Evening Summary
Two days. Six votes. Still no Speaker of the House.
It’s been a bizarre “Groundhog Day” on Capitol Hill, where the House of Representatives, which has a new Republican majority, is still gridlocked on who should become the next Speaker of the House. No other business can proceed until one is appointed. As we wrap up our US politics coverage for tonight, here are the key events of today:
After another three rounds of voting on Wednesday, California congressman Kevin McCarthy still does not have enough votes to be elected speaker, with 20 Republican holdouts, including a number of far-right Republican “rebels”, blocking the former GOP leader from assuming the leadership of Republicans’ new majority.
McCarthy has lost a total six leadership votes over the past two days.
As Republicans continue to negotiate over who should become the next speaker, McCarthy supporters are still optimistic that they might be able to bring enough GOP members around with political concessions to elect him tomorrow.
Meanwhile, some Republicans are eyeing an alternate candidate, including number two House Republican leader Steve Scalise, who survived a mass shooting attack on congressional Republicans in 2017.
Congressional Democrats, who lost the House majority in the 2022 midterm elections, are savoring the Republican chaos.
At 8pm ET, House Republicans narrowly succeeded in voting to adjourn the House until noon on Thursday, to give McCarthy and his allies more time to negotiate a deal before a seventh vote. Democrats almost succeeded in blocking this vote.
Updated
Democrats, now the minority in the House, are ‘literally eating popcorn’ as GOP flails
Democrats lost the majority in the 2022 midterm elections. But the new Republican House majority is so divided that a vote on who should become the speaker of the House has led to multiple days of gridlock and failure for California congressman Kevin McCarthy, who led House Republicans when they were in the minority, and expected to be voted in as speaker.
No normal business can begin in the House until the body has elected a speaker.
How are Democrats feeling? “They love this. They’re literally eating popcorn,” CNN’s Anderson Cooper said.
And Democratic members of Congress also stayed “super united” tonight, almost succeeding in their effort to block House Republicans from adjourning tonight before holding another vote.
Republicans passed their first vote in their new majority when they decided to adjourn. It was the first time we also saw the real five holdouts — Reps. Biggs, Boebert, Crane, Gaetz, & Good.
— Marianna Sotomayor (@MariannaReports) January 5, 2023
We saw Dems stay super united in trying to sink the vote, almost successfully doing so
Updated
