Kevin McCarthy fails to become Speaker of US House of Representatives

The US House broke into Chaos yesterday as Republican member Kevin McCarthy failed to secure the position of the Speaker of the US House of Representatives. This is a massive loss for Kevin McCarthy whose party won the majority seats in the House, which should have been an easy win for him. But a significant number of Republican members refuse to support the desires of Kevin McCarthy. Things took a complete turn when Jim Jordan, another member of the Republican party, was nominated for the position of House Speaker. Surprisingly enough, Jim Jordan has been supporting McCarthy to become the Speaker of the House of Representatives. He even asked other Republican members to vote in favor of McCarthy, but still, 20 Representatives from the Republican party voted for Jim Jordan. Due to these events, chaos emerged in the US House which led to the House being adjourned without the Speaker. 

January 3 was supposed to be the first assembly of the newly formed House of Representatives where the Republicans secured a majority by four seats in Midterm Elections held in November of last year. Since then, Kevin McCarthy has been doing his best to get the majority of votes to become the Speaker of the House of Representatives. Speaker has the power to decide on committee members, start the legislative agenda, set house timetables, and many other things. Hence, it is considered one of the important positions in US politics. But during yesterday’s assembly, many members from the Republican party started rebelling against their own as they refused to support McCarthy, making him lose for the third time. This has made McCarthy’s candidacy look weak, which is estimated to make things difficult for him even if he wins the majority and becomes the House Speaker. 

A slight majority in the House for Republicans meant that any Republican candidate who wanted to become the Speaker had an extremely slight margin for losing votes. This already made things worse for McCarthy as 20 conservative Republicans allied together to prevent McCarthy from becoming the Speaker. Even after winning support from 188 Republicans, McCarthy’s dream of becoming the Speaker of the House was scrapped on Tuesday. McCarthy had already made several negotiations since November to win the remaining votes. But this just made his side seem even weaker, which repealed other party members as well. McCarthy is a potential figure in US politics who is known to be a focused politician, but his negotiations for the position of Speaker made him look desperate to hold power. Throughout his time in the party, many believe that McCarthy has made several enemies which is what caused him to have troubles during this election for the position of House Speaker. During Tuesday’s House assembly, McCarthy was rejected by 20 Republicans because of his personal beliefs and political beliefs. But according to many, this mainly occurred due to the Republican party having a slight majority in the House, which these Republicans saw as an opportunity for exploiting.