So the House has voted to remove Rep. Kevin McCarthy as Speaker of the House and for now, acting speaker Rep. Patrick McHenry will oversee the Congress.
McHenry’s first act as acting Speaker was an order for Pelosi to vacate her Capitol hideaway office by Wednesday.
“Please vacate the space tomorrow, the room will be re-keyed,” wrote a top aide on the Republican-controlled House Administration Committee. The room was being reassigned by the acting speaker “for speaker office use.”
Only a few select Congressional members get a hideaway office, unlike the Senate, which has several.
It was reported by Politico that House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries’ assisted Pelosi’s staff in the eviction, and around 8 p.m. on October 3, 2023, were seen clearing out the office.
The former Speaker of the House was incensed.
Calling the eviction “a sharp departure from tradition,” adding that former Speakers were given “a significantly larger suite of offices for as long as he wished” during the rest of their time in office.
From Politico:
The former speaker blasted the eviction in a statement as “a sharp departure from tradition,” adding that she had given former Speaker Dennis Hastert “a significantly larger suite of offices for as long as he wished” during her tenure.
Pelosi was not present for the vote to oust McCarthy. She was in California for a memorial service in honor of Dianne Feinstein.
According to reports (as of the writing of this post), Rep. Steve Scalise, Jim Jordan, and Kevin Hern are all seriously considering throwing their names in as Speaker.
Hopefully, the GOP in the House can get things moving so they can actually service the people of the country not engaging in power struggles.
On the one hand, Biden and the Senate have a big problem now.
Before McCarthy was ousted, Biden had told several heads of state not to worry about Ukraine funding. However, McCarthy is no longer so Biden won’t be able to cut a deal with him.
Just this morning Biden told seven heads of state not to worry about continued US military funding to Ukraine. Hours later, he doesn’t have a Speaker McCarthy to cut a deal with anymore. The geopolitics of the war may have just radically shifted. https://t.co/gN8zzU9H9g
— Leighton 明 Woodhouse (@lwoodhouse) October 3, 2023
On the other hand, the GOP looks like a hot mess.
Since winning in 2016, Republicans have been on a seven-year electoral losing streak — a losing streak that is inexplicable given Dems’ unpopular radicalism. The only reason for those losses is a determination to run directly into brick walls rather than, you know, WINNING.
— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) October 4, 2023
