Author: Politico

“They are not able to choose a speaker right now and I think this can play out in a lot of ways. And it makes sense to be here to offer an option,” said Amash, who roamed the chamber and held court with reporters Wednesday after flying in from Michigan.

But the fact that McCarthy’s bid is in such peril that a former Freedom Caucus member-turned-independent felt emboldened to preen about the Capitol on Wednesday, points to the larger political, and mathematical, gymnastics the conference is facing: If not McCarthy, who else could win near-total support of the Republican conference — and actually wants the job?

As one GOP member summed up the party’s existential dilemma: “Kevin doesn’t have the votes, but no one has more votes than Kevin.”

It’s a question with no clear answer and plenty of opportunity for chaos. While Republicans acknowledge they are privately throwing around names among themselves, there’s a persistent elephant in the room — McCarthy himself — that means they will remain largely hypothetical until the California Republican drops out.

And the GOP leader isn’t looking to remove himself anytime soon.

“I haven’t heard any [names] and I hope there won’t be any, because he is it,”said McCarthy ally Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.). “We’re not backing off.”

Ambitious GOP lawmakers who harbor their own gavel dreams know making a move now would be viewed as knifing McCarthy and alienating his allies. And with no “consensus” pick waiting in the wings, any speaker hopeful would need to solve the same Rubik’s cube of vote-counting that’s proved elusive to McCarthy so far.

Members admit that with McCarthy still in the running, it is tough to get a clear idea of another possibility, one who could match his fundraising prowess among other skills.

“There’s a number of names that have been floating about but we can’t actually get to that as long as Kevin says he’s going to keep running indefinitely,” Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas), one of the Freedom Caucus members opposing McCarthy thus far, told Fox News’ Laura Ingraham when asked if he’d prefer the House GOP’s No. 2, Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.).

If McCarthy does drop out, Scalise is the most obvious fall-back option. He has been adamant that he’s backing the California Republican, but he’s also in a tricky position. While he is likely the second most popular member in the conference — one who has also had his eye on the gavel in the past — he can’t have any fingerprints on the effort to take down McCarthy, or he’ll earn fierce and swift backlash from the Californian’s allies. So, he’s been laying low.

Some argue he has more conservative bonafides than McCarthy, who is still viewed skeptically by the right as a legislative chameleon despite his efforts to tie himself closely to former President Donald Trump. But others question if Scalise would be all that different in the eyes of the conservative hardliners opposing McCarthy.

Asked if a potential speaker Scalise could resolve the standoff, Jordan told reporters: “No one is talking about that.”

As the GOP leader’s allies and his defectors sat down together on Wednesday evening, many of the conservatives were openly predicting that the California Republican would be forced out. Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.), for instance, cryptically told reporters, “I think there’s gonna be a resolution” by the time the House resumed at 8 p.m. He predicted they’d have an entirely different candidate.

Those comments helped accelerate an already-active rumor mill in GOP circles. In one call among Republican lobbyists on Wednesday, for instance, several people raised the idea that some GOP members who have publicly supported McCarthy are secretly waiting for him to drop out to rally behind Scalise — a concept that McCarthy supporters have scoffed at as ridiculous.

Another fast-moving rumor among members is that Scalise and Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) could potentially reach a deal, in which one takes the speaker’s gavel and the other becomes majority leader. But, again, others denied any possibility it was true.

That increasingly active whisper network points to the current highly volatile nature of the GOP, which may end another day of speaker votes without a resolution.

Rep. Buddy Carter (R-Ga.), too, dismissed the idea that any other members had been floated for the House’s top post, declaring some members’ motto: “Only Kevin.” But as for the path forward, he said he had no idea: “I’m out of answers. Seriously. That’s the kind of situation we’re in right now.”

While some of the McCarthy opposition is personal, his detractors aren’t yet ready to bear hug Scalise as an alternative. Some are privately questioning how backing the Lousianian, particularly if he makes them the same offer on the rules that McCarthy has, wouldn’t just be rearranging deck chairs.

One McCarthy opponent told POLITICO, on condition of anonymity, that they would be willing to have conversations with Scalise but whoever came next would have to back “structural reforms” that conservatives are pushing for. If such demands include allowing one member to force a vote on deposing a speaker then that candidate, too, would be hobbling their speakership before it even began.

And some of McCarthy’s strongest backers are warning that they don’t view Scalise as the alternative if conservatives force the GOP leader out of the race.

Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.), who stressed that he was all for McCarthy as long as he’s in the race, said he viewed backing Scalise as a Plan B as letting “a small group hold us hostage.”

“I love Steve,” Bacon said. “[But] I just don’t want to cave to these guys who are holding us hostage. …They’re just looking for a scalp on Kevin.”

Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.) added that he believes no other Republicans besides McCarthy could get the votes needed to win the speaker’s gavel. That, in his mind, includes Scalise.

If McCarthy drops out, Fitzpatrick said the conference will have to look beyond its current roster.

“It would set a terrible precedent in our conference if you put all that work in, accomplish the mission [to gain the House majority] and then get jettisoned at the 11th hour,” Fitzpatrick said.

A bipartisan group of centrists members have had nascent conversations about trying to cut a deal that would elect a more moderate Republican, likely in exchange for cutting a power-sharing deal with Democrats.

In a boost to those long-shot hopes, retired Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.) opened the door on Wednesday, telling Michigan reporters that it was an “intriguing proposal.”

But even centrists acknowledge their threats are unlikely, and one McCarthy’s opponents consider a bluff. And Democrats insist their members are a long way from backing McCarthy or his allies — if they ever will.

Instead, conservatives are floating their own names as they cycle through their wish list. Their dream is Jordan, a McCarthy enemy-turned-ally and conservative hero, as speaker. But Jordan has been publicly adamant for months that he does not want to be speaker and he helped nominate McCarthy this week. Plus, the moderate wing and institutionalists are already shutting that idea down.

On Wednesday, they publicly shifted their public support behind Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.), who previously made an unsuccessful bid for conference chair. But McCarthy’s detractors say Donalds isn’t likely to be their final pick. And they are already floating other potential names, most notably Republican Study Committee Chair Kevin Hern (R-Okla.), as they look to offer other alternatives.

“I don’t think anything is final until we reach 218,” said Rep. Bob Good (R-Va.), one of McCarthy’s original opponents. “Time is on our side.”

European diplomats have agreed a raft of travel-related measures including facemasks, pre-flight testing and wastewater surveillance in response to the COVID wave currently engulfing China — raising the prospect of retaliatory action from Beijing.

However, none of the agreed measures are mandatory, leaving it to individual countries to decide whether to implement them.

At a crisis meeting in Brussels on Wednesday, national diplomats agreed on a “coordinated precautionary approach” in light of the surging COVID wave in China the Swedish presidency said in a statement.

The diplomats agreed that EU countries would recommend all passengers on flights to and from China wear high-grade face masks, and would issue advice to travelers on hygiene and health measures.

However, the wording of the remaining actions leaves countries with a fair bit of wiggle room. They are “strongly encouraged” to introduce requirements for negative pre-departure tests 48 hours before leaving China, as well as “encouraged” to randomly test passengers arriving from China and sequence positive results.

Countries are also “encouraged” to test and sequence wastewater samples from airports and aircraft from China, and to promote vaccine-sharing and immunization campaigns.

The measures, if implemented, risk retaliation from China, which warned this week that any restrictions on travelers from China were “unacceptable,” and would risk “countermeasures.” That’s despite even stricter travel restrictions for arrivals to China since the start of the pandemic, which ease somewhat on January 8.

While there is a lack of scientific consensus on whether such measures will reduce the risk of another variant landing in Europe, there has been pressure to introduce them nonetheless.

“Lots of countries actually want a restrictive approach a lot, but scientific evidence is not too supportive of this,” one diplomat told POLITICO.

Peter Piot, special adviser to the Commission, and former head of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said he was “happy” that member states now agree that “person-oriented restrictions” should be taken for travelers with COVID coming from China, and “certainly not a full travel ban.” “Not acting now, and in the absence of reliable information from China, would be hard to understand considering the principle of precaution,” Piot said.

The integrated political crisis response (IPCR) meeting brought together national diplomats who work in the fields of health and border controls to nail down these measures after health ministers drafted proposals during two previous meetings over the last week.

The coordinated approach comes after several EU countries including Italy, Spain and France introduced unilateral travel measures. The U.K. also requires pre-departure tests specifically due to the lack of reliable data from China, it said. The U.S., Japan and India have all implemented similar measures while Morocco has banned Chinese arrivals entirely.

EU countries agreed to reassess the situation and review these measures by mid-January.

Stuart Lau contributed reporting.

Those sent to prison for participating in the scheme include “Full House” actor Lori Loughlin, her fashion designer husband Mossimo Giannulli, and “Desperate Housewives” star Felicity Huffman. Coaches from schools including Yale, Stanford, Georgetown University and the University of California, Los Angeles, admitted to accepting bribes.

“It was a scheme that was breathtaking in its scale and its audacity. It has literally become the stuff of books and made-for-TV movies,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Stephen Frank told the judge Wednesday.

The prosecutor called Singer’s cooperation in the case “unparalleled” but said it was also problematic, noting that Singer admitted to obstructing the investigation by tipping off several of his clients who were under government scrutiny.

Defense attorney Candice Fields said Singer took great personal risk by wearing a wire to record meetings and “did whatever was necessary” to assist the government in its investigation. Fields had requested three years of probation, or if the judge deemed prison time necessary, six months behind bars.

Singer apologized to his family, the schools he embarrassed in the public eye and others. He also promised to work every day of his life going forward to make a positive impact in people’s lives.

“My moral compass was warped by the lessons my father taught me about competition. I embraced his belief that embellishing or even lying to win was acceptable as long as there was victory. I should have known better,” he said.

Singer pleaded guilty in 2019 — on the same day the massive case became public — to charges including racketeering conspiracy and money laundering conspiracy. Dozens of others ultimately pleaded guilty to charges, while two parents were convicted at trial.

Authorities in Boston began investigating the scheme after an executive under scrutiny for an unrelated securities fraud scheme told investigators that a Yale soccer coach had offered to help his daughter get into the school in exchange for cash. The Yale coach led authorities to Singer, whose cooperation unraveled the entire scheme.

For years, Singer paid off entrance exam administrators or proctors to inflate students’ test scores and bribed coaches to designate applicants as recruits in order to to boost their chances of getting into the school.

Coaches in such sports as soccer, sailing and tennis took bribes to pretend to recruit students as athletes, regardless of their ability. Fake sports profiles were made to make students look like stars in sports they sometimes didn’t even play. The bribes were typically funneled through Singer’s sham charity, allowing some parents to disguise the payments as charitable donations and deduct the payments from their federal income taxes.

Singer took in more than $25 million from his clients, paid bribes totaling more than $7 million, and used more than $15 million of his clients’ money for his own benefit, according to prosecutors.

“This defendant was responsible for the most massive fraud ever perpetuated on the higher education system in the United States,” prosecutor Frank told the judge Wednesday.

Before Singer, the toughest punishment had gone to former Georgetown tennis coach Gordon Ernst, who got 2 1/2 years in prison for pocketing more than $3 million in bribes.

Punishments for the parents have ranged from probation to 15 months behind bars, although the parent who received that prison sentence remains free while he appeals his conviction.

One parent, who wasn’t accused of working with Singer, was acquitted on all counts stemming from accusations that he bribed Ernst to get his daughter into the school. And a judge ordered a new trial for former University of Southern California water polo Jovan Vavic, who was convicted of accepting bribes.

What’s in the rule: The policy, once implemented, will allow chain and independent pharmacies to stock and dispense the drug to pregnant people with a prescription. It’s unclear, however, how many pharmacies will agree to do so, considering it requires a special certification process. Until now, pregnant people could either receive the pill directly from their doctor or have it prescribed via telemedicine and sent by mail, depending on their state’s laws.

CEO Evan Masingill of GenBioPro, the generic maker of the medication, called the FDA’s move “a step in the right direction that is especially needed to increase access to abortion care.”

“The FDA determined that removal of the in-person dispensing requirement and the addition of the requirement for certification for pharmacies were necessary to minimize the burden on the health care delivery system of complying with the [agency’s Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy], while still ensuring that the benefits of mifepristone for medical abortion outweigh the risks,” he said.

He added, however, that the policy “will not provide equal access to all people” because many states have laws in place either banning abortion in most circumstances or mandating that patients only get the pills directly from their prescribing doctors.

Why it matters: The abortion pill recently became the most common method of terminating a pregnancy in the United States, and has been the focus of some of the most heated legal, political and regulatory fights since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June 2022.

Telemedicine and mail delivery of the pills has allowed patients to circumvent state bans, and anti-abortion groups are exploring new ways to impose restrictions on them. The Biden administration, meanwhile, has been under pressure from pro-abortion rights groups and progressive lawmakers to do more to protect access in the post-Roe era.

The new rule will improve access to the pills only in states that already allow their use, though many patients in states with bans could take advantage of it by crossing a state line and picking the drugs up from a pharmacy.

And while they had some access to the drugs already, many people in more progressive states are expected to benefit from the new pharmacy option, including those without a stable home address, those who do not want a parent or partner to see the pills delivered by mail and those without internet access.

How we got here: Anti-abortion and pro-abortion rights groups have fought over the FDA regulations around abortion pills since they were first approved more than 20 years ago. In medication abortion, mifepristone is taken with misoprostol, though the latter drug is subject to fewer restrictions because it’s commonly used for other purposes, like inducing labor and treating stomach ulcers. The new FDA rule lifts some restrictions on mifepristone, which was more strictly regulated.

REMS is the program the agency created to manage Mifeprex and a few dozen drugs with serious safety risks, requiring specific monitoring or management techniques. Proponents of increased access to medication abortion have argued the drugs used in the process are safe and shouldn’t be subject to a REMS.

Until 2021, mifepristone could only be dispensed in person by a physician. Then the Biden administration, in response to a lawsuit by the ACLU and other groups, moved to allow telemedicine prescription and mail delivery just for the duration of the Covid-19 pandemic — rules that the agency later made permanent, citing new data about the pills’ safety and effectiveness.

GenBioPro and Danco Laboratories, which makes the pill under the brand name Mifeprex, submitted a joint response to the FDA in June 2022 requesting further changes to the drug’s REMS — specifically, the certification process for pharmacies dispensing the drugs.

Currently, mifepristone distributors must be certified by the drug’s manufacturers, and prescribing doctors must demonstrate they understand how the drug induces abortions and how to advise patients to use it. Patients also must sign a disclosure forum acknowledging they are taking the medication to end a pregnancy.

Now, pharmacies that become certified under the REMS may directly dispense mifepristone to patients with a prescription from a certified prescriber.

“At a time when people across the country are struggling to obtain abortion care services, this modification is critically important to expanding access to medication abortion services and will provide healthcare providers with an additional method for providing their patients with a safe and effective option for ending early pregnancy,” Danco Laboratories, which makes the branded drug Mifeprex, said in a statement.

So what happened Tuesday in “the people’s house?”

Members who constitute less than 5 percent of the chamber, and less than 10 percent of the Republican caucus, brought the House to a standstill.

Kevin McCarthy, who is increasingly coming to resemble Charlie Brown on the pitcher’s mound, managed to win 85 percent of the House GOP vote last November. That’s a pretty impressive demonstration of the conference’s sentiment. But because the GOP majority in the House is so thin, only five defectors out of 222 were needed to throw a cloud over McCarthy’s selection as speaker. Conservative hard-liners then made a series of demands — which McCarthy was largely inclined to meet — that would cede even more power to an ever-smaller cohort. (One of those demands would have given a single member the power to call a vote for the removal of the speaker — the very power that helped drive previous speakers into retirement.)

Did it matter that the great majority of House Republicans did not embrace these demands? Did it matter that the overwhelming majority of them wanted to hand McCarthy the speaker’s gavel? No. With the determination of a hostage-taker, this little band of willful men and women managed to leverage their 5 percent of the vote into at least temporarily paralyzing Congress.

Well, maybe this is not all that surprising. One of the striking aspects of our current politics is the growing disdain of some in the Republican universe for the whole idea that majorities get to govern.

For instance, you might think that Republicans are concerned about their inability to win the presidential popular vote. Once upon a time, they won it more often than they lost; from 1952-1988, the GOP won it seven out of ten times. Since then, they have won it once, and lost it seven times. True, that is not how presidents are elected, but rather than trying to broaden their share of the vote, Republicans prefer to talk about “voter integrity,” and raise questions about those voters in Atlanta, Philadelphia, Detroit. One top Wisconsin GOPer even said that if you don’t count Milwaukee or Madison, Republicans would win every statewide contest. Behind these “voter integrity” proposals is the unspoken conviction that “the wrong people” are voting.

Among some thinkers on the right, there is substantial support for the idea of an “independent state legislature,” with power to draw the lines, set the rules (and perhaps even cast the vote) for elections, that cannot be challenged by courts, or even voters who want independent redistricting commissions. It’s a notion that may be too much even for the aggressive conservative super-majority on the Supreme Court, though it’s too early to tell exactly how the court will rule on the issue.

We don’t know yet whether the current smash up in the House will cause an aggrieved majority of House Republicans to finally say “enough” to the rebels, who are surely eager to cause more mayhem after this episode. Could they be denied committee assignments? Is it possible that a different minority — the ever-shrinking band of genuinely moderate Republicans — will join the Democrats to elect a speaker of their own? (It’s unlikely, of course, and the lesson of what happened to pro-impeachment House Republicans does not suggest a happy ending for this tactic).

What we do know is that we are being taught another lesson in just how fragile majorities — and our very system of governance — can be, especially if they are challenged by a minority shrewd enough and committed enough to attack their vulnerabilities.

Andy Biggs

(R-Ariz.)

Republicans originally rallied behind the Arizona Republican, the former chair of the House Freedom Caucus, as a symbolic alternative to McCarthy during the first conference-wide vote for GOP leader. Thirty-one GOP lawmakers voted for someone other than McCarthy last November, a sign that McCarthy would not have the votes come Jan. 3. Ten Republicans voted for Biggs on Tuesday during the first speaker vote.

Dan Bishop

(R-N.C.)

Bishop came to Congress in 2019 after time in the North Carolina state Legislature. A member of the Freedom Caucus, Bishop said in a statement Tuesday that McCarthy “is not the right candidate to be Speaker,” arguing he’s maintained the “status quo” that has made Congress unpopular among the American people.

Lauren Boebert

(R-Colo.)

A lightning rod since she first knocked off a Republican incumbent in a 2020 primary, Boebert has long criticized the status quo in Washington. “I worked diligently with my conservative colleagues to put together a deal that would unify the conference behind Kevin McCarthy,” she said on Tuesday. “He rejected it.”

Josh Brecheen

(R-Okla.)

The Oklahoma Republican is a new member who succeeds Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.) in representing the House seat covering almost all of the eastern portion of the state. A self-styled fiscal conservative in the vein of former Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), for whom he once worked, Brecheen originally cast his vote for Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.).

Michael Cloud

(R-Texas)

A member of the House since 2018, the Texas Republican said in a statement that Congress is “broken” and that despite negotiations with McCarthy and others, “ultimately many of the promises made lacked enforcement mechanisms necessary to ensure their implementation, casting doubt on the sincerity of reforms.”

Andrew Clyde

(R-Ga.)

The Georgia Republican first assumed office in 2021 and made waves when he likened the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol to a “normal tourist visit.” Clyde is a member of the Freedom Caucus.

Eli Crane

(R-Ariz.)

A new member-elect, Crane flipped a newly redrawn seat previously held by former Rep. Tom O’Halleran (D-Ariz.). He signed on to a letter along with eight other conservatives calling McCarthy’s concessions on the chamber’s rules “insufficient” shortly before the vote.

Byron Donalds

(R-Fla.)

After previously casting his vote for McCarthy in the first two votes, Donalds switched his vote to Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) during the third ballot. “The reality is Rep. Kevin McCarthy doesn’t have the votes,” he said in a statement after the third round. The sophomore Republican has made waves in the conference, throwing his hat in the ring to be chair of the House GOP conference last year ― a bid that he later lost to Rep. Elise Stefanik (N.Y.). Donalds was even floated as an alternative to McCarthy, with Rep. Chip Roy (Texas) voting singlehandedly for the Florida Republican.

Matt Gaetz

(R-Fla.)

Gaetz has led the charge against McCarthy’s bid for speaker since the onset. He’s been in office since 2017 and frequently clashed with party leadership of both parties. “Maybe the right person for the job of speaker of the House isn’t someone who wants it so bad,” Gaetz said Tuesday on the House floor.

Bob Good

(R-Va.)

One of the original five members of the “Never Kevin” caucus, Good has opposed McCarthy’s elevation to the speakership from the jump. He came to Congress in 2020 after defeating a sitting congressman — then-Rep. Denver Riggleman (R-Va.) — in a GOP primary. Good and McCarthy have bad blood dating back to that primary defeat.

Paul Gosar

(R-Ariz.)

Coming to Congress in 2011, the former Tea Party member and now Freedom Caucus lawmaker is one of the most conservative members of his party and a magnet for controversy. The Arizona Republican was previously called out by McCarthy for attending a white nationalist event last year, and was censured and stripped of his committee assignments by the House after posting an animated video that depicted him killing Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.)

Andy Harris

(R-Md.)

One of the longest-serving members to oppose McCarthy, Harris first came to Congress in 2011 after a lengthy career in the Maryland state Senate. He’s a member of the Freedom Caucus and cast his first vote Tuesday for former Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-N.Y.) before subsequently backing Jordan.

Anna Paulina Luna

(R-Fla.)

The freshman won election to a newly redrawn seat on the western coast of Florida. Luna signed on to a number of the letters from Perry laying out additional demands of McCarthy, including the one on Jan. 1 calling his concessions “insufficient.”

Mary Miller

(R-Ill.)

Miller first assumed her seat representing a sprawling swath of southern Illinois in 2021 and defeated former Rep. Rodney Davis (R-Ill.) in a member-on-member battle this most recent cycle. She’s a member of the Freedom Caucus and drew the highest-profile attention when she said in January 2021: “Hitler was right on one thing: He said, ‘Whoever has the youth has the future.’”

Ralph Norman

(R-S.C.)

Another of the original “Never Kevin” renegades, Norman has not wavered in his opposition to the California Republican. He’s a member of the Freedom Caucus and originally came to Congress in mid-2017 following a special election to replace Mick Mulvaney.

Andy Ogles

(R-Tenn.)

The freshman prevailed after Tennessee lawmakers redrew a district to break up the city of Nashville. Ogles has also signed on to a number of the letters seeking concessions from McCarthy in exchange for votes. Many signatories have felt those they got did not go far enough.

Scott Perry

(R-Pa.)

As chair of the Freedom Caucus, Perry has been one of the most vocal critics of McCarthy, leading the push for institutional changes that members of the caucus argue would restore power to rank-and-file members. This includes a change to lower the threshold on the motion to vacate, which would allow for members to dispose of a sitting speaker. However, even though McCarthy has stated that he was open to lowering the threshold for such a move, Perry was one of nine conservatives who said they weren’t satisfied with McCarthy’s answers to a list of demands from last month. Hours before the vote, Perry released a scalding statement on McCarthy, saying that the California Republican “failed to demonstrate any desire to meaningfully change the status quo in Washington.”

Matt Rosendale

(R-Mont.)

The second-term Montana lawmaker has been against the McCarthy speakership bid from the beginning. “We need a leader who can stand up to a Democrat-controlled Senate and President Biden, and unfortunately, that isn’t Kevin McCarthy,” he tweeted in November. Rosendale is being closely watched as a potential statewide office candidate in 2024 after coming up short in his Senate bid in 2018.

Chip Roy

(R-Texas)

Roy has also been a key antagonist to McCarthy, advocating for reforms to House rules — including the motion to vacate the chair. Even before coming to Congress, Roy previously pledged his support for Jordan as speaker, and promised to be a thorn in the side of establishment Republicans. “I’m not blinking,” he said Tuesday on Fox News.

Keith Self

(R-Texas)

The Texas Republican just assumed office, succeeding former Rep. Van Taylor (R-Texas), who retired. Prior to his election to Congress, Self served as county judge for Collin County, Texas.

It’s fair to say that many Republicans were hoping for a smoother opening day. Instead the House adjourned Monday without picking a speaker.

“The unsteadiness I see over there [in the House] concerns me. We get the majority, and then we start a circular firing squad,” said Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), a member of Republican leadership. “Sen. McConnell has his detractors, for sure. But he’s a strong, steady leader that cares about his members. And that’s what you need.”

“I just hope they can overcome the dysfunction,” she added of her former House colleagues. “And also, I’m very glad I’m not back in the House.”

Even as McConnell celebrates surpassing Mike Mansfield’s mark of 16 years as party leader, the Kentuckian has his own problems. He’ll be presiding over a 49-seat minority and faced his first contested leadership race two months ago as he dispatched a challenge from Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.). McConnell won that race handily, but it was a reminder of the unrest in a party that blew several winnable Senate and governor races in 2022.

And despite the Republicans winning the House majority, albeit barely, the dynamic in that chamber proved much less stable than its Senate counterpart as it labored to elect a speaker Tuesday. And while legislating will slow with a split Congress, the Senate and House Republican factions will eventually have to work together, at least to keep the government lights on and raise the debt limit.

First the House bedlam must play out.

“My assumption is that, in the end, they’ll get organized over there. Because everybody will, at some point, realize that chaos is not a good alternative in terms of starting the Congress,” said Senate Minority Whip John Thune (R-S.D.). “It’s clearly not a smooth transition.”

Former Speaker Nancy Pelosi and former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) both faced opposition in their final campaigns to lead the Democrats but ultimately came out on top. Current Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and incoming House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) faced no opposition in their recent leadership campaigns after the party overperformed in the midterm elections.

Both GOP leaders, by contrast, faced internal fights after the party underwhelmed in a midterm election with a Democratic president. Not to mention previous dramas, including the exits of former Speakers Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and John Boehner (R-Ohio).

“Democrats didn’t all apparently love Pelosi,” said Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.), another former House member. “Republicans are pretty independent. I think it’ll be noisy for a couple of days and then they’ll figure it out and we’ll get moving as a country.”

Still, he conceded the congressional disorder is “good drama” but ultimately “the decision has to be made” on a new speaker. And there are bigger concerns waiting just around the corner.

The toughest deadline awaiting Republicans is the debt ceiling, an episode that routinely divides the GOP and can disrupt the economy — or worse. Ultimately, the GOP House will have to pass a bill raising the debt limit, likely sometime this year, and at least nine Republicans will have to break a filibuster for it to clear the Senate. A similar dynamic will unfold this fall on government funding.

Beyond that, House Republicans will face pressure to pass conservative legislation — with just a handful of votes to spare — and, in turn, push the Democratic Senate to consider it.

“McCarthy’s election to speaker may be the easiest thing he does all year. Then trying to legislate in the majority, obviously that’s going to be very hard,” said Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas). “Especially if you have people who are not particularly interested in generating a legislative result and who are more interested in attracting attention to themselves.”

McConnell made clear on Tuesday he was still backing McCarthy and said in an interview he is “pulling for him,” leaving no room for doubt despite the disparate positions of the two Republican leaders. Several GOP senators expressed confidence that, eventually, McCarthy would prevail.

Still, there was an unmistakable feeling among Senate Republicans that even from the minority, tight margins in the fractious House may force them to play a leadership role for the GOP in the next two years.

“My great hope is that they’re going to pull together. It’s really important that they learn how to govern. And we will absolutely do our best here in the Senate to provide leadership as well,” said Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), another member of GOP leadership. “I think people can look at the steadying influence in the Senate and still understand that while we have our differences, that we still can find a path forward.”

Ernst opposed December’s $1.7 trillion government spending bill, which split Senate Republican leaders and animated McCarthy’s campaign for speaker. The Californian repeatedly slammed the legislation as he campaigned for the House gavel, even visiting with GOP senators in December to make his case. Ultimately just nine House Republicans voted for it, a sign that the House and Senate GOP are misaligned not just on political strategy, but also on must-pass legislation.

McCarthy wanted a short-term spending bill to give him and his party more leverage in the new Congress, but Senate Republicans cut a deal instead with Senate Democrats to fund the government through September. Several GOP senators openly worried that House Republicans might not be sufficiently organized to fund the government early this year, given the then-developing speaker brouhaha.

Tuesday was even worse than they could have imagined. Given that chaos, Capito concluded that taking away a potential February shutdown fight “is going to end up being a very smart move.”

Marianne LeVine contributed to this report.

Following this mix of rising stars and veteran legislators in Austin, Texas, Lansing, Mich., Harrisburg, Penn., and other capitals is key to understanding the issues that will frame the lives of millions of Americans — and feed a burgeoning 2024 campaign cycle.

Intense debates are also teed up over taxes, spending, labor and much more. These are the state lawmakers to watch.

Pennsylvania

Rep. Joanna McClinton

The Pennsylvania House has been caught up in major drama since the midterms with both parties claiming to hold power over the lower chamber due to surprise post-election twists, including a lawmaker’s death. Weeks of intense intraparty negotiating gave way to some clarity this week when the House named a new speaker after Democrats flipped the chamber in November.

Until this week, Democratic leader Joanna McClinton claimed the speakership, becoming the first woman and first Black woman to hold the role. On Tuesday, however, she stepped aside and gave her support to moderate Democratic Rep. Mark Rozzi, who said he will act as an independent and won’t caucus with either party.

Still, McClinton will continue to wield considerable power within her party as Democrats solidified their statewide standing in the midterms with the elections of Gov.-elect Josh Shapiro and Sen. John Fetterman. And McClinton could make another play for the speakership later this session if Democrats win a handful of special elections that would reestablish their majority.

McClinton said she is focused on expanding health care coverage, affirming abortion rights, ending wage theft and rewriting laws related to the criminal justice system — work that’s influenced by her career as a public defender.

“I’ve got a real passion for pursuing justice, standing up and advocating for folks in a system that is far too crowded,” she said in an interview.

Sen. Kim Ward

Sen. Kim Ward, the top Republican in the Senate, last session became the first woman to be named majority leader.

During her tenure in the Senate, now in her fourth term, she led efforts to implement a work authorization system for employment, and backed expanding protections against child abuse. She also spearheaded legislation mandating statewide Covid-19 disease reporting and limiting the governor’s ability to extend state emergency declarations in pandemics.

Ward, in an interview, said she wants to work with Democrats on issues that will benefit Pennsylvania, not on “ideological issues that are never going to go anywhere.”

West Virginia

Del. Moore Capito

Republican Del. Moore Capito is the next generation of a West Virginia political dynasty — and a test for how much weight the name still carries.

Shortly after winning his fourth term in the state House last fall, he announced a gubernatorial bid. Capito is the son of Sen. Shelly Moore Capito and grandson of former Gov. Arch Moore. His cousin, state Treasurer Riley Moore, is running for Congress in 2024.

“We are going to need somebody with the grit and the experience to be able to take West Virginia to the next level,” Capito said in an interview. Republican Gov. Jim Justice, a former Democrat, is term-limited and thought to be considering a run for the Senate.

Serving as chair of the West Virginia Republican Legislative Committee, Capito deployed a successful candidate recruitment strategy for the 2020 elections that resulted in Republicans picking up 18 seats in the state House, winning a supermajority for the first time.

Capito said his focus in the statehouse since he was elected in 2016 has been on how to attract young people to West Virginia and transform the state into a technology and entrepreneurial hub. He backed the creation of a fintech “sandbox” in 2020 that aims to incentivize tech companies to test products and services within the state by temporarily lifting business regulations. He hopes to expand that into the energy sector this year.

Texas

Rep. Dade Phelan

Following one of the most conservative legislative sessions in recent history, Dade Phelan, the Texas speaker, remains well-positioned to decide how hot the deep-red lower chamber will get this year. In 2021, Phelan, a Republican, oversaw sweeping changes to the state’s abortion and elections laws before they rippled across the country during Texas’ legislative break last year.

Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick has a strong hand in influencing members in the state Senate and setting a multi-item agenda in the chamber this year, and he has also aired frustrations about Phelan and Republican Gov. Greg Abbott since last session. Although Phelan has mentioned taxes and education issues in recent months, he has not yet made an official announcement about his legislative priorities or anything that might shed light on potential conflicts with Patrick.

But Phelan knows how to shepherd contentious legislation. Despite outcries from state Democrats, nearly every GOP priority passed last session — leading the minority party to flee the state for D.C. in a dramatic attempt to halt a special session called to cement new elections laws they considered too restrictive. Abbott threatened to arrest the lawmakers upon their return to Austin, and Phelan himself signed the warrants while also worrying that detaining lawmakers might cause “un-repairable harm” to his chamber.

Iowa

Rep. Pat Grassley

Iowa Speaker Pat Grassley has a famous last name — and it’s long been speculated that he plans to run for his grandfather’s Senate seat when it opens up.

But it may be awhile before the younger Grassley takes on federal politics: Sen. Chuck Grassley, 89, was reelected in November to his eighth term and Pat Grassley has dismissed the notion that he’s been preordained as his grandfather’s successor as a “conspiracy theory.”

Instead, Grassley has focused on solidifying his influence within the state Legislature during his 15 years serving in the Iowa House. Senate Republicans earned a supermajority in November, one of the GOP’s biggest wins in the midterms, and the party is expected to use its boosted statewide influence to enact conservative policies.

Iowa could set an example on school choice — it’s a top priority for Gov. Kim Reynolds, who has tried for years to get legislation approved in the House. Grassley is setting up the infrastructure for her to potentially succeed with the creation of a new education committee this session that will consider changes to the K-12 system.

Virginia

Sen. Siobhan Dunnavant

One of the most interesting — and fraught — fights over Republican ambitions to restrict abortion access is likely to play out in Virginia. Abortion is legal in the state throughout the first and second trimesters, but Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin is seeking to largely ban the procedure after 15 weeks of pregnancy. Sen. Siobhan Dunnavant is among the four Republicans he’s asked to draft the legislation — an OB/GYN, and the only medical professional in the group.

Republicans took control of the state House in 2021 with a five-seat majority as Youngkin won the governorship. Democrats hold control of the Senate by just one seat. Those narrow margins — and the state’s purple politics — make passing abortion restrictions tricky.

Dunnavant, who represents a competitive district in the Richmond suburbs, has built a voting record since 2016 opposing abortion. She has also expressed support for a Texas law that banned abortions at 20 weeks with exceptions only for the life of the patient or severe fetal anomalies but not for rape or incest.

Florida

Rep. Juan Porras

Republican Rep. Juan Porras will be the youngest member of the Florida House at 25 years old. His election helps mark a new era for Miami-area politics, which has steadily grown redder since Donald Trump’s election in 2016 (Porras’ district includes an unincorporated strip of Miami-Dade County).

“We’re seeing a huge shift, especially here in south Florida,” Porras said in an interview. “A lot of the Hispanic communities and younger communities are leaning more toward conservative ideas and voting Republican.”

In the midterms, Gov. Ron DeSantis became the first GOP gubernatorial candidate to win the county in two decades, carrying downballot Republicans with him to victory.

Porras defeated Democrat Gabriel Gonzalez, a fellow Gen Z candidate.

He has said the statehouse — where he worked as an intern — should bring more accountability to homeowners association fraud, a major issue in his district, which contains sprawling condo complexes with thousands of units. He’s also a supporter of school choice, an issue he’ll work on as a member of the education committee.

Georgia

Sen. Jason Anavitarte

Georgia Sen. Jason Anavitarte helped found the state’s first Hispanic legislative caucus last year with a GOP state representative, a move meant to reflect the rapid growth of Georgia’s Latino populations. There are a record six Hispanic members in the General Assembly this year.

“My Republican colleagues and I aim not only to deliver strong representation to one of our state’s most important communities — but to send a clear message that Hispanic values will be at the front and center of conversations under the Gold Dome for years to come,” Anavitarte said.

Anavitarte got attention in December for drafting legislation to ban the TikTok app in Georgia, a proposal other states tried last year. It mirrors the U.S. Senate-approved measure that would ban the app on government-issued devices over security concerns about it and its Chinese-owned parent company ByteDance, though it is unclear how the House will vote on the issue.

Last cycle, the Polk County state senator pushed for a “constitutional carry” bill, one of Republican Gov. Brian Kemp’s priorities, that would allow residents to carry guns without a license in most public spaces.

Michigan

Sen. Winnie Brinks

Michigan is at the epicenter of Democratic politics after the party flipped both chambers of the state Legislature last fall and maintained control of the governorship. Now, Democrats face tremendous pressure to take full advantage of their trifecta by enacting a slate of progressive priorities. They just have to agree on where to begin.

Enter incoming Senate Majority Leader Winnie Brinks, the first woman to take on the role. Brinks will be working with Rep. Joe Tate, the first Black speaker of the Michigan House, to set that agenda. But the requests from lawmakers, voters and progressive advocates for what gets priority treatment are long.

“We’re ready for this,” Brinks said in an interview. She cited affirming abortion rights — which Michigan voters came out in droves to protect via ballot measure in the wake of Roe v. Wade’s fall last year — as an early order of business. She also wants to change tax policies she says burden working families, like restoring the earned income tax credit and repealing the retirement tax.

Brinks faces the challenge of keeping the peace between the progressive wing of the caucus — which is eager to repeal right-to-work rules and pursue other pro-labor actions — and moderates urging caution and bipartisanship. Brinks herself said Democrats must be “thoughtful about how we attack our agenda.”

She added: “At the end of the day I’m happy to have the challenges of the majority instead of the challenges of the minority.”

Illinois

Rep. Margaret Croke

During her first term in office, Illinois state Rep. Margaret Croke quickly became a voice for the next generation of Democratic leadership. She’s introduced bills that have been signed into law, including one that expands the definition of infertility in Illinois to include same-sex couples, single women, and others looking to start or grow a family.

Croke pushed for the measure after getting a phone call from a constituent — a pediatrician who is gay and who pointed out financial burdens on families like his when insurance isn’t an option.

“I love how that bill came up organically from a constituent,” she said in an interview. It’s not the first bill that she’s taken on with a resident in mind. Croke is actively working on cyber-bullying legislation with the family of a boy who died by suicide after being bullied online.

“I love constituent services. It started with property taxes and helping people get cash back when they needed it. It made me so happy,” Croke said, referring to her work with a Cook County commissioner.

The Illinois Democrat also helped champion a law making Illinois the first state in the nation to require EMTs to be trained to diagnose Alzheimer’s and dementia. And a version of a bill she pushed last year is part of high-profile 2023 legislation that would allow Illinois residents to take civil action against gun manufacturers, importers and dealers whose firearms are responsible for injury or death in Illinois.

Arizona

Rep. Lorena Austin

Rep.-elect Lorena Austin won one of the most closely watched legislative races in the country in a newly-drawn district in Mesa, helping Democrats encroach upon the Republican majority in the state Legislature. She campaigned alongside Seth Blattman and the pair defeated two Republicans: Mary Ann Mendoza, a vocal opponent of illegal immigration and a Trump ally, and Kathy Pearce.

Austin is a descendant of Mexican immigrants and identifies as LGBTQ.

“People are not looking for what we traditionally view politicians to be,” Austin said in an interview. “They’re looking for authentic people who are doing things in the community — who are accessible, who are visible and who they can come to.”

Austin, who works as a community college adviser, wants to improve public education in Arizona, which consistently ranks at the bottom in the nation. She also wants to address the rising cost of housing, which she says is a “resounding” issue in her district and throughout the state.

Minnesota

Sen. Kari Dziedzic

Minnesota Democrats are entering 2023 with a trifecta after the party flipped the Senate in last year’s midterms, opening up another huge political opportunity for Democrats in the Midwest for the first time in nearly a decade.

Senate Majority Leader Kari Dziedzic will have to navigate the Democratic-Farmer-Labor’s slim one-seat majority in the chamber. She has a reputation as a cautious leader who touts working with Republicans. And in an early preview of the DFL agenda, Dziedzdic said there will be a focus on kids’ mental health and education, climate change and economic security.

The state is sitting on a giant $17.6 billion surplus Democrats are eager to use for long-sought progressive causes. Democratic Gov. Tim Walz has cited achieving education and family policies as a top goal, potentially by offering child care subsidies to help families pay for the rising cost of daycare.

Marissa Martinez and Shia Kapos contributed to this report.

Pandemic politics is back. 

Three years into the COVID-19 crisis, which upended lives across the globe and led the EU to promise to work better together when the next health crisis emerged, countries have once again been involved in a political tug-of-war.

China’s decision to lift its zero-COVID policy has led to a surge in cases that has alarmed the world. But early attempts at a joint EU response were dashed when Italy announced its own border control measures on arrivals from China. 

While the EU is now inching toward a coordinated approach on travel measures for arrivals from China — including pre-departure testing, masks on flights and testing wastewater for possible new variants — and is set to hold a meeting of its crisis response body on Wednesday, it comes after countries one-by-one announced unilateral measures for travelers arriving from China.

“It is disappointing to me that — despite three years of pandemic — there still is not a coordinated EU united response,” said Marion Koopmans, head of the Erasmus MC’s department of viroscience. 

So why did European unity fall at the first hurdle? Here’s what you need to know.

What measures are in place for arrivals from China?

Here’s a brief rundown of a fast-moving situation. Most countries have announced some form of testing, with Italy testing travelers arriving from China and isolating those that are positive. Spain is testing and carrying out temperature checks, and from Tuesday, imposing COVID certificates, and France requires negative tests before traveling from China, masks on planes and PCR tests on arrival for all passengers.

Sweden became the latest EU country to announce plans to implement restrictions, saying Tuesday that it was “preparing to introduce travel restrictions requiring a negative COVID-19 test for entry to Sweden from China.” 

Across the Channel, the U.K. announced Friday it would require a negative test before travel and would also be taking samples from arrivals. 

Belgium, however, has taken a different tack, testing the wastewater from planes twice a week and sequencing the samples to search for new variants.

All this could change on Wednesday, however, with the EU’s crisis response body meeting to discuss (finally) a coordinated response.

Why the different responses?

There are multiple factors at play — bitter experience, fear of new variants, concerns about China’s secrecy, and good old economics.

Italy, the first to strike out alone, has said its rules will ensure “surveillance and identification of any variants of the virus in order to protect the Italian population.” This decision seems to be driven by the psychology that Italy was hit incredibly hard by COVID-19 in 2020, said Elizabeth Kuiper, associate director and head of the social Europe and well-being program at the European Policy Centre think tank. 

France has justified its decision by saying the government has taken “health control measures in order to ensure the protection of the French population.” As well as testing, they will also be sequencing positive test results to screen for new variants, according to the prime minister, Elisabeth Borne, potentially belying a mistrust of information coming out of China.

Over in the U.K., the government has no qualms about saying its decision is due to the “lack of comprehensive health information shared by China.” The health ministry said that if there is an improvement in the sharing of information and greater transparency “then temporary measures will be reviewed.”

Others have held back. For Austria, which has so far resisted pressure from countries like Italy to coalesce around bloc-wide travel measures, any restriction on China arrivals would be a massive blow. The Austrian government has said that China’s reopening “heralds the return of the most important Asian source market for the coming tourism seasons.” 

This is “a clear example of how countries are trying to balance the economic consequences of COVID and public health concerns,” said Kuiper. 

Didn’t EU countries agree to work together? 

One of Europe’s key lessons from the pandemic was supposed to have been to respond collectively to health threats. It was so important to countries that the EU Health Union was established. But the disagreements over China show that the “default to knee-jerk national responses hasn’t entirely gone away,” said Paul Belcher, consultant in European public health and adviser to the European Public Health Alliance. 

This disorderly response has raised questions over whether EU coordination has taken the right form. A central part of the EU Health Union is the Health Emergency Preparedness and Response Authority (HERA), which was established precisely to enable Europe to respond quickly and appropriately during a health crisis. But it sits within the European Commission rather than independently — which has tied its hands somewhat, argued the European Policy Centre’s Kuiper.

“If HERA would have been an independent agency, they could have taken a stronger EU position concerning the need for travel restrictions for passengers coming from China,” Kuiper said. Without this leadership, countries have taken measures based on national motivations, she said. 

Can we believe Chinese data?

Concerns about China’s transparency on COVID-19 are nothing new but as the country opens its borders, even the World Health Organization, which usually declines to point the finger at specific countries, has called for more information. 

WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has said that in order to make a comprehensive risk assessment of the situation on the ground the WHO “needs more detailed information.”

What China is doing is sharing genetic sequence data on the international database GISAID, “which is laudable,” said David Heymann, professor of infectious disease epidemiology at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. “But they are not sharing the epidemiological data that will help understand the transmissibility and virulence that goes along with each sequence information and thus leaving a gap in our understanding,” he said.

Meanwhile, China isn’t pleased with the global response. “Some countries have implemented entry restrictions targeting only Chinese travelers. This has no scientific basis, and some practices are unacceptable,” a spokesperson said.

What does the science say?

“There is no scientific consensus on what to do, whether it makes sense to test everyone at arrival or not,” said Steven Van Gucht, head of the scientific service of viral diseases at the Belgian national institute for public and animal health. “The current discussion is a mixture of the scientific debate, but it’s also political.”

One of the major concerns is that new variants could emerge from China. Some scientists say this is unlikely as China is behind the curve on new variants. “Because China’s variants have been and gone in the rest of the world, the threat of these viruses coming back out of China and causing waves is pretty unlikely,” said virologist Tom Peacock of Imperial College, London. Initial sequencing out of Italy has indicated that there were no new COVID variants among Chinese visitors.

Koopmans said that — based on what has been shared so far — the variants circulating in China are not so different from what’s being seen in other parts of the world, but “there are no reasons to assume they are ‘less fit.’”

However, if a new variant did emerge, it’s unlikely travel restrictions would completely stop the spread. For Koopmans, travel restrictions “in the past have shown they are not very effective at delaying transmission of variants.”

One way of quickly spotting the arrival of new variants without targeting individual passengers is to test wastewater from toilets on airplanes or at airports, something that European Health Commissioner Stella Kyriakides has called for — and which is on the table for Wednesday’s meeting.

Additional reporting from Barbara Moens.

GOP lawmakers now hope to resolve their leadership battle privately after several humiliating hours on the floor. McCarthy and his allies have already begun talks with some of the 20 defectors in a desperate attempt to break the detente before the House will resume at noon Wednesday.

“We’re going to go have some more conversations tonight, to see what’s next,” said Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas), one of McCarthy’s chief antagonists. He declined to say whether McCarthy’s 20 dissenters would be meeting on their own, but said the talks would include members “across the conference.”

But by the time lawmakers return at noon on Wednesday, it’s not clear if McCarthy would still be the one seeking votes — or another member entirely.

After 14 years in leadership, McCarthy has now tried and failed three times to fulfill his decade-long dream of becoming speaker. In another troubling sign for the GOP leader, he lost the vote of someone who had been supporting him: Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.) flipped on the third ballot to support Jordan.

For most of Tuesday, McCarthy’s allies insisted they would keep voting until a path emerged for him to seize the gavel, an attempt to grind down his opponents. What resulted was a game of high-stakes chicken — just the second time since the Civil War that a party required multiple attempts to elect a speaker on the House floor.

But that sentiment began to shift by the third vote, with many GOP lawmakers seeing no path for McCarthy to win without a major shift in dynamics. And some feared that the California Republican could lose even more support beyond Donalds without some personal intervention.

“I think it’s going to be increasingly clear that he’s not going to be speaker. We will never cave,” Rep. Bob Good (R-Va.) said after conservatives blocked McCarthy from winning the gavel, urging him to drop out.

In a bid to cut off McCarthy opponents at their knees, Jordan gave an impassioned speech nominating the Californian, but that did little to move the detractors. Unlike in the first round of voting — where McCarthy picked up undecided House Freedom Caucus members, including Reps. Ben Cline (Va.) and Clay Higgins (La.), and Rep.-elect Mike Collins (R-Ga.), who had previously pledged to vote against McCarthy — the GOP leader didn’t pick up any new support in the second round.

How long the speaker’s fight will last remains the House’s favorite parlor game. McCarthy acknowledged on Tuesday that it “could” last for days, while one of his opponents, Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.), said they could persist for “six more months.” In the meantime, the House GOP risks a chaotic floor fight, with no rules of the chamber yet in place. The chamber cannot even swear in its members without a speaker.

Those 20 opposition votes came despite fierce pressure from McCarthy and his wide band of allies that he has honed over the years — with some members even vowing to punish defectors from removing them from committees.

“No one in this body has worked harder for this Republican majority than Kevin McCarthy,” Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.), who leads the GOP conference, said in a booming floor speech delivered moments before lawmakers began to vote.

After brewing for years, the revolt against McCarthy materialized on the floor in front of all 434 members (with the seat of the late Democratic Rep. Don McEachin still vacant). On a day of plenty of pomp and circumstance, dozens of lawmakers brought squirming children, including at least one crying infant, as they sat through the full roll call vote.

The substantial bloc of opposition against McCarthy marks an increase from the day prior, when only five House Republicans had publicly declared they would vote against their party leader.

But storm clouds were brewing over McCarthy throughout Tuesday. Just before heading to the floor, House Republicans gathered for a tense — and at times, raucous — meeting where McCarthy and his top supporters erupted at the dozen-plus conservative hardliners vowing to block his speaker’s bid.

In a fiery speech to his conference in the closed-door meeting, McCarthy underscored the extensive concessions he has made to those who have vowed to oppose him, largely those in the House Freedom Caucus, according to multiple members in the room. He also told members that there are about 20 GOP lawmakers who plan to vote against him, far more than the five who have publicly opposed him — in a preview of the chaos that he met on the floor.

“I earned this job. We earned this majority, and Goddammit we are going to win it today,” McCarthy said to a standing ovation, according to lawmakers in the room.

It wasn’t just the California Republican calling out the conservative hardliners at the conference meeting. Many of McCarthy’s frustrated supporters, too, unloaded on the band of detractors. At one point, Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Ala.), the top Republican on the House Armed Services Committee, pushed the idea that any Republican who opposes McCarthy should be stripped of committee assignments.