Republican Kevin McCarthy was voted out as the U.S. Speaker of the House on Tuesday, Oct. 3 in an extraordinary showdown — a first in U.S. history, forced by a contingent of hard-right conservatives, throwing the House and its Republican leadership into chaos.
According to Associated Press, it is the end of the political line for McCarthy, who has said repeatedly that he never gives up, but found himself with almost no options remaining. Neither the right-flank Republicans who engineered his ouster nor the Democrats who piled on seemed open to negotiating.
McCarthy told lawmakers in that evening he would not run again for speaker, putting the gavel up for grabs.
The next steps are highly uncertain with no obvious successor to lead the House Republican majority. Action is halted in the House until next week, when Republicans try to elect a new speaker.
But in many ways, McCarthy’s ouster was set in motion when, in deal-making with hard-right holdouts at the start of the year, he agreed to a series of demands — including a rules change that allowed any single lawmaker to file the motion to vacate.
Discourse on why McCarthy was voted out is because of his poor handling of the possible government shutdown that was temporarily avoided with the passing of a 45- day funding plan, and he betrayed his own party by attempting to collaborate with Democrats.
As the House fell silent, Gaetz, a top ally of former president Donald Trump, rose to offer his motion.
Leaders tried to turn it back, but the vote was 218-208, with 11 Republicans against tabling the motion, a sign of trouble to come.
The House then opened a floor debate unseen in modern times, and Republicans argued publicly among themselves for more than an hour.
“It’s a sad day,” Republican Rep. Tom Cole of Oklahoma said as debate got underway, urging his colleagues not to plunge the House Republican majority “into chaos.”
Members of the faculty and students vocalized strong opinions about the ouster.
“The reason why the Democrats wanted him out is because of the haphazard way he handled the government shutdown, the fact that he has reneged on a lot of things that we are not privy to,” said Robert White, J.D., a professor in the department of humanities. “It really caused the Democrats to lose confidence in him. Also, his attitude towards the Jan. 6. 2021 situation and the impeachment of Biden. All of those were heavy for the Democrats.”
He continued.
“As far as the Republicans are concerned, he wasn’t toting the line properly, so you see a very unusual coming together of Democrats and eight Republicans to oust him. So the question becomes who’s gonna follow? And that’s always a problem. When you get rid of one person, you always have to consider the possibility of who’s gonna replace him. So now everything’s up in the air and there’s still not a very good idea of how we’re gonna handle the budget and how we’re gonna handle those types of issues that emerge.”
Senior Tiana Reese was also concerned with the fact that no replacement has yet been selected for McCarthy.
“It kind of puts things on hold when it comes to who is gonna be the future Speaker of the House,” Reese said. “When is that decision gonna be made? Or are they gonna vote him back in? Because with him not being the Speaker, that stops a lot of things. And with him being a Republican himself, and him still seeing an issue with the shutdown and trying to make a change, I feel like there was no reason to oust him. It could have been solved in other ways.”
Balla Keita, Ph.D., assistant professor in the department history and political science, is concerned that all of this is occurring under the threat of a government shutdown.
“Americans want to know that the important areas needed for government resources will be available,” Keita said. “And this incident really puts the country in a very complicated situation until a new leader is found in the House.”
He continued.
“I’m sure it’s a wake up call for the Republican party now. They have to readjust their strategy. They have to be more in line with the country and come up with new and fresh ideas that will captivate the hearts of Americans. The Republicans will now look for a replacement that can appease the far right members.”
It is anybody’s guess what will happen next as with a government shutdown impending if legislation is not passed after 45 days, and with the Speaker of the House voted on, things down at Capitol Hill are very tense.
“In my opinion, he was way too zealous in courting Democrats,” White said. “And the Democrats already didn’t like him. I honestly don’t think the Democrats were that big on vacating him. They have expressed their disgust and disdain for him, but I can’t think of one Democrat who overtly and outwardly wanted to get rid of him, because the Democrats were getting a lot of stuff that they wanted. They were just mad at him about other stuff, but your guess is as good as mine.”
According to Associated Press, a long line of McCarthy supporters stood up for him, including Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, a leader of the conservative Freedom Caucus, who said, “He has kept his word.” Rep. Garret Graves, R-La., waved his cellphone, saying it was “disgusting” that hard-right colleagues were fundraising off the move in text messages seeking donations.