Brawl in Capitol Hill DC 2023, Brawl in Senayan Jakarta 2014
Around 00.27 am ET, January 7th 2023, when tally count for McCarthy reaches 216. Or (official) Clerk House Cheryl Lynn Johnson announced 00.37 am. Rep. Ryan Keith Zinke's vote (the last in the roll call) the chamber (well, half the chamber) erupted in cheers. But ever the precise one, the House Reading Clerk waited until all the noise died down before repeating his vote - "McCarthy" - and then walked away.
At 15 ballots, this was the fifth-longest Speaker election in American history. The longest U.S. speakership race in 164 years (after 45 hours & 57 minutes). Dean of the House, Harold “Hal” Dallas Rogers swears in McCarthy as Speaker at 1.40 am. McCarthy swears in members of the 118th Congress. 55th House Speaker Kevin Owen McCarthy (R-Calif.) holds up the Speaker's gavel after winning the House speakership election in the 15th round of voting, for 118th Congress. “Because it took this long, now we’ve learned how to govern,” McCarthy said after holding the gavel.
216 is the random lucky number for speakers in squeakers. Nancy Patricia D’Alesandro Pelosi (117th Congress) won with 216 (in 2021). John Andrew Boehner won with 216 (in 2015; 114th Congress) and Newton “Newt” Leroy Gingrich won with 216 (in 1997; 105th Congress). Gingrich’s triumph in 1994 in wresting the House from a Democratic majority for the first time since 1952 was the starting point for the zero-sum brand of politics that mutated into the deep red-state style-conservative, the grievance-based populism of the Trump era, and what was garishly displayed on the House floor in a raucous four-day speaker battle that ended in the small hours of Saturday.
McCarthy thanks Trump & says he helped get him the final votes. Amid the 15th ballot, Trump spoke directly with Andy Biggs & Matthew Louis “Matt” Gaetz on the phone. Trump allies are giving credit to the ex-president for nudging holdouts and getting McCarthy over the finish line. Comes as there have been questions all week about whether this chaotic episode showed a decline in his influence. “I don’t think anyone should doubt his influence,” McCarthy admit.
And now McCarthy in 2023 (118th Congress), with 216. On the night of Obama’s inauguration (Jan 2009), Newt gathered at a Washington steakhouse with a small group of desultory Republicans that also included McCarthy. It was Mr. McCarthy who, consulting his inner Gingrich, urged a hyper aggressive approach to Democratic control in Washington. Jan 7th 2023, 4.02 pm, Biden spoke directly with McCarthy to congratulate him.
The chamber descended into chaos when two lawmakers nearly came to fisticuffs, as frustration boiled over and it looked like McCarthy once again wouldn’t clinch the speakership. The pandemonium on the House floor Friday night was the culmination of a week's worth of infighting hitting a breaking point. McCarthy said he is “1000 percent” confident he will hold the Speaker chair for the next two years. What exactly did McCarthy concede to become Speaker or ended the ballot saga isn’t totally clear. This split among best friends shows Freedom Caucus’s division as it becomes infuriate, quasi-establishment.
The brawl exposes that division within the party that's going to continue to haunt them unless they find some way to navigate it. The chamber descended into chaos when two lawmakers nearly came to fisticuffs, as frustration boiled over and it looked like McCarthy once again wouldn’t clinch the speakership, ended with finally McCarthy elected. Mike Rogers furious at prospect of Gaetz controlling Armed Services subcommittee gavel. McCarthy’s Speaker Proposal Tees Up $75 Billion Defense Cut. For some, a nightmarish preview of future battles on Pentagon funding, the foreign aid budget, assistance for Ukraine. For others, a comedy of errors worth savoring before Republicans take power & launch extensive oversight investigations. The late-night floor scramble, 28 minutes that saved Kevin McCarthy.
To continue the work of coming together, piece by piece, House members have worked diligently to identify the most important policy challenges facing our state. There are still some ways to avert legislative catastrophe over the next two years — but, after McCarthy’s appeasement of political arsonists in his party, they are fewer.
But, the right-wingers who took McCarthy to the cleaners & will make a mess of the House see things from the standpoint of Deep Red America where 2022 was defined not by far-right GOP defeats in swing states but by a surge of anti-Democratic feeling. The power that the extremists will yield over the next two years bodes ill for normal governance under Biden administration. McCarthy will need at least two of these six people to win every party line vote of the whole house: Biggs / Boebert / Gaetz, or (other trio) Crane / Rosendale / Good. None actually voted for him as Speaker, only vote PRESENT. Normally restrained and reliably conservative member from a red state confessed frustrated as hell. This should not be mistaken for overwhelming love for McCarthy, but (GOP) can't cave into demands from people who have no interest in governing or any clue how to do it.
Around 12.27 pm, precisely 12 hours after being elected, McCarthy is in the Capitol again, showing off his new digs, his new office, his new placard, to family.
Some point (not entire) McCarthy's offer to GOP holdouts:
House Republicans will adopt an FY24 (Fiscal year 2024) budget resolution that balances w/in 10 years, includes long-term reforms to budget process and mandatory spending programs, and caps FY24 discretionary spending at enacted FY22 levels or lower.
We will reject any negotiations with the Senate unless and until they pass appropriations bills of their own—and will reject any Senate-passed appropriations bills that do not comply with the House-passed budget resolution and reduce non-defense discretionary spending.
We will not agree to a debt limit increase absent a discretionary budgetary agreement in line with the House-passed budget resolution or other commensurate fiscal reforms to reduce and cap the growth of spending.
Prohibit consideration of any bill that has the net effect of increasing direct spending without greater or equal offsets.
Create a new Floor point of order against unauthorized appropriations in a general appropriations bill in excess of the most recent enacted level.
The long saga, actually, also happened in Indonesia Parliament.
Setya Novanto, former treasurer of the Golkar Partys central executive board (has been sentenced to 15 years in prison because graft), was appointed as the house speaker during a plenary session held from Wednesday (Oct. 1st 2014) until early Thursday (I remember: 5.03 am, Oct 2nd 2014, I’m present in the Plenary Room). Like C-Span (created/installed inside the House chamber since 1979, enabling once-obscure members of Congress to reach a national audience with combative monologues that dragged on into the night) in the U.S., Indonesia Parliament has an internal media. But in a brawl (October 2014), Parliament urged every media, and even included internal Parliament media, out of the plenary room. Why am I still trapped in the plenary room just because I have ID card special guests, not “media”. So, when the brawl happened in the Capitol last night, I remember what I witnessed nearly 9 years ago in Jakarta.
Setya stepped down from his post on December 16th 2015, less than 2 years. Setya alleged multiple graft, violation of ethics.
During the ballot session, fierce debates, brawl, broke out among the politicians representing the Red-and-White Coalition of political parties and their rivals from the PDIP-backed coalition. The ballot session began on Wednesday Oct. 1st 2014, (around 4 pm, after all parliament members had sworn) and stretched on until close to dawn the next day (5.03 am), after hours of fractious bickering, brawl, shouting, storming the podium and a mass walkout by nearly a fifth of those present.
Their appointments consolidate the Red-and-White coalition’s grip on the legislature as it tries to outmuscle the parties loyal to President-elect Jokowi Widodo, who faces an increasingly hostile Parliament and an uphill battle to govern.