Update: Kevin McCarthy has, for a sixth time, lost his bid to become Speaker of the House, with the votes in the sixth round of voting unchanged from the fourth and fifth.

After three rounds of voting Tuesday, Kevin McCarthy was still more than a dozen votes short in his quest to become Speaker of the House. After three more ballots on Wednesday, only one person’s mind had changed, a previous McCarthy supporter who switched her vote to “present.”

Rep. Byron Donalds of Florida accepted a nomination to be the Republican alternative and picked up 20 votes in the fourth round, while Rep. Victoria Spartz of Indiana voted “present” on the fourth ballot. As a result, the House went to a fifth round of voting, where the outcome was exactly the same, down to Spartz’s “present” vote. Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries won the support of all 212 Democrats and a plurality of all votes cast, but no candidate achieved the necessary majority to win.

And for McCarthy, his chances of winning what is sure to be the worst job in America appear to be slipping even further away.

Supporters and opponents of McCarthy traded personal barbs as the stalemate continued. Rep. Warren Davidson of Ohio, a House Freedom Caucus member, nominated McCarthy for the fifth speaker vote. He then rattled off a list of demands that McCarthy had met from conservative House rebels seeking to sink his bid to become Speaker, and said support from him and other Republicans, such as Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie, was proof McCarthy was conservative enough for the job.

“As I’ve listened to my friends, 20 of whom have opposed Kevin McCarthy as Speaker of the House, the root issue is this—they do not trust Kevin McCarthy,” said Davidson, who last year compared vaccine mandates to the Holocaust. “Right now, there are a lot of my colleagues that don’t trust 20 or more of my fellow Republicans.”

Following a brief speech in support of Jeffries from Democratic Rep. Pete Aguilar of California, Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado rose to once again nominate Donalds. Boebert conceded that McCarthy had met the holdouts on some demands, but questioned if McCarthy was the right person for the job if he hadn’t suggested those reforms himself.

Boebert also confirmed that former President Donald Trump had encouraged her to capitulate and vote for McCarthy.

“Let’s stop with the campaign smears and tactics to get people to turn against us, even having my favorite president call us and tell us we need to knock this off,” Boebert said.

“I think it actually needs to be reversed,” she continued. “The President needs to tell Kevin McCarthy that sir, you do not have the votes, and it’s time to withdraw.”

After the fifth round, Rep. Kat Cammack of Florida rose to speak and nominated McCarthy yet again, for a sixth time. “It’s Groundhog’s day,” Cammack said.

Still, it’s not getting any better for McCarthy. Rep. Ken Buck of Colorado, another House conservative, voted for McCarthy five straight times. But in an interview with CNN, however, Buck suggested McCarthy should consider stepping away in favor of Louisiana Rep. Steve Scalise, the #2 House Republican. He also said he wasn’t committed to continuing to vote for McCarthy after five rounds of voting. 

“Stay tuned and I’ll let you know what I’m doing in the future,” Buck said.

HOLY SHIT, my man Rep. Hakeem Jeffries actually schooled these fools alphabetically!  He’s going to be a resonating presence in the days and years to come.  At last a wonderful communicator.

"I recognize that as a White man, I have privilege. And as an elected official, I have a responsibility for the words I use — especially in the heat of the moment. Regardless of what I meant to say, I shouldn’t have used that language," he added.

Am I surprised that a so-called 'Democrat' from Maryland is currently ratfucking our Democracy, just enough to keep conservatives in power? Absolutely not. #Maryland has a very long history of Champagne Socialism, ie, wealthy asshats who have long used the 'Independent' moniker as an excuse to judge from a lofty perch. We have quite a few saboteurs to get rid of, but everyone, please thank piece of shit, #DavidTrone for making sure that we stay in a state of LIMBO, in Congress, as he shovels red meat to the Right, with lightning speed.

Thousands have hit the streets in NYC, Los Angeles, Washington DC, and dozens of other cities. A DC protest organized by Jewish activist groups drew thousands, and hundreds were later arrested, including two dozen Rabbis. An estimated 25,000 people showed up to a rally in Chicago. These events show no signs of stopping, with many more planned across the coming days. These actions have gone beyond marches, with protesters showing up at the offices and homes of politicians demanding a ceasefire. Six activists were arrested at a pro-Palestine rally outside the Boston office of Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA). A large crowd demonstrated outside the Brooklyn home of Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY). Jewish protesters showed up outside the Brentwood house of VP Kamala Harris. IfNotNow members have held sit-ins at the DC offices of Schumer, Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), and Rep. Katherine Clark (D-MA). Former staffers for Warren, Sanders, and Senator John Fetterman have publicly urged the lawmakers to back a ceasefire. On October 25, tens of thousands of students across more than 100 North American campuses united in a walkout to demand an immediate ceasefire, an end to unconditional support for Israel, and university divestment from the corporations funding the occupation of Palestine. On the night of October 27 Jewish activists shut down Grand Central Station, leading to the arrest of over 300 people. “This is bigger than we’ve ever seen,” US Campaign for Palestinian Rights (USCPR) Executive Director Ahmad Abuznaid told Mondoweiss. “This is the result of decades of work that we’ve put into this movement, and I think some of it is connected to the [George Floyd protests of 2020]. There was so much racial, social justice, anti-war building in that moment.

[...]

“The man broke my heart,” Palestinian-American comedian Maysoon Zayid told Politico on October 23, “I never in my life thought the empathizer-in-chief would sound the way he did. The Palestinians were given no humanity. Joe Biden should spend every breath he has condemning Israel’s genocide with the same zeal he condemned Hamas’ massacre of civilians, that same zeal. And we get nothing. 1,000 children are dead, and we get nothing.” “It’s really crazy to me that the Democratic party destroyed 20-years of worth of good will with Muslims and Arabs in just 2 weeks, losing an entire generation that was raised in the progressive coalition, possibly forever,” tweeted author and activist Eman Abdelhadi. “The rapidity of it, the finality–it’s astonishing.” “While Republican disregard for Muslim and Arab lives is clearly on display, some Muslim and Arab Americans also feel like the Democratic Party largely takes their vote for granted, though Democrats’ policies never reflect as much,” writes Dana El Kurd in The Nation. “One Arab American friend expressed to me that, at least under Republican administrations, ‘Arabs could find allies’ in their opposition.”

Joan McCarter at Daily Kos:

After months of House Speaker Mike Johnson dragging his feet, the House finally voted 316 to 94 to advance the foreign aid bills for Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan. Democrats made that happen—again. In fact, Democrats have been responsible for passing every key funding bill during Johnson’s tenure, a fact that continues to enrage the far-right Freedom Caucus. That, in turn, makes Johnson even more reliant on Democrats to keep his gavel.  The importance of this week’s success in the House is hard to overstate. For the first time in decades, the minority party bailed out the speaker in the Rules Committee—the most powerful committee in the House—to advance the aid bills to the floor. In fact, it’s called “The Speaker’s Committee” because it’s the vehicle the speaker uses to send their priorities—which are typically the priorities of the majority party—to the House floor. Three Republican extremists on the Rules Committee, the group former Speaker Kevin McCarthy installed in his negotiations to get the job last year, rebelled, leading all four Democrats on the committee—Reps. Jim McGovern, Mary Gay Scanlon, Joe Neguse, and Teresa Leger Fernández—to do the previously unthinkable and approve the package, sending it to the floor. 

Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries told reporters that Democrats were united—this time—in helping Johnson. “Once we made that decision, it was clear that we would do what was necessary to make sure that national security legislation was considered by the entire House,” he said. They did just that, ensuring that the legislation moved forward Friday morning with Democrats in the majority—165 Democrats and 151 Republicans in favor. Which means that, at least for the purposes of this critical package, Johnson shared control of the floor with Democrats—a quasi-coalition government, for the time being. That will be cemented Saturday, when the House votes on final passage for the individual components of the package, and Democrats will undoubtedly hold the majority again.

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA)'s job has been bailed out by the Democrats, infuriating the House Freedom Caucus nutters.

So. The US has a speaker of the house(*). If you've seen the memes floating around for the past few days, you might find yourself wondering: how did that happen? Buckle in folks, this was a bit of a ride.

(*) for now

When we last left our... main characters, Kevin McCarthy had failed an 11th ballot to be elected speaker, down 20 Republican votes when he could afford a maximum of five defectors. The house then voted to adjourn until 12 eastern time on January 6th. Overnight, some deals happened, because for the first time since day 1 there was a significant movement in votes. Round 12 saw 14 of the representatives who had previously been defectors voted for McCarthy—not enough to give him the speakership (lmao, imagine?), but enough to prove his chances of victory weren't entirely dead. Important for later, three representatives were absent—Ken Buck (R-Colorado), Wesley Hunt (R-Texas), and David Trone (D-Maryland).

Round 13 went much the same in actual voter count, with one more of the never-Kevins peeling off to vote for McCarthy, though it was the first round in which there was not another republican candidate formally nominated. Trone came out of his voluntary surgery to vote for Hakeem Jeffries, and there was a motion to adjourn so the republican caucus could continue haggling, which passed. Setting the house up to reconvene at 10 pm eastern time, and some of the most dramatic hours we've seen in this whole glorious train wreck.

Signs suggested Kevin was feeling good—when asked why he felt confident he had the votes to clinch this, he responded "because I count." Two of the more notorious never-Kevins (Boebert and Gaetz) seemed open to negotiating. The press reported Buck and Hunt would be returning for the evening vote. A cart loaded with giant boxes of Five Guys burgers rolled into the speaker's office.

The hours pass. 10 pm rolls around, and the air is thick with anticipation. The house chaplain offers a prayer in which she suggests the gridlock may finally be over. Patrick McHenry (R-North Carolina) gives a nominating speech for McCarthy with not one but two jokes that fell extraordinarily flat, all the while wearing a bow tie.

Now, the votes for speaker are conducted as roll call votes. The poor, probably underpaid, long-suffering house clerk reads off the name of each representative in alphabetical order, then goes through a second time calling the name of any representative who didn't vote the first time. This takes... a while, but what it means is that when you know who's vote to watch, you spend a while in anticipation of that person's name being called, listening to the alphabet.

The other thing to understand, as this gets deep into the weeds, is a little more of the nuts and bolts of how the count works. The speaker of the house is elected by a majority of the votes cast—that is to say, the number of representatives-elect who vote for a name instead of not voting or voting present, divided by half, plus one.

M = [ (# reps elect - # of reps elect not voting - # of reps elect voting present)/2 ] + 1

The US House, while normally filled with 435 reps, currently has 434, due to one death. 212 of those are democrats, the remainder are republicans. If all 434 vote, the threshold for a majority is 218 (434/2, +1). If, say, two members vote present and everyone else votes, the threshold is 217.

The remaining detractors were Biggs, Boebert, Crane, Gaetz, Good, and Rosendale. Biggs, first on the list, voted for a non-Kevin guy, Jordan. Boebert, second in line, voted present. This was a difference that got audible applause from the chamber. For one brief, beautiful, shining moment, it seemed like we might have a resolution. And then Crane votes for Biggs, which. Fine. Kevin can spare a few losses. And then, Gaetz doesn't. vote. Not voting present, which is a different thing. He just lets the first round skip him. Good votes for Jordan. Rosendale votes for Biggs. At which point, the math is as follows. 434 congresspeople, 432 votes, 217 to win. McCarthy has 216 votes. It all comes down to Gaetz: if he votes for McCarthy, Kevin wins. Anything else, and we're doing this again.

Gaetz. Votes. Present.

At first, this gets cheers and claps. And I look at my mom, who's watching the vote with me, and wonder "what the fuck?" The reaction makes me doubt my math. The floor is in chaos. Pretty quickly, it seems people realize that McCarthy is not, in fact, speaker of the house. Kevin runs back towards Gaetz and starts "negotiating" (fig 1)

Fig. 1: things get heated

A democrat heckles from the distance, yelling "On your knees!" To Kevin as he approached Gaetz. There are calls for order. Mike Rogers, R-Alabama, has to be physically dragged away from Gaetz (fig 2)

Fig. 2: lol, and furthermore, lmao

All this, followed by a motion to adjourn until Monday that at first appears to be successful, until Kevin runs to the front to tell members to change their votes. It appears a deal has been struck—and ballot 15 proves it. All the remaining holdouts vote present, lowering the threshold to 215, and allowing Kevin's 216 votes to take him over the line. Truly, our long national nightmare has come to a middle.

What does this mean? Probably bad things. The rules package and committee assignments are yet to be formalized (that'll come on Monday), but expect the house ""freedom"" caucus to be more or less running the show (*) (*pending a long and bloody battle over the rules, which is, IMO, still on the table).

I could go through the speeches, but it's 2:30 am and I've got a flight tomorrow so I would literally Rather Perish so instead, to conclude, i'll leave you with this.

(3: source)

Please go look at the disgusting genocidal tweets Rep. Randy Fine has been posting. He makes me sick. 🤢 If anyone is from NY, I urge you to contact Rep. Hakeem Jeffries about him. Something needs to be done. A man this violent cannot serve in Congress. One of his tweets quite literally says "Kill them all" about Palestinians. He's @ VoteRandyFine.

I was unable to view those tweets/X posts unfortunately, but the good news is his account was suspended. For folks who live in the US, as this person called this out/brought attention to it, contact Representative Hakeem Jeffries about Randy Fine -a Republican who is a genocidal apologist, and a well-known transphobe and queerphobe, and overall a shitty person (I only did a little research but saying I think he is despicable would be an understatement).

I REALLY hope someone took screenshots. I will try to look out for them, because he shouldn't be serving as a Representative in Congress. Thank you for bringing this, again, to mine and everyone's attention!! And FU, Randy Fine!

The latest news and updates on the House speaker fight:

Rep. Steve Scalise, of Louisiana, abandoned his bid to be the next speaker, announcing Thursday he would withdraw a little more than 24 hours after being nominated by House Republicans to replace Rep. Kevin McCarthy, of California.

Scalise defeated Rep. Jim Jordan, of Ohio, but it remains unclear if Jordan can now secure the nomination from Republicans or if he could get 217 votes on the House floor.

Democrats are backing House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, of New York. [...]

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has told The Independent that Republicans’ chaotic efforts to elect a Speaker for the new Congress are serving to highlight how grounded and reasonable she and other members of the so-called Squad of progressive Democrats have been.

Throughout much of her time in Congress, the self-described democratic socialist has heard herself and other progressives described as “unreasonable.” Former-representative Stephanie Murphy even called the coterie of Democrats “the never enough caucus” during negotiations about the bipartisan infrastructure bill and passing Build Back Better.

But against the background of repeated failed attempts by the Republicans to elect Kevin McCarthy as Speaker in the face of hard-right GOP opposition, AOC pointed out that many of the debates she was involved in with fellow Democrats were about actual policy. By comparison, House Republicans are mostly united on their goals, while they differ on the tactics and the rules governing the House of Representatives.

The current crisis has already forced the House to go three days without having a Speaker.

Speaking just off the House floor on Thursday evening, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez told The Independent that despite all the criticisms of her and her colleagues, the current GOP deadlock shows just how reasonable she and progressives are.

“I mean I think it just highlights how how extraordinarily bad faith those accusations of progressive unreasonableness are, even when they come from our side of the aisle,” she said.

“I think, whether you're Democrat, Republican or independent, what this whole episode really indicates and shows us is, again, just how bad faith and substantive some substance-less the argument and accusation is that progressives are, are just as bad as, as these insurrectionists Republicans.”

That doesn’t mean that progressives don’t fight when they think it is necessary, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez said.

“When we make demands and pull the line on something, it is based on policy on substance, and something that frankly, usually every time has a path of possibility,” she said. “We offer a Plan B and we look at the reality and push us Yes, push as hard as we can. But we also have an understanding of what is best for the country.”

But beyond the theatrics and comedic aspect, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez said that she worried about the fact the impasse could make it harder to govern.

“The more days that this goes on the more this truly starts to have a corrosive impact on our country,” she said. “Right now, members of Congress because we were not sworn in, we do not have we do not have access to our security clearances, or liaising capacities with that with agencies like the IRS or [United States Citizenship and Immigration Services]. We cannot conduct constituent casework to the same extent that we would otherwise and as a result, the longer this goes on, the more real impact there is and the more people are going to suffer.”

Ms. Ocasio-Cortez entered Congress in 2019 after she defeated House Democratic Caucus Chairman Joe Crowley in a primary. But this term will be the first time that she will be serving in the minority, which means her role will be much different.

Still, she said that in some ways, she and other members of the Squad – which includes Representatives Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts, Jamaal Bowman of New York and Cori Bush of Missouri – will be able to “flex” their messaging and have more time and latitude to go on offense against Republicans.

“When you're in the majority, you're you're focused on spending a lot of your time on governance and we understand that the windows that we are in the majority are very precious time,” she said.

Despite the fact that Ms. Ocasio-Cortez occasionally clashed with former speaker Nancy Pelosi, she still voted for her nomination and worked with her. Conversely, she has butted heads with fellow New Yorker Hakeem Jeffries, who has been more outspoken in his criticism of left-wing Democrats at times.

But Ms. Ocasio-Cortez has joined every member of the Democratic caucus in voting for Mr. Jeffries’s nomination as Speaker.

“I think, right now, all of our central focus is making sure that we stay united as a caucus and identify what the bigger issue is right now, which is ensuring that we stave off a lot of the the negative and corrosive impacts of Republican legislation,” she said.

Democratic leaders said Wednesday that Republicans are on their own amid the conservative revolt that’s prevented Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) — or anyone else — from becoming the next Speaker in the new Congress. 

Heading into this week’s Speaker vote, some lawmakers had floated the notion of finding a “unity” candidate who could win bipartisan support if McCarthy failed to rally a sufficient number of Republicans behind his Speakership bid. 

But on Wednesday, a day after a group of conservatives blocked McCarthy’s bid on three separate ballots, Democratic leaders said they’re not ready to bail out the struggling Republicans — at least not yet.

“This is on them,” Rep. Pete Aguilar (D-Calif.), the incoming chair of the House Democratic Caucus, said during a press briefing in the Capitol. 

Aguilar said he hasn’t been approached by any lawmakers about a search for a potential consensus candidate, nor have Democratic leaders presented that possibility to their rank-and-file members, who are united behind Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), the incoming minority leader who got all 212 Democratic votes on Tuesday’s three ballots.

“If there was something that was real, we would look at that,” Aguilar said. “But I haven’t seen any proof that Republicans are willing to engage.” 

With Republicans flailing in their effort to seat a new Speaker, outside centrist groups are agitating for lawmakers in both parties to unite behind a moderate figure — perhaps one outside of Congress — to fill the void. This week, former Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.), a centrist who is popular on both sides of the aisle, said the idea that he might be that figure is “an intriguing suggestion that I have not rejected.”

Yet even those Democrats who have supported the idea of a consensus candidate don’t appear ready to jump on board. Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), who has been open to that strategy, is also downplaying that idea this week amid the Republicans’ struggles to seat a new Speaker. 

“At the end of the day, this is a Republican mess,” he told CNN Tuesday night. “This is a failure of them to govern. This is their problem to fix.”

“And Democrats stand ready if they want to vote for Hakeem Jeffries,” Khanna added, suggesting a strategy that’s a non-starter among Republicans. 

The conservative revolt — and the stalemate it’s created — forced House lawmakers to vote on multiple Speaker ballots for the first time since 1923. And it’s creating a lingering uncertainty about how long the seat will remain empty — and what effect a dysfunctional House will have on the country. 

“This is a crisis of the Congress,” Aguilar said. “And it’s a crisis at the hands of the Republican dysfunction.” 

Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.), the incoming vice chair of the Democratic Caucus, echoed that message. 

“For one day — it was unfortunate — we can deal with that. But now it gets serious, because we effectively don’t have a House of Representatives,” Lieu said. “This can’t keep on going. You can’t have one branch of the federal government simply not function.”

Lieu said he’s hoping Republicans can find a way to unify behind a Speaker nominee, “because we need Republicans to govern — if they can.”

“If they cannot,” he added, “then they should let Democrats govern.”

NY Republican says House could ‘end up having a Speaker Hakeem Jeffries’ as GOP majority narrows | The Hill

Let's hope it happens. That would be awesome!

WASHINGTON, D.C. — In a shocking development amid the uproar over whether congressional Republicans will seek to oust yet another Speaker of the House, current leader Mike Johnson unzipped a skinsuit to reveal he was Kevin McCarthy all along.

"Ha ha ha! Daddy's home, suckers!" McCarthy laughed at dumfounded reporters and congressional colleagues. "You thought you got rid of me? Wrong! I've been here all along, right under your noses! That's why you've been so disappointed with Mike Johnson's leadership — because it was ME! It was me all along! BWA HA HA HA HA!"

As an investigation into the whereabouts of the real, conservative-minded Rep. Mike Johnson began, McCarthy vowed to continue his reign with business as usual. "Now that I'm free of the facade of Mike Johnson, we can get back to work," he said. "Who can write up a quick appropriations bill to send another $50 billion to Ukraine? Let's get that to the floor as soon as possible!"

Congressional Democrats took the shocking incident as yet another victory. "We thought there was something familiar about the way Johnson kept caving in to our demands," House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said. "It makes sense that we've still been working with Kevin McCarthy all along. Endless Ukraine funding, no border security, empty threats of impeachment… all the clues were there."

At publishing time, conservative GOP lawmakers were seeking a new candidate for Speaker who could disappoint them just as much without actually being Kevin McCarthy in disguise.

How long will this speaker vote go on?? Until he gets enough votes thats he gets elected? Or until they find someone else? Can someone from dem party gets elected instead?? (European here who has no idea whats going on but i like the memes)

It can literally go on as long as it takes to elect someone, unfortunately. Literally anyone can be nominated, they don’t even have to be in Congress (which in my opinion is the most insane thing). A candidate must receive a majority of votes which is 218 votes. There is currently a Dem nominated, Hakeem Jeffries of New York, and he is getting a large amount of votes and it is technically possible for him to win. However, the dems don’t have a majority in the House of Reps so it is unlikely. What’s really keeping Kevin McCarthy from winning is that the more extremist (and further right) members of the Republican Party have broken off and refused to vote for him and have instead nominated Jim Jordan and are voting for him. Until they negotiate and vote someone to speaker the House of Representatives can’t be called into session, newly elected members can’t be sworn in, no one gets paid, nothing happens, and it can go on as long as it takes. It is also all documented on C-SPAN because the one person who is able to tell them to turn their cameras off is, ironically, the speaker.