All it took was a single-page resolution for the congressman Matt Gaetz, a hard-right Republican from Florida, to set in motion a move unprecedented in congressional history: the ousting of a House speaker.
On Tuesday, a handful of conservative rebels joined Gaetz in voting to depose Kevin McCarthy, the Republican speaker. By a vote of 216-210, the effort succeeded, plunging the Republican-controlled House once again into chaos and cementing Gaetz’s position as one of Capitol Hill’s chief antagonists.
It has also brought renewed media attention to a controversial politician who thrives on it.
“Florida Man. Built for Battle,” reads Gaetz’s bio on X, formerly Twitter.
Gaetz followed his father into politics more than two decades ago. After serving in the Florida statehouse, Gaetz was elected in 2016 to represent a ruby-red chunk of the Florida panhandle.
Since his arrival in Washington, the pompadoured lawmaker has built a political brand as a far-right provocateur, courting controversy seemingly as a matter of course.
Like Donald Trump, to whom he is fiercely loyal, Gaetz is more interested in sparring with political foes than in the dry business of governance, according to his critics. On Capitol Hill, he has repeatedly disrupted House proceedings, including once barging into a secure facility where Democrats were holding a deposition hearing.
In 2018, he was condemned for inviting a Holocaust denier to Trump’s State of the Union address. A year later, he hired a speechwriter who had been fired by the Trump White House after speaking at a conference that attracts white nationalists.
Months after the January 6 attack on the Capitol, Gaetz embarked on an “America First” tour with Marjorie Taylor Greene, the far-right Georgia congresswoman, in which they amplified the former president’s false claims of fraud in the 2020 election. He also continued to attack Republicans critical of Trump, using language that reportedly alarmed McCarthy, who feared the lawmakers’ words could incite violence.
A worse-than-expected showing in the the 2022 midterms delivered Republicans a wafer-thin majority in the House, giving rabble-rousers such as Gaetz outsized power in the caucus.
That was clear from the outset, when Gaetz led the bid to block McCarthy from becoming speaker, relenting on the 15th round of balloting after McCarthy consented to concessions. Among promises McCarthy made to hard-right lawmakers was to allow any member to bring a motion to remove the speaker from the leadership position.
Gaetz and other far-right members threatened to deploy the tactic if McCarthy relied on Democratic votes to pass any spending legislation, as he did over the weekend to narrowly avert a government shutdown. On Monday, Gaetz filed the motion that resulted in McCarthy’s removal.
Gaetz has argued that he is acting in the interest of the American people and Republican voters who want McCarthy to stand up to the president, even if that means risking a debt default or a government shutdown.
“It’s to the benefit of this country that we have a better speaker of the House than Kevin McCarthy,” Gaetz told reporters after McCarthy was deposed.
McCarthy has charged that Gaetz was motivated by vengeance after McCarthy declined to interfere in a congressional investigation into Gaetz’s conduct.
“It was personal”, not ideological, McCarthy told reporters of Gaetz’s motives.
Over the past two years, the House ethics committee has been leading an inquiry into allegations of sexual misconduct, including sex trafficking and sex with a minor, illicit drug use and misuse of campaign funds, among others.
In February, the justice department declined to bring charges against Gaetz. Gaetz maintained his innocence throughout.
“I am the most investigated man in the United States Congress,” Gaetz told reporters on Monday, insinuating that the inquiry was an effort to smear him. “It seems that the ethics committee’s interest in me waxes and wanes based on my relationship with the speaker.”
In recent months, speculation has swirled that Gaetz has his sights set on higher office. About his future political ambitions, the Florida congressman was dismissive of both the suggestion he planned to run for governor or the US Senate. “If I want to go to a retirement community,” the 41-year-old told reporters, “I’m going to The Villages, not the United States Senate.”
