U.S. Rep. Becca Balint, D-Vt., and 215 of her colleagues voted Tuesday to oust Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., from his post as House speaker in a historic moment that Balint described as “the chickens coming home to roost.”
Spurred by U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., Tuesday’s vote to “vacate” the speakership — the second-ever such vote to be held, and the first successful one — arrived after a drawn-out power struggle between McCarthy and members of the Freedom Caucus, an ultra-conservative wing of the House GOP.
Speaking to VTDigger by phone before casting her vote, Balint said McCarthy’s demise was months in the making. She pointed back to January, when it took McCarthy an extraordinary 15 floor votes to win the speakership after making significant concessions to the Freedom Caucus. Balint dated what she dubbed the Republican “civil war” even further back — to Jan. 6, 2021.
“The issues that were not dealt with on January 6, and in the days that followed, are now coming to a head,” Balint said Tuesday afternoon. “This is a civil war within the Republican Party, and the extremists have been in charge and have owned this speaker, Kevin McCarthy, from the time when he got enough votes to be speaker.”
Even when a faction of his razor-thin Republican majority moved to oust him, McCarthy told Washington reporters on Tuesday that he did not intend to make concessions to Democrats in order to win their support. In the end, Balint said it was a “math problem,” with just a handful of far-right Republicans moving to oust McCarthy, Democrats unified in voting against his speakership, and too few loyal Republicans remaining.
But even if McCarthy had made an attempt to court Democratic support to stay in his role, Balint said Democrats had no reason to take him at his word. “He is not a trustworthy partner,” she said.
“You have this unity within the Democratic caucus saying, ‘He has broken every promise and commitment he has made not just with us, but with the president and with members within his conference,’” Balint said. “And so how can we possibly support this man when he has given us no reason to do so?”
As for what comes next, Balint said she is unsure. The New York Times reported on Tuesday that there is no clear Republican candidate on the roster to replace McCarthy. That leaves the body leaderless at a crucial moment: Congress must pass a spending bill within 40 days to avoid a government shutdown.
Balint told VTDigger that she would not commit to supporting any Republican for speaker — even a moderate — this early in the game, with no clear contenders rising to the top. The only candidate with a plurality of support in the body, as far as she was aware on Tuesday, was House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y. But she said she has not heard of any disgruntled House Republicans willing to defect from their party to support Jeffries as speaker.
“We are, of course, always willing to have conversations across the aisle,” Balint said. “The problem that I want people to understand right now is that there has been a complete and total unwillingness from leadership on the Republican side to work with us.”
