U.S. Rep. Chip Roy emerges as key GOP agitator in U.S. House speaker fight

U.S. Rep. Chip Roy, R-Austin, speaks with reporters as he departs the House floor after House representatives held their third vote for House speaker on the first day of the 118th Congress on Tuesday in Washington, D.C. The House adjourned without a speaker voted in. (Credit: Michael McCoy for The Texas Tribune)

WASHINGTON — U.S. Rep. Chip Roy is showing no signs of backing down in his fight to overhaul Congress, even as he’s facing off against the most powerful members of his party to do so.

The boisterous Austin Republican continued to issue impassioned pleas from the House floor Tuesday afternoon urging a shake-up of his party’s leadership and pressing for changes to rules that he says keeps the power of Congress in the hands of a small group of party leaders. Roy’s stand, along with the protests from a vocal group of roughly 20 other right-wing Republicans including two Texans, blocked his party from being able to select a Speaker on Tuesday — the first time in a century the House was unable to select its leader on the first try.