The US House of Representatives was adjourned till 2200 hours ET (0300 GMT) after a failed 13th ballot to elect the next speaker.
While Republican speaker nominee Kevin McCarthy failed to gain the desired votes to become the speaker, he managed to make substantial headways, after three days of monotony.
On Friday afternoon, during the 12th and 13th ballots, McCarthy managed to flip 14 GOP lawmakers cumulatively who had previously not voted for him. McCarthy managed to have 214 votes in his favour while Democrat nominee Hakeem Jeffries had 212.
With two Republican leaders expected to not play any further part in the House proceedings due to personal reasons, the magical figure for McCarthy lies at 216, instead of the previous 218. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was elected with the same number of votes in 2021.
Media reports suggest that McCarthy’s team engaged in overnight negotiations with the rebels and even held a conference call in the morning to make the gains.
However, Matt Gaetz, Andy Biggs, Bob Good, Lauren Boebert and Matt Rosendale remain the five Republican leaders, adamant about not voting McCarthy into power. Notably, Mccarthy, the House minority leader can only afford four Republicans to vote against him.
After being rather dormant throughout the proceedings, McCarthy finally had an air of confidence about him as he suggested that the lawmakers will get the job done tonight.
“We’ll come back tonight. I believe at that time we’ll have the votes to finish this once and for all,” said McCarthy.
“It just reminds me of what my father always told me. It’s not how you start. It’s how you finish. And now we have to finish for the American public.”
Though McCarthy sounded optimistic, he had to make numerous concessions to the holdouts, according to several reports. McCarthy has reportedly accepted to bring back the rule that allows any member to bring the ‘motion to vacate’ which will trigger a vote on removing the speaker.
Other concessions include expanding the number of seats in the powerful House Rules Committee and attempting to bring a constitutional amendment that will impose term limits on members of the House and Senate.
(With inputs from agencies)
