House GOP to vote for new speaker, but won’t be last word

The next speaker will have to navigate a few of these issues while answering to a newly assertive conservative wing at a time when the party is trying to show voters they can govern effectively ahead of the November 2016 presidential elections.

“The establishment has lost two speakers in two weeks”.

The California Republican knew he could prevail in the midday House GOP conference election.

One immediate impact, however, might be to prolong Boehner’s tenure.

The man most widely seen as a potential speaker in McCarthy’s place immediately ruled it out.

“The Freedom Caucus has moved away from this primary focus in recent weeks, and for this reason I have stepped back from the caucus”, Ribble said.

Most Republican Congressmen are in the Boehner-McCarthy mould: devout Reaganites, who talk of slimming the state, but are mostly respectful of its functions and institutions.

I don’t know what will happen. He said the next speaker will have to tame a small but vocal group of lawmakers with a strong ideological bent or find a way to “buck up” more mainstream House Republicans.

It all comes with Congress in desperate need of steady leadership as major fiscal and budgetary deadlines loom, starting with the need to raise the government’s debt limit to avoid a market-shattering default in a month’s time. “And what’s best for the party is a unified vote”, said Braman.

“That wasn’t helpful. I could have said it much better”, McCarthy told reporters. Following McCarthy’s announcement, Republicans postponed the nomination process, calling into question the possibility of an October. 29 vote.

“It has to be etched in stone”, Salmon said after hearing McCarthy make his final pitch to the conference in a morning meeting.

Despite the opposition, McCarthy clearly had been expected to emerge the victor Thursday over Webster and a third rival, Republican Rep. Jason Chaffetz of Utah, who chairs the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

“There was total shock, and then total silence”, said Rep. Robert Pittenger, R-N.C. A move to draft House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Paul Ryan had made no headway as of the end of the day. And I think what he was concerned about, and what we’ve all been concerned about is if we went to the House floor for a Speaker election and he failed to receive 218 votes, that would be very embarrassing and humiliating.

Assuming Democrats voted for their own nominee as they have in the past (that is, Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi), McCarthy – with his 200 or so votes – would have had to try to pick off around 18 people from that 40(ish) group or the other handful of lawmakers he hadn’t already won over. But it was his slowly dwindling support among the Freedom Caucus members that finally did him in. In mid-September Rep. Tom McClintock, R-Calif., announced his resignation citing “missteps” that made the caucus “counterproductive to its stated goals and I no longer wish to be associated with it”.

McCarthy, a 50-year-old from Bakersfield in his fifth term in the House, is personable and friendly, popular with fellow lawmakers and known for his political acumen, if not his policy depth.

McCarthy also faced criticism for suggesting last week that a congressional probe of the 2012 attacks in Benghazi, Libya, was created to hurt Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. He was roundly criticized and quickly backtracked, but the flub dogged him, giving an opening for Chaffetz to get into the race.

McCarthy shocked his colleagues at the start of Thursday’s closed meeting, telling them he was not the right person for the job.

Congressman Kevin McCarthy bombshell announcement that he’s dropping out of the race for speaker of the house came as a surprise to many, including the Kern County Young Republicans – who say they fully support the congressman.

Jones told CNN that he was looking out for the institution and not pointing fingers at anyone in particular. Asked whether it played a role in his decision McCarthy said: “Nah”.

Jones said his letter was based on problems of past lawmakers including former Rep. Bob Livingston, R-La., who abandoned a bid to become speaker after admitting to extramarital affairs.