New House speaker elected after 15 rounds of voting

After 15 rounds of voting over the course of several days, Republican Kevin McCarthy is elected as the new Speaker of the House. WikiCommons

For the first time in over 100 years, the U.S. House of Representatives had to hold multiple rounds of voting to appoint a Speaker of the House. After 15 rounds of voting spanning several days in early January, the house finally elected Republican Kevin McCarthy.

In 1856, it took the branch of government 133 rounds of voting to choose their candidate. Even though it did not take nearly as many rounds, there has only needed to be one round of voting since then, making this a significant event in modern politics.

The speaker position is elected when the majority seats of the House change as a result of an election. Republicans recently gained the majority of the seats from the 2022 election and had to agree upon who would take the position.

However, before the House election started, Kevin McCarthy had secured a majority of Republican votes, but not enough to win him the position. From the beginning, many people were uncertain of the voting outcome. 

When voting for the new Speaker of the House, representatives can vote for whoever they want. This idea proved to be an issue for Republicans when trying to agree on a member to take the position cohesively. The party was split between those that wanted McCarthy and those that did not. One representative went as far with their anti-McCarthy efforts by casting their vote for former President Donald Trump.

Annelise Barnett is a sophomore public relations and advertising student at Chapman University who was closely following the failed votes.

“At first, it was funny, and then it started to get depressing to watch Kevin McCarthy fail and fail,” Barnett said. “I was wondering how a majority party could be held hostage with the decisions of just a few people.”

Throughout the voting process, all 214 members of the Democratic Party in the House voted for the House Minority Leader, Hakeem Jefferies. On the other hand, the Republicans scattered their votes among various different candidates. 

For a representative to win the Speaker of the House position, they must earn more than half of the votes in the branch.

After 15 long rounds of voting and disagreement on Jan. 7, McCarthy was officially elected as the Speaker of the House, earning 216 votes. 

After midnight, McCarthy gave his first speech as the speaker and claimed he would make sure to strive to enforce checks and balances.

“Our system is built on checks and balances. It’s time for us to be the check and provide some balance to the President’s policies,” McCarthy said in the speech. “There is nothing more important than making it possible for American families to live and enjoy the lives they deserve."

With the events following this election it has caused into questioning the future of the Republican Party as well as what this will mean for the House in the coming years.

Nicole Drew, a senior political science and and philosophy double major, emphasized how the man failed votes were a bad sign for the future.

“In my opinion, the events that went on with the Republicans electing a Speaker further delegitimizes them as a party,” Drew said. “Their actions over the past few years have increasingly shown them to be a party that is incapable of governing effectively, and this certainly does not help their case.”