Despite the fact that the current race for the speaker of the House is still ongoing, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) has already started the process of moving over into the speaker’s suite.
Highlighting a video showing a man moving a large pile of blue containers in what seemed to be the U.S> Capitol, it was reported by NBC News’ Haley Talbot that McCarthy “has moved into” the suite of offices for the speaker and will have move his stuff out in shame if he does end up losing the recent vote. Additionally, boxes seemingly coming from McCarthy’s office were spotted being moved over into the speaker’s suite at some point last week, as reported by CNN.
GOP Leader McCarthy has moved into the speakers suite but if he fails to secure 218 he will have to move all his stuff back out @AllieRaffa pic.twitter.com/Lb2swMgQ2p
— Haley Talbot (@haleytalbotcnn) January 2, 2023
The storm of activity seemingly kicked off the new year which will see Republicans finally taking control of the House with a slim margin. McCarthy did not speak on any specifics at all but did show some fairly extreme confidence when questioned by the mass media this past Monday.
“I think we will have a good day tomorrow,” expressed McCarthy.
Q: Speakers votes locked in?
KM: and take away all the excitement?
Q: do you have the votes locked in?
KM: I think we will have a good day tomorrow
Q: Leader McCarthy are you prepared to make more concessions in exchange for votes?
KM: *sigh* hope you all have a nice new years pic.twitter.com/k6HFLAUME7— Haley Talbot (@haleytalbotcnn) January 2, 2023
Currently, McCarthy is in a position to be selected by a group of his peers to take the role of House Speaker from Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), and it was stated by Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel that McCarthy seems to be right “on track” to secure a win, as explained in an interview from this past Sunday.
Despite everything, there are a few key GOP holdouts that could end up ruining the plans for McCarthy’s bid. Over the course of the past few days, McCarthy put forth a number of concessions to try and bring these holdout conservatives back into line, including making it easier to get rid of a currently sitting speaker of the House. In light of his overtures, a group of nine House Republicans signed off on a letter openly going against the bid from McCarthy by stating that “specific commitments” remain missing.
While Republicans currently still have a 222-seat majority in this new session of Congress, McCarthy requires a total of 218 affirmative votes to take up the speaker’s gavel. The threshold to expressly secure a majority would drop if the members that are “present” choose not to vote, or are absent.
As a former chairman of the House Freedom Caucus, Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ) has chosen to offer himself up as a popular secondary candidate to McCarthy. A report from Roll Call stated that there is in the works what is being called a longshot backup plan for a group of other Republicans to work with Democrats to try and nominate retiring Rep. Fred Upton (R-MI) for speaker if there are multiple ballots.