Senate Republicans on Jan. 3 criticized the House GOP for failing to elect a speaker despite holding a majority in the lower chamber in the new Congress.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said the three failed votes on Tuesday, which featured more than a dozen Republican members not voting for Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), was “not a good start” and questioned whether the GOP-held House would ever pass a bill that President Joe Biden would sign.
“At the end of the day, you’re not going to pass a bill out of the House that Biden will sign,” Graham said.
Bills need to be approved by both the House and the Senate before reaching the president’s desk. The president can sign or veto a bill. Congress can override a veto with a two-thirds majority in each chamber.
Democrats expanded their majority to 51–49 in the Senate in the midterms, which saw Republicans flip about a dozen seats to gain control of the House.
Business can’t be conducted, though, until the House selects a speaker, the top official in the lower chamber. To win the speaker election, a candidate must receive a majority of the votes, unless the body chooses to change the threshold.
In the first two rounds, 19 Republicans voted for somebody other than McCarthy. Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.) joined them in the third round.
The Republicans who did not vote for McCarthy say he won’t enact enough change if he wins the election and want to unify behind a different candidate.
Most of the votes went to Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), who voted for McCarthy each time.
Jordan told reporters after the third vote that he does not want to become speaker.
All Democrats voted for Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.).
No speaker votes had gone past the first ballot since 1923 before Tuesday.
Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) said the failure to pick a speaker on the first day signaled an “unsteadiness” in the House GOP.
“My assumption is that, in the end, they’ll get organized over there. Because everybody will, at some point, realize that chaos is not a good alternative in terms of starting the Congress,” added Senate Minority Whip John Thune (R-S.D.). “It’s clearly not a smooth transition.”
Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.), who also used to serve in the House, said that he thought the process would be resolved by the end of the week.
“Republicans are pretty independent. I think it’ll be noisy for a couple of days and then they’ll figure it out and we’ll get moving as a country,” he said.
Senators were already sworn in but House members have to wait until a speaker is chosen.
‘Must Understand’
Graham warned that the GOP fractures could lead to Jeffries becoming speaker.“To those Republicans who suggest it is better to have Hakeem Jeffries as Speaker you must understand that means backing policies like: DC statehood [and] Puerto Rican statehood,” he said on Twitter.
That could happen if the threshold to win is lowered by GOP members voting present, one technique that McCarthy and his allies have floated. The move could also end up with McCarthy winning.
Winning requires receiving a majority of votes from members who are present and vote for a person.
Democrat senators, meanwhile, said they’re focused on crucial work while Republicans continue trying to pick a speaker.
“While Republicans are back in Washington today to battle for more power for themselves, Democrats are back to work fighting to lower prices and expand opportunity for you and your family,” Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.Y.) wrote on Twitter.
“The American federal legislature is non functional literally the minute Republicans take over,” Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) said. “That sounds like the kind of thing that one says in the heat of the campaign, not as a statement of fact on Opening Day.”
