Democrats And Republicans Alike Play Cat-and-mouse With Future of McCarthy's Speakership
Any single lawmaker can call a vote to strip away the gavel from McCarthy
The federal government is just days away from shutting down, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy is still fighting to hold onto his job.
And with his grip on the gavel so tenuous, Democrats and Republicans are playing a coy cat-and-mouse game with his future leading the House.
McCarthy has been navigating a narrow and difficult path from the beginning when he made extraordinary concessions to the furthest right elements of his own party in order to win the vote as speaker after 15 rounds of balloting which was unprecedented in the modern era.
Among the deals McCarthy gave away was a provision in which just any one member of the House can call a vote to remove him as speaker.
And his antagonists on the right — especially Rep Matt Gaetz (R-Fla) — have lately been wielding that as a threat if they don't get what they want in terms of the must-pass spending bills required of Congress in order to keep the government open.
With McCarthy's speakership in at least some jeopardy, lawmakers on both sides of the political aisle are keeping their options open.
“That would be something I would look strongly at, ma'am, if we do away with our duty that we said we're going to do,” Republican Rep Tim Burchett, of Tennessee, said Sunday, referring to supporting a vote to remove McCarthy as speaker.
Meanwhile, across the political spectrum, one of the most progressive Democrats in the House refused to answer if she would help Gaetz oust McCarthy.
“I mean, I think that we would have to cross that bridge when we get to it,” Rep Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, of New York, told Margaret Brennan, of CBS News, Sunday. “Speaker McCarthy has been very weak. I think that he has also engaged in just absolutely terrible decision-making for the American people, from continuing to try to cement denying the right to an abortion among women, to policy that denies the reality of climate change, to basic fiscal irresponsibility and recklessness.”
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