US House of Representatives Speaker Kevin McCarthy is fighting for his political life after a right-wing rebel filed a rarely used motion to oust him.
Mr McCarthy summoned lawmakers to vote on his fate on Tuesday. If he loses, he will be removed as House Speaker.
Matt Gaetz, a hard-right Florida Republican, moved to oust Mr McCarthy on Monday over an alleged “secret deal” he believes he made with Democrats.
Mr McCarthy, a California Republican, posted on social media: “Bring it on.”
The Speaker rebuffed questions from reporters on Tuesday, declaring: “You’re asking me why I’m confident? Because of who I am. And I just don’t give up.
“Keeping the government open and paying our troops was the right decision. I stand by that decision and at the end of the day if I have to lose my job over it, so be it.”
Republicans control the chamber by a narrow 221-212 majority, meaning it would only take a few Republican defections to threaten Mr McCarthy’s hold on power if all Democrats vote against him.
Democrats have not said how they will vote, and must now decide if they will step in and vote to help the Speaker keep his job.
Three ways the Kevin
McCarthy drama could end
Many are unhappy with Mr McCarthy after he recently approved the launch of a congressional inquiry to see if there is enough evidence to impeach President Joe Biden – which they view as a move to curry favour with the hard-right of the Republican Party.
But left-wing New York lawmaker Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez told CNN on Sunday her fellow Democrats might be interested in politically bailing out Mr McCarthy if they can extract concessions from him.
It would take a simple majority of the House to remove Speaker McCarthy in a floor vote
Several Republicans said they planned to vote with Mr McCarthy, according to Reuters, following a closed-door meeting where he reportedly got several standing ovations.
“I don’t think there’s any question that there’s only one person prepared to lead our party. That’s understood by over 95% of the members,” Republican Darrell Issa said.
What does the US Speaker of the House do?
Tensions between Mr Gaetz and Mr McCarthy boiled over at the weekend after the Speaker passed a bill with the help of Democrats to fund government agencies.
No US Speaker has ever been ousted by such a so-called motion to vacate.
The Speaker is second in the line of succession for the presidency after the US vice-president. He or she sets the lower house of Congress’s legislative priorities, controls committee assignments, and can make or break the White House’s agenda.
The deal late on Saturday that averted a government shutdown left out $6bn (£5bn) of funding for Ukraine because Mr Gaetz, of Florida, and others on the right of the Republican Party, insisted the US has spent too much on that country’s war with Russia.
Mr Gaetz has wielded the threat of dethroning Mr McCarthy ever since January when he led party rebels in opposing the California congressman’s bid for the speakership, forcing him to endure 15 gruelling rounds of voting in the chamber.
During the political horse-trading before he ultimately won the gavel, Mr McCarthy agreed to a change of rules that would allow any single lawmaker to call for a vote to oust the Speaker.
That paved the way to the motion to vacate.
After filing the motion, Mr Gaetz told a crowd of reporters: “Well, I have enough Republicans where, at this point next week, one of two things will happen.
“Kevin McCarthy won’t be the Speaker of the House, or he’ll be the Speaker of the House working at the pleasure of the Democrats, and I’m at peace with either result, because the American people deserve to know who governs them.”
Asked on Monday whether his actions were plunging the institution into turmoil, Mr Gaetz replied: “You talk about chaos as if it’s me forcing a few votes and filing a few motions.
“Real chaos is when the American people have to go through the austerity that is coming if we continue to have $2 trillion annual deficits.”
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said her fellow Democrats might help Mr McCarthy if he helps them
Mr Gaetz told reporters outside the Capitol on Monday night that he would be up for supporting Louisiana Republican Steve Scalise – currently deputy to Mr McCarthy – to succeed the Speaker.
Tom McClintock, a California Republican, blasted the “self-destructive course” of trying to remove the Speaker, before Mr Gaetz’s floor speech.
Without naming his Florida colleague, Mr McClintock said: “I implore my Republican colleagues to look past their prejudices, their passions, their errors of opinion, their local interests and their selfish views.”
According to the rules of the chamber, the Speaker is required to keep a list of individuals who could act as a temporary replacement in case the role is ever vacated.
If Mr McCarthy were voted out, this list would be made public and the person at the top of it would be named Speaker pro tempore until elections were held in the chamber for a new leader of the majority party in the chamber.
The rare procedural tool to remove a Speaker has only been used twice in the past century and never successfully.
It was last used in 2015 against Speaker John Boehner.
The motion to remove him failed but it built enough pressure on Mr Boehner that, unable to unite his caucus, he announced his resignation two months later.
Before then, it was last used in 1910. [BBC]
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