Kevin McCarthy's bid for the speakership is seeing a potential revival after he spent the last 48 hours on life support McCarthy and some of his critics finally got in a room and had a productive conversation after the California Republican failed three times to get the 218 votes he needed. McCarthy has made a number of concessions to his critics. A person who knows a thing or two about the state of play told POLITICO that there are concessions.
The GOP leader appears to have acquiesced to a demand to lower the threshold needed to oust a speaker. McCarthy initially indicated that restoring the one-member motion to vacate was a red line, but his allies now argue that there is no difference between this and his previous offer of requiring five members to vote.
McCarthy is willing to give the House Freedom Caucus two seats on the House Rules Committee. Four seats on the panel are still being held out for conservatives. A third seat for a conservative close to the Freedom Caucus but not in it is being discussed. Conservatives would like to choose their own members for these jobs.
A vote on term limits is one of the demands of Rep. Norman, who wants a constitutional amendment limiting lawmakers to three terms in the House.
Fear of another trillion-plus-dollar omnibus spending bill has been a major driver of the conservative backlash to McCarthy. Each of the 12 annual appropriations bills would be considered under an open rule, which would allow floor amendments to be offered by any lawmaker.
Conservatives won a concession to carve out any earmarks included in those packages for separate votes, though it is not clear if they would be voted on as one package or separately.
The Congressional Leadership Fund reached a deal with the conservative Club for Growth, which had initially signaled opposition to a Speaker McCarthy, to stay out of open House primaries for safe Republican seats.
In the past, the two groups were at war with each other, with CLF pouring in millions to back establishment candidates while the Club endorsed those on the far right. The Club dropped its opposition to McCarthy in order to get the promise.
It's not clear whether this will be enough to get McCarthy the speakership.
According to CNN, Roy indicated to GOP leaders that he could bring along as many as 10 McCarthy detractors, and possibly persuade others to vote. It won't get him to 218, but McCarthy's camp hopes it will help him close the gap.
Even McCarthy's closest allies say this isn't over.
There are five "hard no's" against McCarthy according to one GOP leadership aide. McCarthy can't lose more than four.
Norman told reporters that he hadn't changed his stance on opposing McCarthy. His own term-limits proposal was still being worked out at that point.
McCarthy's allies are concerned about freshman Rep. Eli Crane.
McCarthy's camp thought that if they could winnow down his opposition from 20 to a half-dozen or so, the pressure on the remaining holdouts would be so great that they would cave.
One McCarthy ally warned that the situation could get worse before it gets better. If balloting continues today, McCarthy may lose a few votes from frustrated members.
Some McCarthy supporters are frustrated by the stalemate and are looking for an exit strategy. Pete Sessions, a former Rules Committee chair who is considered an ally of GOP leadership, told CNN last night that members should discuss other potential speaker candidates, such as Steve Scalise.
He said that Republicans could only tolerate about three or four more rounds of voting for McCarthy's opponents.
It may take a few days to nail down the deal. In the near term, I don't think this will get resolved. One GOP lawmaker said it might be more likely over the weekend and into next week.
McCarthy is expected to have to support conservatives for committee gavels, such as Rep. Andy Harris, who is pushing to lead the Health and Human Services subcommittee. The decisions are subject to the approval of the steering committee.
It will upset many House Republicans who have supported McCarthy. Mainstream conservatives will argue that McCarthy rewards bad behavior.
The congressman from Texas also wants the gavel for Homeland Security.
McCarthy's concessions would undermine the party in the long run, according to one senior Republican aide.
The power of the speakership has been stripped away. The aide said that he was going to where the Freedom Caucus could stop anything they wanted. It's not a real project. Most of the people are going to be miserable. The Freedom Caucus would not have accepted him as speaker if he had demanded all of the crazy changes.
The McCarthy camp is worried that Gaetz and others will blow this up. Gaetz crashed the negotiations he was not invited to.
After conservatives have had time to digest his latest offers, the rebels and McCarthy and his team are going to talk early Thursday. The speakership will be up for a vote at noon. They would have to get a majority in order to adjourn.
Some in the party have considered postponing votes until next week.
McCarthy's speakership dreams seemed to be almost dead after what began as an abysmal day for him. It was suggested that McCarthy was bleeding support when Rep. Victoria Spartz voted present.
After Ken Buck told POLITICO that the GOP leader needed to make a deal or step aside, McCarthy allies were left scrambling. Within an hour, as he went on CNN to repeat those words, Guy Reschenthaler was waiting to corner Buck and try to get him back in line.
McCarthy's whip team went to work feverishly trying to win over some of his detractors and to discern which of them could still be won over with concessions. Freshman opponents who don't have much of a relationship with McCarthy met with him in the evening.
There was a chaotic scene that showed the absurdity of the situation. When Republicans got the votes to adjourn for the night, they celebrated as if they had just passed a huge tax cut deal.
Buck suggested that members host a meeting with booze to move talks along. Richard Hudson joked that his water bottle was full of booze when he entered a meeting.
This report was contributed to byOliviaBeavers
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