Eight Republican Members of the U.S. House Vote to Replace Speaker Kevin McCarthy

Posted on by October 3, 2023

On October 3, the House voted to replace Speaker Kevin McCarthy. McCarthy lost his position because eight Republicans voted against him. The eight include seven who are from states that allow independents to vote in primaries.

Proponents of top-two, top-four, and top-five, are constantly repeating the mantra that primaries need “reform”, because closed primaries nominate “extremists”. But seven of the eight Republicans who voted against McCarthy are from states that allow independents to vote in primaries.

The seven who voted against McCarthy and who are from states in which independents can vote in primaries are: Andy Biggs (Arizona); Ken Buck (Colorado); Tim Burchett (Tennessee); Eli Crane (Arizona); Bob Good (Virginia); Nancy Mace (South Carolina); and Matt Ronsendale (Montana).

The one who voted against McCarthy, and who is from a state with closed primaries, is Matt Gaetz (Florida).

Comments

Eight Republican Members of the U.S. House Vote to Replace Speaker Kevin McCarthy — 44 Comments

  2. If anyone can identify a specific issue, industry, or cause that separates the people in this group from other Republicans I’d love to hear.

  3. @ Gato:
    https://clerk.house.gov/Votes/2023438
    7 of the 8 Republicans who voted to replace Speaker McCarthy also voted yes on a failed defense bill amendment by Gaetz (he’s one of those 7 obviously) last month, which I’m sure had something to do with Ukraine. However, most Republicans who voted yes on that amendment did not vote to replace McCarthy. Since support for Ukraine is bipartisan, I would expect people who aren’t registered with a party to be more likely to take the opposite stance. Or I could be talking bullshit, I dunno.

  5. A little background on Matt Gaetz to point to other reasons for his actions other than closed primaries:
    1) His district voted for him 67.9% against a relatively well funded Democrat. The number is a reminder that this is a gerrymandered safe Republican district.
    2) A congressional ethics investigations report is soon to be released recommending disciplinary action. He comes from a political family (father was state senate president) with a penchant for aggressively punishing opponents.
    3) Gaetz is rumored to be positioning himself to run for Florida Governor in 2026.

    Gaetz is the result of gerrymandering, political ambition and a “get them, before they get me” attitude.

    More to the point of this post, the closed primary system rewards outlandish behavior that plays to extreme points of view.

  6. My name is Edward TJ Brownshirt and I love wind farms because they are government subsidized and cost taxpayers a lot of money. I love big government and hate freedom. I’m also a Nazi and love torturing whales and killing them with wind farm noise. I hate whales due to penis envy. Heil Hitler!!!

  7. Hector, If the closed primary system rewards outlandish behavior, why were there no Republicans (other than Gaetz) who voted against Kevin McCarthy, from closed primary states? Republican congressional primaries were closed in 2022 in Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Kentucky, Maryland, Nevada, New Mexico, New York, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, and South Dakota.

  8. To be fair, those are all states with traditional (albeit open) FPTP partisan primaries. None are top-2/4/5 nonpartisan primaries. It goes to show open vs. closed primaries are definitely oversold on this pro-moderates argument, not necessarily the same for top two (though other evidence shows it doesn’t boost moderates) and top 4 or 5 with RCV (debatable but also very limited data to date).

    For his first term, Good did primary Riggleman in a convention which I think made have had the same RCV rules as the Youngkin nomination a year later, but if so it was moot because they were the only two running.

  9. I guess “primary” is the wrong word since it was a convention, but in the sense of beat an incumbent for the nomination.

  11. @Richard Winger: Good question. The short answer is: “Money talks”. McCarthy holds the reelection funds of every Republican in US House.

    The question I think people should be asking: Can only extremist members of congress with their own fundraising base and media appeal resist leadership influence?

    The mechanism for extremists to take advantage of the smaller sized electorate allowed to participate in closed primaries. Extremists like Gaetz (the ring leader here) play to a significantly-sized and motivated base of support. It makes the “organizing question” to the public as simple as possible (“who’s the boogieman we gotta get rid of?”) and it has proven effective. Leadership influence starts and ends with recruiting an outsider and throwing a lot of money behind them.

    For those who don’t know the concern about extremism… the effect of extremism in American politics leads to more tearing each other down instead of resolving ongoing policy conflicts is causing societal decline.

    Of course, Gaetz will call himself an “outsider” like “Trump” has done for a debate despite his billionaire and show business background.

    The bigger picture here is that extremism (or extreme points of view and action) are the result of a lack of choices in the political marketplace of ideas. Treating politics like the marketplace by allowing many choices instead of a closed Maoist exercise with one party rule is the ultimate cause.

    If you want to learn more about this topic, check out “Politics as Markets” a paper written 25 years ago by academics who predicted this reality. There was a recent series of discussion hosted on Election Law Blog here: https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=314

  12. McCarthy got what he deserved. GOP is all talk and little action. That’s been their problem. Voters hate that.

  13. 218 LOW D/R ELECTED BY ABOUT 28-30 PERCENT OF ALL VOTERS IN 435 GERRYMANDER DISTS — SINCE 1964

    1/2 X 1/2 = 1/4

    1-1-5 TOTAL FAILURE TO COMPEL A-L-L MEMBERS TO BE PRESENT – ESP PELOSI IN CA.

    1-2-6 UNCONST ACTING SPEAKER CHOSEN BY MCC – NOT ENTIRE HOUSE
    —-
    P-A-T

  17. AZ aka Thomas Jones – Please just go away. You contribute nothing of use to these threads.

  18. @Richard Winger:

    A breakdown of how GOP-friendly and pro-Trump the congressional districts served by these members of Congress are:

    Andy Biggs (AZ-5) 56.7% (2022) +16.4 Trump
    4th term; Chair of the House Freedom Caucus

    Ken Buck (CO-4) 60% (2022) +18.6 Trump
    5th term; Former chair of the Colorado GOP that denounced the deal with LP Colorado.

    Tim Burchett (TN-2) 67.9% (2022) +29.2 Trump
    3rd term

    Eli Crane* (AZ-2) 53.9% (2022) +7.9 Trump
    1st term
    *flip (beat an incumbent after GOP-friendly redistricting)

    Bob Good* (VA-5) 61% (2022) +8.3 Trump
    2nd term
    *district was helped by redistricting; also South of Richmond

    Nancy Mace* (SC-1) 56.5% (2022) +8.6 Trump
    1st term
    *defeated Trump-supported challenger in primary

    Matt Ronsendale (MT-2) 57% (2022) +26.8 Trump
    2nd term

    Matt Gaetz (FL-1) 69.7% (2022) +32.3 Trump
    4th term; Despite a year of ethics mishaps and allegations he directly paid for underage prostitutes using electronic payment apps

    Keep in mind, these members of congress sit in safe districts and only have to win their primaries to win their general elections. Any district that Trump won by over 5 points is a leans GOP; any that he won by 10 points is safe GOP.

  21. Nope, I am opposed to Communism and Fascism. I love wind farms because they are better for the environment, create green jobs and make whales feel all cute and cuddly. Anyone who opposes wind farms is either a Communist or a Fascist.

  22. FEC 2022 RESULTS LATE AGAIN

    WILL SHOW PRIMARY VOTES

    IE PRIMARY VOTES OF LATER WINNERS / TOTAL GENL VOTES — PERCENT

    UNDER 10 PCT FOR AVERAGE LATER WINNER ??? — ESP FOR 1ST TERM REPS ???
    —
    NOOO PRIMARIES

    P-A-T

  23. IMO, plurality voting, both within primaries and in the general election, causes polarization more than whether of not primaries are open or closed.

  24. Approval voting would be best for primaries because it helps identify which candidates have the broadest appeal.

  26. In any event, the Republicans in the House ought to consider approval voting to pick the Speaker.

  27. And, something else: the Constitution does not require the Speaker to be a member of the House.

    The Republicans could consider someone from outside of Congress, like, maybe, Gingrich.

  30. Edward TJ Brown is boring. He supports communism, fascism, and wind farms. They are bad for the environment, government subsidized, and torture whales to death. Which Nazi Edward TJ Brownshorts loves because of his penis envy due to his micropenis which makes him scream. If he was really a whale he’d be singing a very different song when it comes to whale killing wind farms. Only communist fascist scum who hate whales support wind farms and their fake green jobs.

  32. HOW ABOUT A NEW SPORTS JOCK EACH DAY AS SPEAKER ???

    HOW ABOUT A BAN ON X PAGE BILLS ???

    SOLVE FOR X.

    THE SPEAKER/MONARCH ROT IS DUE TO SCOTUS SUBVERTING THE STATES –

    ESP VIA 1-8-1 GENERAL WELFARE AND 1-8-3 INTERSTATE COMMERCE CLS

  35. Love freedom. Love green jobs. Love America.

  36. If Edward TJ Brown-Pyle loved any of those he’d be against wind farms.

  37. No representatives from LA, CA, WA, or AK voted to remove McCarthy. These are states with a true open primary.

  38. Primary is a misnomer. Louisiana may be an exception. Primary is short for primary election. A pre-election qualification event which can’t elect someone to office is not an election at all, therefore not a primary. It’s actually the state sticking it’s nose into party nomination processes where it has zero business.

  39. Open primary and top x are different things. Top X supporters are redefining a term which had a long established meaning.

  41. McCarthy is a quitter. He knew Gaetz and the other crazies were trying to oust him. Why didn’t he go to the Democrats and ask for a deal in which they would all vote “present” (since they could not vote to keep him due to political reasons)?

    Since “present” votes don’t factor into totals, he would have kept the Speakership by a margin of 210-8 with the 208 “present” votes and 9 absences not counting. Does he hate the other party so much that he couldn’t make an easy deal like that?

    I don’t think the cost of a deal would have been too high, since the Democrats rarely overstep their requests, such as a vote on the Ukraine funding that was stripped out of the CR, a new CR as soon as possible, and a few more committee seats.

    McCarthy also looked ridiculous when he went on CBS and falsely claimed that the Democrats wanted to shutdown the government, when everybody knows that Gaetz and his chaos crew wanted the shutdown, in accordance with Trump’s post on Truth Social.

    The attitude that the two parties should never work together for the common good of the country needs to stop. Americans are letting that toxic sentiment tear up apart. “My Way Or The Highway” does not work. Time to re-learn how to compromise.

  42. Gaetz is actually one of the most sane members of congress. The left is pure evil, and continuously compromising with evil is how we got where we are. Enough is enough.

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