Representative Matt Gaetz pressed forward on Monday evening to force a vote on removing Speaker Kevin McCarthy from his post, setting the stage for a dramatic showdown this week between Mr. McCarthy and his far-right critics.
Mr. Gaetz, a Republican from Florida, made what is known as a motion to vacate. Any single lawmaker can make such a motion, and the House must hold a vote within two legislative days on whether to remove Mr. McCarthy from the speakership, which requires a simple majority. Mr. McCarthy agreed to allow any member to force such a vote during a protracted floor fight in January as a concession to right-wing holdouts in exchange for the speakership.
Here’s what happens next.
McCarthy can’t avoid a vote.
The resolution declaring the speakership vacant is privileged, meaning it takes priority in the House’s legislative agenda and requires action within two days.
The House of Representatives convenes at 10 a.m. on Tuesday, and legislative business begins at noon, the earliest that the motion could be acted upon.
Mr. McCarthy cannot avoid some sort of vote on the question, though he has some options for trying to divert or at least delay the vote.
McCarthy can try to kill the resolution.
The easiest and most likely course of action for the speaker is to move to table Mr. Gaetz’s resolution, effectively killing it. That, too, requires a majority vote of the House. Should he be successful, the fight would be over and Mr. McCarthy would keep his job.
Should his motion to table be defeated, the House would move to a vote on the resolution to remove him.
Another possible but less likely move for Mr. McCarthy would be to move to refer the question to a congressional committee, effectively punting it to a group made up of his allies. He engineered a similar move in June that sidestepped an attempt to quickly impeach President Biden. That would also require a majority vote.
McCarthy is all but certain to need Democrats to survive.
The Republicans’ slim majority and the size of the far-right group pressing to remove him means that Mr. McCarthy has little chance of winning any one of the possible votes and keeping his job without at least some help from Democrats.
As of Monday, House Democrats had not signaled their intentions, and Mr. McCarthy said Tuesday morning that he would not offer them anything in exchange for their support.
It is extremely rare for members of the minority to vote for the opposing party’s candidate for speaker. Democrats voted in unison for their leader, Hakeem Jeffries of New York, in each of the 15 rounds of the speakership fight in January. And Mr. McCarthy’s efforts to appease far-right members within his party since then, including launching an impeachment inquiry into Mr. Biden last month, have further frustrated Democrats.
If some Democrats did decide to help save Mr. McCarthy, the simplest way would be for them to vote to oppose Mr. Gaetz’s ouster resolution, and vote to table it. They could also help the speaker in a more passive way, either by voting “present” — neither yes or no — or skipping the vote entirely. Both moves would lower the threshold of votes he needs to survive.
If the ouster fails, McCarthy could face another one.
Mr. Gaetz has said that he might keep trying to remove Mr. McCarthy over and over again — even daily. There is nothing in the House rules to prevent this. His move on Monday was only the third time in the 234-year history of the House that a speaker has faced a motion to vacate.
Most recently, in 2015, Representative Mark Meadows of North Carolina filed a motion against Speaker John A. Boehner, who resigned from Congress before the House voted.
If McCarthy is removed, the House would be paralyzed.
Without a speaker, the House of Representatives cannot conduct legislative business. So if Mr. McCarthy is removed, action would grind to a halt until lawmakers elected someone to take him place.
