What we know now about the impact of the House Speaker stalemate
As the GOP-led House faces delays and stalemates naming its next speaker, how will foreign and domestic policy be impacted?
U.S. Rep. Jack Bergman’s offer to serve as the next U.S. House speaker didn’t last past the second ballot on Tuesday morning.
Bergman, R-Watersmeet, and a retired lieutenant general in the Marine Corps, last week said he would run, offering to be a stopgap speaker so that the House could get back to legislative business.
It has been three weeks since a handful of Republicans joined with Democrats to oust former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., after he relied on Democratic support — as well as that of most Republicans — to pass legislation keeping government open last month. More conservative Republican House members objected, however, and led an effort to push the speaker out.
Since then, neither of the GOP nominees who received a majority in closed-door Republican caucus meetings have been able to secure enough votes to win the floor vote in the House overall, given the narrow 221-212 membership edge it holds. To win the speakership, a candidate would need 217 votes, meaning he or she could only lose four GOP votes if all the Democrats were voting against the candidate.
Bergman — who has represented the Upper Peninsula and the northern Lower Peninsula since 2017 — was part of what was initially an eight-person slate of candidates running to be the GOP speaker designee, as voting began Tuesday morning by secret ballot behind closed doors. On each successive ballot until someone received a majority of the caucus, the lowest vote-getter on the previous ballot was dropped. On the second ballot, that was Bergman.
Following the vote, Bergman posted on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, “The House needs to elect a Speaker — and Republicans need to get to work. We have no time to waste. As I said before the vote, I’ll support our Speaker Designate on the House floor. We shouldn’t leave until we are confident we have 217 votes.”
U.S. Rep. Tom Emmer of Minnesota won the nomination on the fifth ballot over U.S. Rep. Mike Johnson of Louisiana, 117-97, but just a few hours later, Emmer reportedly dropped out of the running even before a floor vote, as some two dozen Republicans in the caucus apparently refused to back him.
Contact Todd Spangler: tspangler@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter@tsspangler.