The group has also made sweeping demands to reimagine the U.S. They have railed against his deal with the White House over raising the debt limit earlier this year and have demanded the House slash spending levels to new lows. Gaetz and other critics of McCarthy say he has failed to be the conservative leader the party needs. Mike Lawler, R-N.Y., a defender of McCarthy, said Sunday on ABC. “This will all be torpedoed by one person who wants to put a motion to vacate for personal, political reasons, and undermine the will of the conference and the American people, who elected a Republican majority to govern,” Rep. While others eventually relented and voted in favor of McCarthy or present, Gaetz fought until the very end. Gaetz is among 20 or so members who voted against McCarthy round after round as he fought to become speaker. Gaetz, a member of the ultra-conservative House Freedom Caucus, has been threatening to file the resolution to remove him from the dais ever since McCarthy was nominated speaker by a majority of the conference earlier this year. Just like for Boehner, the call for McCarthy’s removal began with just one man. Most recently, the mere whispers of a motion to vacate forced Boehner out of office and set McCarthy on the path to the leadership post he has today. In 1997, Republicans frustrated with then-Speaker Newt Gingrich considered trying to oust him but eventually decided against it. But by calling the bluff of his detractors, Cannon was able to put them on the record and end the threats against him. The effort failed as his fellow Republicans voted overwhelmingly to keep him as their leader. While it has never been successful, a motion to vacate has been used as a political threat against several speakers throughout history, dating back to Republican Speaker Joseph Cannon - who first invoked the resolution against himself in 1910. If those tactics were to fail, and the resolution came to the floor for a vote, it would take a simple majority of the House - 218 votes, when no seats are vacant - to remove the speaker. Such a request would force House leaders to schedule a vote on the resolution within two legislative days.īut there are procedural motions that members of either party could introduce to slow down or stop the process altogether. Once the motion is introduced, the lawmaker can walk onto the House floor and request a vote. HOW DOES IT WORK?Īt any point in time, a member of the House can introduce a privileged resolution - a designation that gives it priority over other measures - to declare the office of the speaker of the House of Representatives vacant. No speaker has ever been removed from office through a motion to vacate. Two months later, Boehner said he would be stepping down. Mark Meadows of North Carolina, a Republican who later became Donald Trump’s White House chief of staff, introduced a resolution to declare the speaker’s office vacant. The last use of the motion was in 2015, when then-Rep. Proponents of allowing a single lawmaker to file the motion said it promotes accountability, noting its long history in the House. But when that wasn’t good enough for his critics, he agreed to reduce that threshold to one - the system that historically has been the norm. In January, McCarthy, hoping to appease some on the hard right as he fought to gain their vote for speaker, agreed to give as few as five Republican members the ability to initiate a vote to remove him.
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