WASHINGTON — The battle to see who becomes the next Speaker of the House inched along Friday.
Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-California) picked up more than a dozen new votes, but he still came up short, and after two tries, the chamber adjourned. Meanwhile, all other business is on hold.
On the 12th, and then 13th ballot, McCarthy did get more than a dozen hard-line, hold-out Republicans to flip and vote for him. But he was still four shy of the needed 218 votes.
"Mr. McCarthy doesn't have the votes today. He will not have the votes tomorrow. And he will not have them next week, next month, next year," said Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Florida).
And so, the longest process to pick a Speaker of the House since before the Civil War continued. Lawmakers from both sides of the aisle expressed exasperation.
Republican Virginia Second District representative-elect Jen Kiggans tweeted Thursday: "I cannot express how difficult and disappointing it is to have been confronted with such paralyzing dysfunction in my first week."
Democrat Rep. Bobby Scott of Virginia's third district worried that exactly zero items of the people's business was being conducted the longer this thing dragged on.
"And if they can't put together a vote for a Speaker, you wonder how they can put a vote together for legislation," he said. "You don't have any organized Congress. If for some reason, legislation needed to be considered on an emergency basis, we don't have a sworn-in Congress to take action."
The Office of the Historian of the House says the longest contest for Speaker took place in 1855. It required 133 ballots and took two months to complete.
