When the 118th Congress votes for a new speaker Tuesday afternoon, these five House GOP members are promising to oppose the party's lead candidate, Rep. Kevin McCarthy, a scenario that would leave him at least one vote short of the 218 needed to win.
Kevin McCarthy is a Republican congressman from California. The photo was taken by Alex Wong.
In November, when 31 Republicans voted against McCarthy for speaker, Andy Biggs lost the GOP nomination to him.
McCarthy will need 218 votes to win the election, and since Republicans hold just a four-seat majority in the chamber, McCarthy can afford to lose just four votes.
Four other members of the House Freedom Caucus are also known as the "Never Kevins"
Making it easier for the GOP conference to force a vote to oust the speaker is one of the demands issued by the five conservative hardliners.
The election will go to additional rounds of voting if McCarthy does not win the majority of the votes.
If McCarthy does not win the election in the first round of voting, Republicans will have the option of voting for another candidate in addition to the top vote getter. The congressman's camp has said he is behind McCarthy. Gaetz said Merry Christmas to all on Christmas Day. Join me in encouraging Jim Jordan to seek the Speakership.
Nine additional House Republicans who have not said how they will vote for speaker expressed disappointment over McCarthy's proposed House rules changes. The letter was a rebuttal to McCarthy's first formal response to the demands Republicans have made for incoming House leadership. McCarthy agreed to establish a House judiciary subcommittee to investigate the Biden Administration's "weaponization of the federal government" in addition to lowering the vote threshold. The nine conservatives said McCarthy did not go far enough. The members said that McCarthy's five vote threshold would restrict the availability of the traditional motion to leave the chair as a means of holding leadership accountable to its promises. The letter pointed to McCarthy's silence on conservatives' demands that congressional leadership-affiliated PACs stay out of primary races.
McCarthy, who has spent 16 years in the House, has climbed the ranks of Republican leadership, serving as House majority leader under former Republican Speaker Paul Ryan. McCarthy dropped out of the race to be the next Speaker of the House due to a numbers problem, but this time around he has stated that he will see the election through. McCarthy began moving into the speaker's office over the holidays, an indication of his determination.
House Conservatives want McCarthy to form a Biden-focused investigative panel.
Kevin McCarthy doesn't have the votes to win the speaker's job.
The votes may not have been cast to win the speaker's job.
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