At the opening of the 118th United States Congress, the members-elect of the House of Representatives elected in the 2022 midterms held an election for its speaker, marking the 128th speaker election since the office was created in 1789. It began on January 3, 2023, and concluded in the early morning hours of January 7 when Kevin McCarthy of California, leader of the House Republican Conference, won a majority of votes cast on the fifteenth ballot. After the longest speaker election since December 1859 – February 1860, McCarthy won the speakership by making concessions to Republican Party hardliners, who had refused to support him through several rounds of voting, finding him too weak and untrustworthy.
Republicans won a narrow majority of House seats over the Democratic Party in the 2022 House elections. McCarthy won the nomination within the Republican conference but faced public opposition from far-right House Republicans before the vote. The opposition consisted mainly of members of the Freedom Caucus. With 19 Republicans voting for candidates other than McCarthy on the first ballot, no candidate achieved a majority and the election proceeded to additional ballots for the first time since 1923. In the first round of voting, House Democratic Caucus leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York received 212 votes, McCarthy received 203 votes, and Andy Biggs of Arizona received 10 votes; other candidates who were not formally nominated received 9 votes.
On the second through the fourteenth votes, McCarthy again failed to receive a majority of votes cast. Jeffries received the support of all Democrats present on each ballot. Most or all of the Republican opposition voted for Jim Jordan of Ohio on the second and third rounds and Byron Donalds of Florida on the fourth through eleventh rounds. Kevin Hern of Oklahoma and former president Donald Trump were also nominated and received votes in various rounds. On the fourth day of voting, January 6, many of the Republicans who opposed McCarthy began voting for him following negotiations between rounds. On the fifteenth and final ballot, the six remaining anti-McCarthy holdouts voted "present", which reduced the threshold of votes needed for a majority from 218 to 215, thus allowing McCarthy to be elected with 216 votes. Among the concessions made by McCarthy to the holdouts was agreeing that the House rules for the 118th United States Congress would allow a single member to independently bring a motion to vacate the speakership. This concession proved consequential. Less than ten months later, Matt Gaetz (one of the holdouts) brought such a motion, which prevailed, thereby ousting McCarthy from the speakership.
Process and conventions
The speaker is the presiding officer of the U.S. House of Representatives. The House elects its speaker at the beginning of a new Congress (i.e. biennially, after Election Day) or when a speaker dies, resigns, or is removed from the position intra-term. Since 1839, the House has elected speakers by roll call vote. Following a congressional election and the adjournment of the prior congress, there being no speaker, the House clerk summons, convenes, and calls the House to order. After prayer offered by the House chaplain, the clerk leads the representatives in the Pledge of Allegiance before ordering a roll call conducted by the reading clerk. The clerk and its officers then order and oversee the election of a speaker. During these processes, the clerk must "preserve order and decorum and decide all questions of order", which is subject to appeal to the body.
Traditionally, each of the party caucuses and conferences selects a candidate for the speakership from among its senior leaders prior to the roll call. Representatives are not restricted to voting for the candidate nominated by their party but generally do, as the outcome of the election effectively determines which one is the majority party and consequently will organize the House. Without a speaker, members-elect of the House cannot be sworn in. The House is unable to conduct any business other than electing the speaker. Because the rules of the House are adopted for each new Congress, the House will not have rules until the election is complete allowing the members to be sworn in and the House to adopt rules.
Representatives that choose to vote for someone other than their party's nominated candidate usually vote for another member within the party or vote present, which entails abstention. Moreover, as the Constitution does not explicitly state that the speaker must be an incumbent member of the House, it is permissible for representatives to nominate and vote for someone who is not a member of the House at the time, and non-members have been nominated and received a few votes in various speaker elections over the past several years. Nevertheless, every person elected speaker has been a member. Upon winning election, the new speaker is immediately sworn in by the House dean, the chamber's longest-serving member. The new speaker then administers the oath en masse to the rest of the members of the House.
To be elected speaker, a candidate must receive a majority of the current votes cast, as opposed to a majority of the entire membership of the House—at the time 218 votes, in a House of 434 members, due to one vacancy caused by the death of Donald McEachin of Virginia. There have only been a few instances during the past century where a person received a majority of the votes cast and thus won the election while failing to obtain a majority of the full membership. It had happened most recently in 2021, when Nancy Pelosi was elected with 216 votes (as opposed to 218). Such a variation in the number of votes necessary to win a given election might arise due to vacancies, absentees, or members being present but not voting. If no candidate wins a majority of the votes cast for a person by name, then the roll call is repeated until a speaker is elected. The most recent multi-ballot election prior to the January 2023 contest occurred in December 1923, when a closely divided House needed nine ballots to elect Frederick H. Gillett speaker.
Democratic nomination
During the run-up to the 2019 speaker election, Nancy Pelosi, who had been the Democratic Caucus' leader and nominee in every speaker election since 2003, struck a deal with several caucus members in which she promised that she would retire from the position of speaker after the 2022 congressional elections in exchange for those members' votes in that speakership election, which she saw as necessary in order for her to win a majority. By early 2022, Congressman Hakeem Jeffries of New York was viewed as the top prospect to succeed Pelosi if she were to retire as the leader of the Democratic Caucus. However, ahead of the 2022 election Pelosi refused to confirm whether she intended to honor her pledge to serve no further terms as leader. On November 17, 2022, the same day that news outlets projected that Democrats had failed to defend their House majority in the midterm elections, Pelosi delivered a speech on the House floor in which she announced that she would not run again for a leadership position. The following day, Jeffries distributed a letter to House Democratic Caucus members declaring his intent to run to succeed Pelosi. No opponent challenged Jeffries, and on November 30 the Democratic Caucus voted to make Jeffries its leader during the 118th Congress and its nominee for the speakership election. Jeffries is the first black person ever nominated for House speaker.
Candidates
Nominee
Declined to run
- Jim Clyburn, outgoing majority whip, former assistant Democratic leader, and representative from South Carolina's 6th district
- Steny Hoyer, outgoing House Majority Leader and representative from Maryland's 5th district
- Nancy Pelosi, outgoing speaker of the House, former minority leader, and representative from California's 12th district
- Adam Schiff, incumbent chair of the House Intelligence Committee, and representative from California's 28th district
- Pete Aguilar, incumbent vice chair of the Democratic caucus, and representative from California's 31st district
- Katherine Clark, incumbent assistant speaker, former vice chair of the Democratic caucus, and representative from Massachusetts's 5th district
Results
On November 30, Jeffries was selected by acclamation.
Republican nomination
On November 15, 2022, in a secret ballot the House Republican Conference voted to retain Kevin McCarthy as its leader and nominee for the House speakership. However, McCarthy did not receive the votes of 218 members of the conference, the support needed to have a majority of all House members that would be in office at the start of the 118th Congress.
As Republican Conference leader, McCarthy had been the Republican Conference's nominee for the speakership in both the 2019 and 2021 speaker elections in which Democratic majorities elected Nancy Pelosi as speaker. However, McCarthy's first pursuit of the House speakership had been the October 2015 speaker election, which was held after John Boehner resigned under pressure from conservative hardliners and the Freedom Caucus, Kevin McCarthy sought the Republican nomination and was initially judged as the party's preferred candidate. After the House Freedom Caucus refused to vote for McCarthy in a floor vote for the speakership, it became evident that McCarthy had not secured the support of a congressional majority that would be needed to elect him speaker. As a result, McCarthy withdrew from the race, and Paul Ryan was elected speaker. Ryan did not seek reelection to the House during the 2018 elections. After the elections, in which Republicans lost their House majority to the Democrats, the Republican Conference elected McCarthy to serve as their leader in the next congress. During the 116th Congress and 117th which followed, McCarthy was the House minority leader.
Candidates
Nominee
Lost nomination
Results
The House Republican Conference vote was held on November 15, 2022, and despite a challenge from Biggs, McCarthy won the majority of votes, becoming the Republican nominee for speaker of the House. As McCarthy won less than 218 votes, a majority of the seats in the House, the media started questioning his ability to be voted in as Speaker.
Election of the speaker
Background
The election for speaker began on January 3, 2023, at the start of the 118th Congress. At the time of the proceedings, there was one vacant seat, Virginia's 4th district.
In anticipation of right-wing opposition to McCarthy's election as speaker, Don Bacon of Nebraska threatened to form a coalition of moderate Republicans who would work with the Democrats to successfully install a speaker. Several names were floated as a potential compromise candidate, the most prominent of which was Fred Upton, a moderate Republican who had been the representative for Michigan's 6th congressional district up to his retirement in the 2022 election cycle. McCarthy and his supporters spent December and the first days of January negotiating with right-wing opponents of McCarthy to persuade them to support him on the floor. At a closed-door meeting shortly before the speaker vote on January 3, Mike Rogers of Alabama threatened dissident Republicans with removal from House committees.
Prior to the vote, Politico reported that at least five Republican representatives had refused to support McCarthy, while another nine had not publicly commented on whether they would. As the Republican Party won a slim majority (222–212) and assuming Democratic members would not vote for him, McCarthy could only sustain as many as four Republican members voting for other candidates or nine Republican members either voting present or not voting at all, for McCarthy to be elected as speaker. Bob Good of Virginia said that McCarthy "has not done anything to earn my vote", explaining that "[t]here's many times where we ... asked him to fight on various opportunities and various issues, and I have not seen the demonstrated fight that we're looking for." The Club for Growth, a conservative political advocacy group, openly called for House Republicans to oppose his nomination.
It was reported that these representatives demanded that McCarthy make concessions before they would support him, such as lowering the barriers for caucus members to force a vote to remove a sitting speaker and other procedural matters. Chip Roy of Texas became a leader in the negotiation process for the holdouts to McCarthy's speakership nomination. The goals that Roy and a group of about 20 Republicans included to bring down the threshold for calling a vote of no confidence against the speaker to one member, more enforcement to allow more time to read bills, a greater role for the House Freedom Caucus in Republican leadership, requiring Republican leadership to refrain from being involved in primary elections, and an end to U.S. aid to Ukraine.
Candidates
The following individuals received at least one vote in the election for speaker or expressed interest in serving in the role.
Summary
On the first through the fourteenth votes, McCarthy failed to receive a majority of votes cast, while Jeffries received the support of all Democrats present on each ballot. Jim Jordan of Ohio received all votes of Republicans opposed to McCarthy on the second and third rounds. Following three unsuccessful votes on January 3, the House adjourned until noon on January 4. During the fourth vote, Roy nominated Byron Donalds of Florida, who replaced Jordan as the Republican alternative to McCarthy. In the fourth ballot until the eleventh ballot, Victoria Spartz of Indiana voted present, lowering the necessary threshold to 217 votes.