By Farnoush Amiri - The Associated Press
What should have been a triumphant day for House Republicans, who took office on Tuesday, turned into a chaotic day, with interpartisan fights over who should lead them ending without a president on the rostrum.
The Conservatives failed to agree on a spokesperson after Kevin McCarthy failed to garner the necessary votes and overcome opposition from his party's right wing after a series of hours-long votes on the first day of the new Congress.
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Twenty lawmakers, including some of the most conservative members of the house, opposed McCarthy becoming speaker, hampering the House's ability to start its work and delaying the swearing-in ceremony for hundreds of members.
Republican lawmakers will try to pick a president on Wednesday despite uncertainty about how McCarthy might bounce back after becoming the first House candidate in 100 years to fail with his party holding a majority.
This is what you need to know on the second day of the House Speaker election:
Why is there no president?
McCarthy needed 218 votes on the full House, but he got only 203 in the first two rounds of voting on the first day - fewer than even Democrat Hakeem Jeffries in the Republican-controlled House - and fared even worse with 202 in the third round.
A growing group of critics warned for months that the California Republican did not have the votes needed to win the constitutionally mandated office, which would make him second in line for the presidency.
In response, McCarthy endlessly negotiated with the members, including the Reps.
Andy Biggs, Scott Perry and Matt Gaetz, to get their support.
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Negotiations dragged on until Monday night, when members of the ultra-conservative Freedom Caucus presented McCarthy with their final offer, which included demanding certain commission allocations in exchange for their votes.
McCarthy refused to agree, saying he had already gone far enough to appease lawmakers.
"Over the last two months, we've worked together as a conference to develop rules that empower all members, but we're not empowering certain members over others," McCarthy told reporters early Tuesday.
As a result, those members and more than a dozen others openly opposed it on the floor.
What does this mean for the Chamber?
Without a president, the Chamber cannot be fully constituted, since that person effectively acts as president of the Chamber and administrative head of the institution.
The inauguration of members, the appointment of committee chairs, the initiation of floor proceedings, and the launching of oversight investigations will be delayed until a chair is elected and sworn in.
"The focus needs to be on these 19 - now 20 - who are preventing Congress from doing the jobs we were elected to do," said Rep. Don Bacon, a Nebraska Republican.
"It's about them."
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How will it be resolved?
It is not yet clear if McCarthy will cross the threshold to become the next speaker of the House of Representatives.
The current number of Republicans who have pledged their support for other candidates stands at 20, and some suspect the list will grow.
The House is scheduled to begin another round of voting at noon on Wednesday.
Once the Chamber reaches a quorum - that is, the minimum number of members present to proceed - the respective leaders will read aloud the names of the candidates of each party before proceeding to the nominal vote to elect the new president.
On Tuesday, anti-McCarthy Republicans put forward other candidates, including Biggs, Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio and even former Rep. Lee Zeldin of New York.
"I stand to nominate the most talented and hard-working member of the Republican conference, who just gave the most visionary speech we've ever heard of the alternative," Gaetz said Tuesday in nominating Jordan.
To be sure, none of them reached a majority of the votes, but it was enough to take support away from McCarthy, who with a 222-213 majority cannot afford to lose more than a handful of votes.
The speaker candidate needs a majority of the votes of the members of the House present and voting.
Each legislator who votes “present” reduces the total number of votes needed to reach a majority.
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If McCarthy falls short again on Wednesday, the secretary will repeat the roll call vote until a majority is achieved or a motion for adjournment is approved.
Had this happened before?
The last time the House did not elect a president on the first ballot was in 1923, when the election lasted for nine ballots.
At the time, the Republicans had won a majority despite losing a whopping 77 seats, cutting their margin over the Democrats from 171 to just 18. The majority party had nominated Rep. Frederick Gillett, a Massachusetts Republican, to the post, but several other candidates, including a Democrat, received votes during roll call.
This led to a series of votes over three days before House Majority Leader Nicholas Longworth, Republican of Ohio, held an emergency meeting with opponents.
His concern, similar to that expressed against McCarthy, centered on a series of rule changes that he believed deserved a fair hearing.
Longworth agreed, and the next day Gillett got the 215 votes he needed to remain president.
