WASHINGTON — Grinning through 15 excruciating rounds of voting to become Speaker of the House in January may have been off-putting, but Kevin McCarthy was determined to focus on the silver lining.
“Look, this is the big part,” Mr. McCarthy told reporters who wondered how—if he barely got his peers to elect him—he would ever be able to win his meager and unruly Republican majority in the House to rule. “Because it has taken so long, we have now learned how to govern. So now we can get the job done.”
In the months that followed, Mr. McCarthy enjoyed a honeymoon of sorts, a period during which whether he actually learned anything about governing across the divisions during his troublesome conference went largely untested. That phase is now over.
Mr McCarthy will table as early as Wednesday his proposal to lift the debt ceiling for a year in return for austerity and policy changes. With a narrow majority — with all Democrats present voting no, he couldn’t afford to lose more than four votes — it’s still not clear if he has the votes to pass a bill that has no chance of passing has.
Senator Chuck Schumer, New York Democrat and Majority Leader, said the bill should be called the “Default On America Act” — the abbreviation may refer to the “dead-on-arrival” status in his chamber — and President Biden rejected it as a “MAGA economic agenda” that includes “cuts for working and middle class people.”
She and other Democrats have denounced the legislation as recklessly austere and fiscally misleading, and argued that by pushing it through, Republicans are creating a debt crisis by placing unreasonable conditions on any vote to lift the debt ceiling. The legal borrowing limit is expected to be reached this summer, leaving the country in default unless Congress decides to raise it.
But for Mr. McCarthy, who has gone to great lengths to placate the hard right against spending without alienating more mainstream Republicans whose seats could be jeopardized if they embrace draconian austerity, even it would pass counting a doomed bill as an achievement.
After taking the position that Republicans will not raise the debt limit without a fiscal review and demanding that Mr Biden negotiate terms, the speaker must now show he can muster the votes to push through a deal .
That includes soliciting “yes” votes from right-wing members who have never voted to raise the debt ceiling before and are proud of it. Failure to do so would represent a huge setback for Republicans and Mr. McCarthy’s ability to lead them.
“This is the biggest moment because it’s the first really hard thing he’s had to do,” said Brendan Buck, who served as top adviser to the previous two Republican speakers, Paul D. Ryan and John A. Boehner. “What matters most about this vote is that it’s a demonstration of how strong he is with his own members as he goes into those negotiations.”
Since winning his gavel, Mr. McCarthy enjoyed a relatively stable job in the job he had longed for.
House Republicans have spent much of the year passing partisan messaging bills on social issues that have no chance of becoming law, but help rally the party’s base and Mr. McCarthy have helped build goodwill among its members.
He has postponed more controversial issues, such as an immigration crackdown that met with resistance from some mainstream Republicans in his ranks, and the presentation of a budget, which GOP leaders abandoned amid disagreements over timing and content, including how strong they should be. had to cut costs.
“It was purposely a period of putting points on the board and making people feel good to put them in a good mood,” before venturing into more difficult voices, Mr. Buck said.
Mr. McCarthy has also hailed the creation of a bipartisan China Select Committee as an early success, and viewed as a major victory a Republican-led proposal to block a new penal code for the District of Columbia, which Mr. Biden then signed. initially against.
“I believe every member of the conference thinks highly of Kevin,” Texas Representative Lance Gooden said. “He has certainly earned their respect.”
Mr. McCarthy found it a quiet satisfaction that he was underestimated, people close to him said.
Concerns that he would have to unceremoniously move his belongings out of the speaker’s office before his name was even installed above the door proved unfounded. He was allowed to sit behind the president during the State of the Union speech. No one has threatened him with a snap vote to remove him from the speakership – until now.
Even Florida Representative Matt Gaetz, Mr. McCarthy’s nemesis during the speaker’s race, was more subdued, saying in February that he had beaten Mr. McCarthy would give “an A for his work to date”.
But the easy days are over.
Mr. Gaetz said Monday he was a “no” vote on the debt ceiling, without stricter job requirements for social programs, a change that some Republicans from politically competitive districts oppose and that Mr. McCarthy has said is not possible.
Mr Buck said if Mr McCarthy could meet his debt ceiling, even one that is little more than a starting point for a negotiation with Mr Biden, “it would be extremely impressive, and it would underline that he has a pretty solid foundation of trust among members – more than I expected at this point.
Some allies of Mr. McCarthy claim his relentless week of public humiliation to become a speaker prepared him for this moment.
“I think deep down he thinks the 15 votes were good,” said former chairman Newt Gingrich. “It showed he was strong. He could handle heat and acted quite cheerfully. It enabled his members to get a lot of the toxin out.”
Mr Gingrich, the only current former Republican speaker trying to emulate Mr McCarthy, said he has advised his successor to push ahead with the debt ceiling bill even if he falls a few votes short when he walks the floor, it is better to pressure hesitant colleagues to put aside their reservations and support it.
“The last five votes, you’re standing there begging,” Mr. Gingrich said of telling Mr. McCarthy about his own experience with difficult bills. “But there is pressure not to let the team down.”
