House speaker spectacle continues as McCarthy faces fourth day of voting

House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy trudged forward with his quest to become speaker on Friday, newly hopeful that a deal with far-right detractors could deliver him the gavel after days of fruitless balloting paralyzed the chamber.

Facing a historic 12th ballot, McCarthy appeared willing to accept a proposal that would undermine his own power while giving his opponents more influence to shape the legislative process, including the ability to more easily remove a speaker.

Yet it was not clear such a proposal would placate enough detractors to earn him the 218 votes traditionally needed to secure the gavel. Until a speaker is chosen, the House will continue to operate in a suspended state of paralysis, with members unable to be sworn in and business unable to proceed.

McCarthy’s allies worked late into the night on Thursday to hammer out the details of a deal, after a third day of balloting yielded the longest succession of failed speaker votes since the Congress of 1859, which went 44 rounds and two months.

“Apparently, I like to make history,” the McCarthy told reporters as he left the House floor on Thursday night, following an 11th vote that produced effectively the same failed result.

The House reconvened for a fourth day of voting, in the shadow of the second anniversary of the deadly Capitol assault. The shocking scenes of violence and chaos that erupted on 6 January 2021 began with an attempt by ultra-conservative lawmakers loyal to Donald Trump to stop Congress from certifying the results of the 2020 presidential election that Joe Biden won. Several of those election denying lawmakers are leading the revolt against McCarthy.

After initially condemning the insurrection and Trump’s role fomenting it, McCarthy traveled to Mar-a-Lago in early 2021 to repair relations with the former president and his loyalists in anticipation of his speaker bid. Trump emphatically endorsed McCarthy this week, but it has so far failed to change any minds.

Before voting began, members of Congress, mostly Democratic lawmakers, gathered with the families of officers who died in the attack on the steps of the Capitol to mark the “solemn day”.

“We stand here today with our democracy intact because of those officers,” said Hakeem Jeffries, the Democratic leader. “Violent insurrectionists stormed the Capitol and attempted to halt the peaceful transfer of power, a cornerstone of our republic. They failed.”

Meanwhile, House Republicans were holding a conference call to discuss the terms of a possible deal hammered out between emissaries of McCarthy and leaders of the rightwing rebels.

Before leaving the Capitol, McCarthy expressed confidence that progress was being made in closed-door meetings with his opponents and insisted that the concessions he was prepared to make to win their votes would not leave him a “weaker speaker”.

“The entire conference is going to have to learn how to work together,” he told reporters. “So it’s better that we go through this process right now.

“If this takes a little longer, and it doesn’t meet your deadline, that’s OK,” he continued. “Because it’s not how you start, it’s how you finish.”

To win the bloc of rebels thwarting his rise, McCarthy was apparently prepared to agree to conditions that he had not been previously willing to accept. That includes reinstating a rule that would allow a single lawmaker to force a vote to remove the speaker, effectively placing himself at the mercy of his detractors who could trigger a vote at any point.

McCarthy and his allies hope the concessions and several other commitments will be enough to persuade enough holdouts to drop their objections and end the stalemate that has clouded the opening days of their new majority. But at least a handful have already said nothing would change their minds, including congressman Matt Gaetz of Florida, who on Thursday nominated Trump to be president. McCarthy can only afford to lose a handful of votes, likely no more than four depending on how many members are present for a vote.

“I feel better today than yesterday and the day before,” Republican congressman Patrick McHenry of North Carolina, a McCarthy ally working to end the stalemate, told reporters before walking onto the floor for a 12th speaker vote. “The trend is our friend.”

And there is a risk that Republican leadership’s myriad concessions to the party’s hard-right faction could repel more moderate members, who have so far remained loyal to McCarthy.

Yet roll call vote after roll call vote has returned almost the same result: 20 anti-McCarthy votes and, in the latest rounds, one “present,” leaving him well below the threshold needed to win the gavel.

Democrats united behind Jeffries as their choice for speaker. He repeatedly won the most votes on each ballot, but remained short of the majority.

The spectacle foreshadows the difficulties that lie ahead for the Republican party as it aims to reclaim the Senate and the White House in 2024. Already riven by infighting, and constrained by a narrow majority, the party’s new leaders will face many of the same challenges as past Republican speakers, whose tenures were defined by government shutdowns and political brinkmanship.