Kevin McCarthy's Rough Year In Congress Ends With His Resignation
Kevin McCarthy's tumultuous year in Congress has ended with not a bang but a whimper, as the California representative announced his resignation from the House of Representatives today, effective December 31st.
Kevin McCarthy resignation letter https://t.co/dhk1suKptK pic.twitter.com/U6n7Bvgk6D
— José (@josecanyousee) December 19, 2023
McCarthy served California for 20 years before today's announcement. He spent a significant amount of his time in Congress aiming to be Speaker of the House, an honor he seemed primed to finally achieve after Republicans took the House of Representatives by a slim majority in the 2022 midterms. Then, things didn't go exactly as planned.
McCarthy achieved his goal, but was the first House Speaker in over a century to be elected after multiple ballots — 15, in fact, underlining how difficult it was to get the Republican Party to unite behind him.
The far-right wing of the party was a particular thorn in his side, and part of the deal McCarthy made to earn holdouts' votes was to agree to a rule change that made it so only one congressperson needed to put forth a motion to vacate the Speaker for the question to be considered.
It didn't take long for Republican Matt Gaetz to invoke this rule, and in September, he called for the House to vote on removing McCarthy as House Speaker.
Within a day, a coalition of far-right Republicans and all the Democrats voted McCarthy out marking an ignominious end to his time in the seat he seemed to have wanted his entire career.
His bad year didn't end there, as months later, he was accused of intentionally elbowing Tim Burchett, a Republican who was among those who voted him out, in front of the press. Gaetz called for an ethics investigation into McCarthy following the incident.
Throughout his drastic downfall, neither Democrats nor many Republicans seemed all that sympathetic towards him, and that schadenfreude continued when news of his resignation hit social media today.
