It wasn’t supposed to be this way.
After winning majorities in the U.S. House, Republicans were just expected to sing kumbaya and anoint him as the next Speaker.
But now with a block of conservatives refusing to support him, utter chaos is breaking out in Washington, D.C.
Kevin McCarthy falls short of needed 218, thanks to conservative block
According to recent media reports, House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy has yet to secure the 218 votes to become the next Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives.
McCarthy is confident that he’ll get to the 218, but it is seeming more and more like he won’t get there on the first ballot.
According to CNN, a vote for the House Speaker hasn’t gone to multiple ballots since 1923.
Congressman Andy Biggs is responsible for throwing a monkey’s wrench in the race when he announced his run for Speaker earlier this month.
McCarthy ultimately won the nomination from the GOP Conference while losing 31 conservative votes in the process.
Many of those conservatives are refusing to back McCarthy and Biggs has made it clear that he is still running for Speaker despite the Conference vote.
McCarthy’s team is now scrambling to peel off as many conservatives as possible to avoid an embarrassment on the first ballot, but with the margins between the Democrats and Republicans so small, his team is going to have to work over quite a few conservatives who seem dead set against him.
Of course, McCarthy only has himself to blame.
If he wasn’t such a squishy establishment RINO, perhaps he wouldn’t have a conservative rebellion on his hands.
RINOs looking to work with Democrats
Not surprisingly, some turncoat Republicans like Congressman Don Bacon of Nebraska are now openly flirting with the idea of working with Democrats to elect a moderate Republican as Speaker of the House in the case that McCarthy fails to secure 218 votes.
Bacon mockingly said of the conservatives, “If a small group refuses to play ball and be part of the team, then we’ll work across the aisle to find an agreeable Republican.”
What an embarrassment it would be for Republicans to have to rely on Democrat votes to elect a RINO to the Speaker’s chair, but that’s about par for the course for these swamp creatures.
They’d rather keep their hold on power working with Democrats than to actually govern like the conservatives they claim to be while on the campaign trail.
Will conservatives blink?
This is an incredible moment of opportunity for conservatives in the U.S. House of Representatives.
They can either force the Republican establishment to come their way by making them adopt rules that conservatives favor, such as Congressman Thomas Massie’s proposal to require a two-thirds vote to suspend the 72-hour bill reading rule.
Or they’ll be exposed as frauds when they start working on powerbroker deals with Democrats to secure 218 votes for a RINO like McCarthy or someone cut from even squishier cloth.
House conservatives must hold on to the bitter end if they really want to take power, which is something they have failed to do in times past.
But maybe, just maybe, they’ll do it this time.
US Political Daily will keep you up-to-date on any developments to this ongoing story.
