15th District Congresswoman Mary Miller eventually flipped her vote behind embattled California Republican Congressman Kevin McCarthy in the bitter party in-fighting for Speaker of the House.
After voting against McCarthy on the first 11 ballots, Miller finally threw her support behind him on the 12th ballot, joining some, but not all, of the very conservative, “Never Kevin” Republicans who had thrown up roadblocks to his House Speaker bid.
McCarthy edged a victory after a historic 15 rounds of voting, the most ballots its taken to elect a House Speaker since 1859.
Miller tweeted out on Friday that she and her colleagues were negotiating for a “historic conservative victory” to stop what she calls “reckless spending and debt.” She finished the tweet on Friday by saying House Republicans must stop President Joe Biden.
Last night, Miller issued a press release outlining some of the upcoming agenda that she says the 20 Republican holdouts wanted from McCarthy. The agenda includes a mechanism to block the Senate from passing any kind of omnibus spending bill, making cuts to the federal budget, asking for a balanced federal budget within 10 years, and a “Church-style” committee to “investigate the weaponization of the federal government including the Biden justice department,” southern border security, and the ending of federal Covid-19 mandates among others.
The holdouts also received concession from McCarthy’s camp to include the reinstatement of a longstanding House rule that would allow any single member to call a vote to oust him from office.
The fight to put McCarthy in power got vitriolic at times. The AP reports that a few minutes before voting began in the House chamber on Friday, Republicans walked out of the House Chamber when Florida Republican and McCarthy detractor Matt Gaetz railed against the GOP leader. The remarks brought an objection from 12th Illinois District Congressman Mike Bost, who cursed at Gaetz, bringing an admonishment from the House Clerk. A spokesperson for Bost did not immediately respond to a request for comment to the AP on Friday.
McCarthy emerged victorious after Republicans Andy Biggs and Eli Crane of Arizona and Bob Good of Virginia voted “present,” which lowered the threshold of support the GOP leader needed to win late Friday night.