The resignation from the House by former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) took effect Sunday, leaving Republicans with a razor-thin majority of 220-213 over the Democrats following the expulsion of George Santos (R-NY) earlier in December.
McCarthy gave a farewell speech on the House floor on December 14.
McCarthy’s letter of resignation to Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA):
Ex-Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s resignation from Congress is effective today.
US House now has 220 Republicans and 213 Democrats, with vacancies in #CA20 (McCarthy) and #NY03 (Santos) pic.twitter.com/28xzo7ByCI
— Greg Giroux (@greggiroux) December 31, 2023
Video of McCarthy’s farewell address to Congress:
McCarthy, 58, served as Speaker of the House for nine months, having been voted out on October 3rd on passage of a motion to vacate filed by Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) that passed 216-210 with eight Republicans joining all Democrats.
CBS News reported on Gaetz’s comments about the vote (excerpt):
“The reason Kevin McCarthy went down today is because nobody trusts Kevin McCarthy,” Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida told reporters after the vote. “Kevin McCarthy has made multiple contradictory promises, and when they all came due, he lost votes of people who maybe don’t even ideologically agree with me on everything.”
“This represents the ripping off of the Band-Aid and that’s what we need to do to get back on track,” the Florida Republican added.
Along with Gaetz, seven Republican members voted to oust McCarthy: Reps. Andy Biggs of Arizona, Ken Buck of Colorado, Tim Burchett of Tennessee, Eli Crane of Arizona, Bob Good of Virginia, Nancy Mace of South Carolina and Matt Rosendale of Montana.
A day earlier, Gaetz accused McCarthy of making a “secret side deal” with President Biden on Ukraine aid to get a short-term funding bill passed hours before the government was set to shutdown. The California Republican denied having made any deal in exchange for Democratic votes.
The beginning of the end for McCarthy started in the spring when he threw away a winning hand on budget deficit negotiations with Joe Biden and the Democrats for next to nothing in return, giving Biden unlimited borrowing power for the final two years of his term in office.
A majority of the American people supported the Republican position to reduce spending instead of the Democrats’ position of an unlimited debt ceiling. Yet, McCarthy gave the Democrats unlimited deficit spending.
19% think the debt limit should be increased without conditions, while 63% want terms on reducing the federal budget deficit included. https://t.co/yzHSm0dkDh pic.twitter.com/0mbCjfAWb9
— AP-NORC Center (@APNORC) May 19, 2023
McCarthy’s end came after he jammed conservatives in the House with a last-minute 45-day budget deal passed with Democrat support to keep the government open at the end of September.
McCarthy was first elected to the House in 2007. As Speaker, he reopened the Capitol to the public after former Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) had closed it due to the pandemic. McCarthy also did away with proxy voting and the metal detectors at the doors to the House floor instituted by Pelosi.
McCarthy announced his resignation on December 6 in a Wall Street Journal op-ed (excerpt):
I’m an optimist. How could I not be? I’m the son of a firefighter. For 17 years I’ve served in the same congressional seat—the same office in which I was once denied an internship. Only in America.
I helped lead Republicans to a House majority—twice. We got more Republican women, veterans and minorities elected to Congress at one time than ever before. I remained cheerfully persistent when elected speaker because I knew what we could accomplish.
Even with slim margins in the House, we passed legislation to secure the border, achieve energy independence, reduce crime, hold government accountable and establish a Parents’ Bill of Rights. We did exactly what we said we would do.
We kept our eyes on America’s long-term global challenges by restoring the Intelligence Committee to its original charter and establishing a bipartisan Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party.
…It is in this spirit that I have decided to depart the House at the end of this year to serve America in new ways. I know my work is only getting started.
I will continue to recruit our country’s best and brightest to run for elected office. The Republican Party is expanding every day, and I am committed to lending my experience to support the next generation of leaders.
