House adjourns for 2nd day without electing a speaker

Marjorie Taylor Greene and Kevin McCarthy.

(Image credit: Win McNamee/Getty Images)

published 5 January 2023

The House narrowly voted on Wednesday night to adjourn until noon on Thursday, ending the day without electing a new speaker.

The House reassembled on Wednesday night, several hours after Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) lost a sixth consecutive round of voting for speaker. Several of the 20 Republicans who have continuously voted against McCarthy, including Reps. Andy Biggs (Ariz.), Lauren Boebert (Colo.), Matt Gaetz (Fla.), and Bob Good (Va.), voted with Democrats not to end the session, but the motion to adjourn passed 216-214.

On Wednesday evening, Gaetz and Boebert met with the Republican whip, Rep. Tom Emmer (Minn.), as part of ongoing talks to get the "never Kevin" Republicans on McCarthy's side. While Emmer called their discussions "very constructive," Gaetz left the meeting saying he won't be voting for McCarthy, telling reporters the would-be speaker is "a desperate guy whose vote share is dropping with every subsequent vote."

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Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) railed against her fellow ultra-conservatives who are refusing to back McCarthy, telling reporters that she spoke with Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.) and said an agreement needs to be reached, pronto. "At first, a lot of these people were thinking this is a good idea, but now they're seeing the results and they're seeing that it is causing Congress to completely stop and the Republican Party looks like an embarrassment right now," she said.

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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

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