Cnn
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House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy outlined some of the concessions he accepted in his campaign for a speaker on a conference call Sunday night, including facilitating the speaker’s ouster, according to multiple GOP sources on the conference call. But McCarthy couldn’t say whether he would get the speaker’s vote, even after giving in to some of the right’s toughest demands.
The California Republican informed his members that after weeks of negotiation, he had agreed to a threshold of just five people to trigger a vote to impeach the speaker at one point, known as a “motion to leave the speaker’s chair “, and proposed it as a “compromise”. CNN first reported last week that it supports that threshold.
But there is still uncertainty as to whether that will be enough to get McCarthy’s gavel.
Some moderates — who fear the eviction request will be used as a constant bludgeoning on McCarthy’s head — pushed back and expressed frustration on the call, sources said.
South Dakota Rep. Dusty Johnson said he wasn’t happy with the low threshold, which McCarthy accepted, though he indicated he would swallow it, but only if it helped McCarthy win the speaker’s position. Other members made it clear that if McCarthy’s critics end up undermining his bid to speak, the negotiated rules package will be out of the question.
Florida Representative Mario Diaz-Balart lobbied McCarthy that that concession on the motion to evict would win him the 218 votes. But he didn’t respond directly, even though McCarthy earlier said on the call that people were “moving slowly” in the right direction.
However, later in the tender, Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz — one of five hard “no” votes for McCarthy — said that despite the concessions, they would not support McCarthy.
Florida Rep. Carlos Gimenez then repeated Diaz-Balart’s question and asked McCarthy to answer. McCarthy’s response, according to sources, was that they have days to finalize the deal and they need to finalize it.
Representative-elect Mike Lawler of New York asked Gaetz if he would support McCarthy if he agreed to take the motion to eliminate the single-term threshold, which he used to do before spokeswoman Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat from California, changed the rules. Gaetz replied that McCarthy had refused to consider the idea, but if he had made that offer now, he would have considered it.
McCarthy said he disagreed with Gaetz’s characterization, arguing that the rest of the conference could not support the one person threshold. “It’s not about me,” said the California Republican. However, he asked Gaetz if he could come up with a “yes” if McCarthy dropped to a one-person threshold, which Gaetz has yet to commit and said if it was a genuine offer he would consider it.
House Republicans plan to release their final rule package, which will formalize a set of these concessions later Sunday evening. However, sources have warned that nothing is truly final until the package is approved.
After the House of Representatives has elected a speaker and sworn in members, lawmakers vote on the set of rules that will govern the functioning of the House of Representatives.
