© AFP 2023 / ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS

Over the weekend, Congress narrowly passed a continuing resolution funding the government for another 45 days, to give more time to debate a series of spending bills that form the 2024 budget.

After a vote of 216 to 210, the US House of Representatives on Tuesday removed US Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) as speaker of the House. It was the first time the lower chamber voted on vacating the speaker’s office in 113 years and the first time it has ever succeeded.

The decision came after an earlier motion to table the vote failed, with 11 Republicans voting with Democrats against the motion and allowing it to proceed.

Shortly after the motion cleared the congressional chamber, Republican held a closed-door meeting to discuss next steps, specifically who would be put forward to permanently fill the position. At present, it’s temporarily filled by US Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-NC).

McCarthy has since detailed that he will not be making another bid for the speakership.

The former speaker added the country is too great for the small visions of the eight Republicans who voted alongside Democrats to oust him from his post. Moreover, McCarthy said he will look into whether he will remain in Congress.

Gaetz has suggested US Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA) would make a better speaker than McCarthy.
The Florida lawmaker is a member of a small GOP faction that has used the party’s slim House majority to push its own agenda on McCarthy. The faction, which is closely aligned with the Freedom Caucus and former US President Donald Trump, allowed McCarthy to become speaker in January only after extracting a series of agreements on policies, such as a willingness to engage in brinksmanship regarding budget cuts.

After McCarthy spent months refusing to raise the debt ceiling in an attempt to force Democrats into agreeing to steep budget cuts - a key demand of the Freedom Caucus - the speaker then agreed to cut a deal with Democrats in late May that provided for some limitations on the forthcoming budget, but well below what hard-liners had demanded. Gaetz and his coterie saw this as a betrayal and the threat to oust McCarthy has hung over the House chamber for months.

McCarthy’s fate was ultimately sealed after he blinked a second time in the showdown with Democrats over the fiscal 2024 budget this past weekend. Without a budget, the federal government would have shut down many of its non-essential functions until new funding could be passed.

Republicans made clear they saw this as an acceptable outcome if it meant pressuring the Democrats into large budget cuts, but McCarthy again cut a deal with Democrats at the last minute to pass a 45-day funding extension, giving lawmakers more time to debate the budget without facing a shutdown.

In the debate that followed the tabling vote, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), who is a member of the Freedom Caucus, spoke in McCarthy’s defense, saying the speaker had kept his word by passing its own version of the budget extension and not that advanced by the Senate, which is controlled by the Democrats.

After Jordan’s speech, Gaetz rose to counter him, suggesting that getting rid of McCarthy would speed up the process of passing the key spending bills for the 2024 budget - a suggestion that elicited roars of laughter and mockery from much of the House GOP caucus. After he was accused of spreading chaos by calling for the vote, Gaetz said it was McCarthy who was the agent of chaos.Several Republicans who have long stood in opposition to McCarthy, such as Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO), wound up voting against Gaetz’s attempt to vacate the speaker’s seat.

While some Republicans indicated they were looking to centrist Democrats to intervene and provide a path out of the situation, they showed little inclination to do so. According to US media reports, McCarthy was similarly disinterested in courting Democrats’ help.