Kevin McCarthy approaches Gaetz and Boebert because he needed 216 votes to win. pic.twitter.com/o6VBsbwVVV
— The Republican Accountability Project (@AccountableGOP) January 7, 2023
After four grueling days and 15 votes, Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) is finally Speaker of the House - but not without having made a pile of concessions to a group of hard-line Republicans who think he'll be too accommodating to uniparty interests.
During the final, 15th ballot, enough holdouts voted 'present' to bring the total required number of votes low enough for McCarthy to finally win around midnight.
Here's what McCarthy had to give up for the votes, according to The Epoch Times' Roger L. Simon, who interviewed first-year Congressman Andrew Ogles (R-TN), who has yet to be sworn in;
I spoke with Ogles by phone the night of Jan. 6, 2023, before the roll call vote during which, it was said, two of the remaining rejectionists who couldn’t accept McCarthy personally would absent themselves so that the magic number would be lowered and the new Speaker could go over the top.
For Ogles, the basis of all the negotiations was to establish the rules of the game in Congress that had been altered over the years beyond recognition. As he pointed out, the rules of a game almost always determine the winner.
He shared with me a list of some of what has been roughly negotiated to date. The devil, as always, is in the details.
1) As has been reported, it will only take a single congressperson, acting in what is known as a Jeffersonian Motion, to move to remove the Speaker if he or she goes back on their word or policy agenda.
2) A “Church” style committee will be convened to look into the weaponization of the FBI and other government organizations (presumably the CIA, the subject of the original Church Committee) against the American people.
3) Term limits will be put up for a vote.
4) Bills presented to Congress will be single subject, not omnibus with all the attendant earmarks, and there will be a 72-hour minimum period to read them.
5) The Texas Border Plan will be put before Congress. From The Hill: “The four-pronged plan aims to ‘Complete Physical Border Infrastructure,’ ‘Fix Border Enforcement Policies,’ ‘Enforce our Laws in the Interior’ and ‘Target Cartels & Criminal Organizations.'”
6) COVID mandates will be ended as will all funding for them, including so-called “emergency funding.”
7) Budget bills would stop the endless increases in the debt ceiling and hold the Senate accountable for the same.
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