Rep. Victoria Spartz of Indiana, who voted for Kevin McCarthy for House speaker three times before switching to “present” during the last two rounds of voting, said there must be more deliberation before moving forward with more rounds.
“I think it’s important for us as Republicans to address concern and come to an agreement and not waste everyone’s time and we need to have further deliberation to make sure that we can elect a speaker,” Spartz told CNN’s Jake Tapper.
“We need to go back to the conference room and have this discussion, not wasting time on the floor because no one is going to budge. It’s not going to change, and I think we have a constitutional duty to elect a speaker … This body needs to learn to deliberate, and come to an agreement,” she said.
Spartz said the body should be adjourning now, and they should’ve stayed up all night until they figured out the next speaker.
“Everyone has different experiences, and we here have to be able — especially in a tight majority — to be able to come to consensus and work with each other, and that is some of the leadership skill the next speaker needs to show, and if Kevin wants to be the one, he need to do better working with other people who don’t agree with him and be able to get them on board,” she said.
Some background: A majority of those present and voting is required to get the speakership, which is usually 218 lawmakers. But if enough people skip the vote or vote “present,” the number of votes required for a majority can drop.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was elected with 216 votes in 2021.
Watch the moment:
