January 6, 2023
What did Representative Kevin McCarthy give up to win more votes for Speaker of the House?
Here’s the thing. We already know some of the concessions that he made, but we don’t know all of them…yet. But we will learn them all if and when McCarthy is elected Speaker.
But first you have to understand – every time we have a new Congress, we not only get a new Speaker with new committee assignments for members, but we also get a new rules package. This includes a list of ground rules that governs how the house logistically will function until the end of 2024. It includes big things like how votes on the floor will be handled all the way down to small things like – what are C-Span cameras allowed to show of the House floor.
The person in charge of those rules is the speaker. So the person who is running for that position negotiates with his or her own members to figure out what the rules should be. This is where the negotiating and the concessions come into play. We won’t know all of what Kevin McCarthy agreed to until the rules package he negotiated is voted on by the full house and passed. But that won’t happen unless he’s elected Speaker.
But we do know some of the things he’s already agreed to in order to win the votes he has. A big one — any one member can call for a floor vote to “vacate the chair.” If that vote is successful on the House floor the Speaker would be removed. That’s a lot different than Speaker Pelosi whose most recent threshold for a member to motion to vacate the chair was a majority of either party. There’s an upside and a downside to this. I can make a whole video about that.
Back to McCarthy. He also agreed to create a subcommittee to investigate how the federal government is being weaponized and he agreed to put certain members on certain committees including members of the Freedom Caucus.
McCarthy also agreed to add mandatory spending cuts with any deal to increase the debt ceiling – which is huge and coming up in a few weeks. He agreed to expand the time between a bill’s introduction and the floor and debate to 72 hours. To end proxy voting – so now, to vote, a member has to physically be present in the chamber, and he agreed to putting bills on the floor that include a balanced budget amendment, border security and term limits. Of course if any of those bills pass the House, keep in mind — they still would have to pass the Democrat controlled Senate.
