Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) has offered members opposing his speakership bid a new set of concessions, including seats on the powerful House Rules Committee, as he seeks to break a stalemate keeping him from winning the speaker’s gavel.
McCarthy said Wednesday evening that talks with his detractors were fruitful after he failed to reach the 218 votes needed to become speaker in a series of three ballots held the same day. The concessions are expected to narrow the gap for McCarthy, according to CNN, which reported the news, though it’s not clear they will be enough for him to win majority support.
Twenty Republicans have lined up against him even as most of the GOP conference backs his leadership bid. But with only four votes separating the two parties in the narrowly divided House, his detractors, largely aligned with the conservative House Freedom Caucus, hold outsize influence.
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The hard-liners have capitalized on Republicans’ razor-thin majority by making a steep set of demands of McCarthy that would diminish his power and elevate the caucus’s own members on important committees.
McCarthy made major concessions to the group when he released a House rules package for the new Congress, most importantly agreeing to allow just five members to initiate a vote to oust a sitting speaker. But the changes were not enough to soften their opposition. McCarthy has fallen short in round after round of the speakership election that began on Tuesday.
The House ultimately adjourned on Wednesday after the sixth ballot concluded with 19 other Republicans backing Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL), who withdrew his support for McCarthy the day before.
McCarthy and his allies met with detractors for hours in a bid to break the impasse, finally agreeing to a number of new concessions. McCarthy offered to allow a single member to call for a vote to oust the speaker, the holdouts’ original demand, and committed to adding more Freedom Caucus members to the Rules Committee, according to CNN. He also pledged a vote on bills regarding term limits and border security.
The news comes on the heels of the Congressional Leadership Fund, the super PAC aligned with McCarthy, agreeing not to interfere in open GOP primaries. The pledge earned McCarthy the support of the Club for Growth, an influential conservative group that had been opposing his candidacy.
McCarthy touted the support as meaningful progress. “You know what I saw on TV today? ‘Oh, this has to be a day that Kevin gets movement.’ So, let’s measure it,” he told reporters Wednesday. “You’ve got the Club for Growth. You see that? Is that movement in your view?”
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The House will resume the speakership election on Thursday at noon as fatigue sets in among McCarthy supporters. Rep. Victoria Spartz (R-IN) voiced her discontent with the dialogue on both sides Wednesday by withdrawing her support for McCarthy and voting “present” on the fifth and sixth ballots.
Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX) said he’ll keep voting for McCarthy “for now” but tweeted on Wednesday morning that “it’s important to know who the 19 Republicans will support at the end of the day.”
