through a power-sharing agreement in which members of their delegation are given powerful committee chairmanships and only after adopting new rules in the 118th House that will diminish the speaker’s role.
U.S. Rep. Mary Miller (R-IL) is the only member of the Illinois GOP delegation voting against McCarthy.
She has thus far refused to make a public statement on her stance, according to East Central Reporter.
The group said while it is not impossible for McCarthy to become speaker, they need assurances their agenda will see light and be given real consideration in the 118th Congress.
“In his 14 years in Republican leadership, McCarthy has repeatedly failed to demonstrate any desire to meaningfully change the status quo in Washington,” U.S. Rep. Scott Perry (R-PA) said, according to The Center Square.
“Despite our deep reservations, we have continued to work in earnest to find a path forward with McCarthy, knowing that this crucial moment would come," Perry said.
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