Kevin McCarthy's ouster leaves House with no clear path forward

WASHINGTON — After the unprecedented ouster of Speaker Kevin McCarthy on Tuesday, members of the House Republican majority are scrambling behind the scenes to determine what to do next and who will emerge as their chamber’s next leader.

All House members find themselves in uncharted territory — no speaker has been ousted with a motion to vacate the office before — and the temporary replacement for McCarthy, Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.), has only announced plans for electing a new speaker.

After McCarthy withdrew from the race, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), the Judiciary Committee chairman, and Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.), the House majority leader, on Wednesday announced their candidacies for speaker. A vote will come next Wednesday.

Before the vote, Republicans will hold a closed conference to discuss whom to support.

“On Tuesday, we're going to go into a Republican conference and hopefully come out with what I would love to see would be a unified candidate for all the [leadership] positions, and that we can elect a speaker in one round and not have to go through 15 rounds of speaker elections again,” said Rep. Anthony D’Esposito (R-Island Park).

But it’s unclear if the Republican conference will coalesce behind one candidate.

Republicans remain split between the eight who joined Democrats to depose McCarthy and the 210 who voted to retain him and whose anger has only grown at Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), the ringleader against McCarthy.

Here are some issues expected to arise from McCarthy’s ouster:

Temporary Speaker

As Speaker Pro Tempore, McHenry holds a newly created position never occupied before.

In the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, lawmakers pondered what would happen if the speaker’s office were to become suddenly vacant, said Sarah Binder, a governance expert at the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank. In 2003, the House passed a solution and put it into its rules.

“It basically said when somebody is elected speaker at the beginning of the Congress, he or she is going to write down a rank list — I think of them as ‘speakers in waiting’ — who would be the one to take the position,” she said.

“This is the very first time that the post 9/11 rule has been put into place, and so there is no track record, there's no past examples to look at," Binder said. "But what we do know is Patrick Henry seems to be taking a pretty narrow interpretation of the rule.”

Looming crisis

Congress approved a short-term spending bill that expires Nov. 17, but House Republicans appear split between moderate and more conservative members on passage of appropriations bills.

“If you try to pass an appropriations bill that is embraced by those on the right end of the of the conference, you're going to lose votes from the left end of the conference,” said Molly Reynolds, an expert on Congress at the Brookings Institution, a nonprofit public policy organization.

“That's not going to go away for whoever is the next Speaker of the House,” Reynolds said.

And hanging over this process in an agreement Congress and the White House made: if the House and Senate do not pass the 12 appropriations bills by year’s end, an automatic 1% cut in discretionary spending goes into effect across the board.

McCarthy’s millions

The abrupt removal of McCarthy raises a big dollar question.

McCarthy’s super PAC, the Congressional Leadership Fund, raised and spent $260 million during the 2022 campaign, including generous spending on races that helped Republicans win the House majority with upset wins in New York State.

His PAC made direct contributions ranging from $5,000 to $15,000 to help elect Long Island Republicans Nick LaLota, Andrew Garbarino, Anthony D’Esposito and George Santos, and sank $1.5 million in independent advocacy ads to help D’Esposito.

In contrast, Scalise’s PAC gave $10.2 million to the National Republican Congressional Committee and Jordan’s PAC raised $127,000 in the 2022 election cycle.

D’Esposito on Wednesday acknowledged McCarthy’s support, but said, “I am confident that I will foster a positive working relationship with whoever is selected as speaker.”

Seeking Revenge?

Supporters of McCarthy are weighing ways to punish Gaetz for toppling the former speaker.

They include proposals to oust Gaetz from the Republican conference and even stripping him of committee assignments.

“We are exploring all options on the table to hold Matt Gaetz accountable for his actions that paralyzed our government,” D’Esposito said in a statement.

Speaker Trump?

Rep. Troy Nehls (R-Tex.) said Tuesday he would file paperwork to nominate former President Donald Trump to be speaker. But don’t count on Trump taking charge of the House.

Asked Wednesday if he would take the speaker’s post, Trump said, “A lot of people have asked me about it.” But he added, “I’m leading like 50 points for president. You know my focus is totally on that. If I can help them during the process I would do it.”

Besides, current House rules bar anyone from a House leadership position “if indicted for a felony” with a sentence of two or more years. Trump faces 91 felony counts in federal and state indictments.