WASHINGTON (AP) — Pressure mounting, the speaker’s chair of the U.S. House sat empty for a third day Thursday, as Republican leader Kevin McCarthy failed anew on the seventh of an excruciating string of ballots to win enough votes from his party to seize the chamber’s gavel.
One of McCarthy’s steadfast critics, Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida, even cast his vote for Donald Trump, a symbolic gesture, but one that highlighted the former president’s influence over the Republican Party.
The seventh vote for speaker turned out no different from the others, with McCarthy well short of the required majority.
McCarthy emerged from a morning meeting with colleagues at the Capitol determined to persuade Republican holdouts to end the stalemate that has blighted his new GOP majority.
Despite endless talks, signs of concessions and a public spectacle unlike any other in recent political memory, the path ahead remained highly uncertain. The day started as the other two have, with Republican allies nominating him for now a seventh time to be speaker.
Republican John James of Michigan put McCarthy’s name up for a vote, with a nod to history.
“My family’s gone from being slaves to the floor of the United States House of Representatives” in five generations, said James, a newly elected lawmaker to be, who is Black.
He said that while the House Republicans were “stuck” at the moment, McCarthy, who has failed to seize a majority to become speaker, would ultimately win.
Democrat Hakeem Jeffries of New York was re-nominated by Democrats.
Republican party holdouts again put forward the name of fellow Rep. Byron Donalds of Florida, assuring the stalemate that increasingly carried undercurrents of race and politics would continue.
Donalds, who is Black, is seen as a future party leader and counterpoint to the Democratic leader, Jeffries, who is the first Black leader of a major political party in the U.S. Congress, on track himself to become speaker some day.
“We could have elected the first Black speaker of the United States House,” said conservative Republican Dan Bishop of North Carolina who re-nominated Donalds on Thursday.
Democrats jumped to their feet in applause, as Jeffries is, in fact, closest to the gavel with the most votes on every ballot so far.
What started as a political novelty, the first time in 100 years a nominee had not won the gavel on the first vote, has devolved into a bitter Republican Party feud and deepening potential crisis.
McCarthy is under growing pressure from restless Republicans, and Democrats, to find the votes he needs or step aside, so the House can open fully and get on with the business of governing. His right-flank detractors appear intent on waiting him out, as long as it takes.
