House Republicans Keep Failing To Pick A Speaker & The 'Hunger Games' Chaos Is Real
It's like Survivor, but worse.
Members of Congress voting on the next Speaker Of the House Of Representatives. Right: Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Rep. Kevin McCarthy.
WTF is happening in the U.S. House of Representatives?
That’s the question many people have been asking in the United States this week, after the new session of Congress kicked off with a super messy vote to pick a Republican for Speaker of the House.
Republicans won a narrow majority of House seats in the 2022 midterms, and former minority leader Kevin McCarthy was expected to continue leading the party once they took over as the majority on Tuesday.
However, 20 hardline Republicans refused to give McCarthy the votes he needed on Tuesday to seal the deal, leaving one part of Congress totally paralyzed until it can figure this thing out. The House needs a Speaker to swear in the new members, and no bills can be proposed or passed until it's taken care of.
And so they just. Keep. Voting.
The House voted three times on Tuesday and failed to pick a Speaker, which is something that hasn’t happened in a century.
They were onto their sixth round of voting on Wednesday, with McCarthy still unable to get the votes he needed to put this thing to rest. Despite the gridlock, the House keeps rolling through everyone one by one to get their votes, CSPAN video shows.
\u201cLIVE --> House Speaker Election Continues https://t.co/uM3YASrHaB #118thCongress https://t.co/cxuSTJEGR6\u201d— CSPAN (@CSPAN) 1672851519
The GOP rebels have been pushing for measures to restrict or cut various parts of the government, and for ways to put McCarthy's leadership up for a new vote whenever they want, the New York Times reports. The group includes the likes of Colorado Representative Lauren Boebert, Florida Representative Matt Gaetz and Georgia Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene.
Former U.S. President Donald Trump tried to put his finger on the scale Wednesday by urging the holdouts to back McCarthy.
“Some really good conversations took place last night, and it’s now time for all of our GREAT Republican House Members to VOTE FOR KEVIN, CLOSE THE DEAL, TAKE THE VICTORY,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform, per Politico.
However, everything was still a clusterf*ck as of Wednesday afternoon, as the whole thing descended into speeches and infighting on CSPAN.
No other Republicans have come close to beating McCarthy, despite a few challengers being put forward.
Meanwhile, people on social media have been ripping the entire situation and recommending a wide range of reality TV-style solutions.
Do we need a Survivor-style competition to sort this out?
\u201cOnly way to choose the next Speaker of The House is to make all present members draw rocks like in Survivor. Person with the odd colored rock is the next Speaker. \n#Survivor #Speakerofthehouse #SpeakerVote #Republicans\u201d— Jake\ud83c\udff3\ufe0f\u200d\ud83c\udf08 (@Jake\ud83c\udff3\ufe0f\u200d\ud83c\udf08) 1672857122
Or, as another Twitter user pointed out, it might be "more fun to watch it if it was like the Hunger Games and they had to fight for it."
"Bring on the Speaker Hunger Games," added another.
\u201cInstead of round 6 or 7 of voting for @USCongress speaker, May I suggest trial by combat. Pick your champions now. #utpol\u201d— DeAnn Kelly (@DeAnn Kelly) 1672863236
Democrats have already chosen Hakeem Jeffries of New York as their leader, but everyone has to wait for the GOP to sort itself out before anything can happen.
\u201cReally great camerawork by CSPAN to capture this footage of Kevin McCarthy today\u201d— Bill_TPA@mastodon.social (@Bill_TPA@mastodon.social) 1672864021
The last time something like this happened was in 1923, when it took nine rounds of voting to pick a Speaker, the New York Times reports.
So will Republicans find a way to line up behind McCarthy, or will they pick someone else to run the show?
We'll find out... eventually!