So… as the House made a last-minute move to avoid a government shutdown over the weekend, it has led to a vote scheduled for this afternoon that could see the House Speaker removed, in essence, by members of his own party.
Hard-right member Matt Gaetz (R-FL), who has made it clear since January– when it took 15 rounds of voting to elect Kevin McCarthy of California as Speaker– that he has been unhappy with McCarthy, used as his final justification the continuing resolution and the supposed negotiations around it to file a motion to remove the Speaker late yesterday. The House is scheduled vote on that motion this afternoon. Gaetz has been the most public and vociferous of a group of hard-core right-wing members of the House Republican conference that has sought concessions from the Speaker since the beginning of this Congress. Apparently, at least for him, the CR was the last straw.
A House Speaker has never been removed during a session and numerous questions abound about how things might unfold:
- Will a “motion to table” the vote– or kill the motion– before there is an actual vote on the motion succeed?
- If there is an actual floor vote, how many Republicans will join Gaetz in voting to remove McCarthy?
- It’s clear that the vast majority of the Republican conference supports McCarthy. Will Democrats help McCarthy in anyway to stay in power?
- Who would replace McCarthy?
These are only a handful of questions that will be answered relatively shortly.
Read more about the situation here, here, and here.