House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s record filibuster-style floor speech delaying passage of Democrats’ Build Back Better social spending and climate bill won points with conservatives in the Republican conference right when he needed it, potentially boosting his resume for a bid for House speaker if Republicans win back the House in 2022.
Earlier in the week, McCarthy faced angry conservatives in a House Republican conference meeting, outside criticisms of his leadership after 13 Republicans joined with Democrats to pass a $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill, and press articles questioning his viability to be elected speaker.
“People rallied around his leadership,” Rep. Greg Murphy of North Carolina told the Washington Examiner. “I think this is a foreshadowing, to be very honest, with what’s going to happen in 2022 with Kevin’s leadership. Just so many of the Democrats were shrinking, literally shrinking, when they’re actually finding out what’s in their own bill.”
McCarthy’s 8-hour, 32-minute speech through the night started at 8:37 p.m. on Thursday evening and concluded at about 5:10 a.m. Friday morning. He made a point to pass the previous 8-hour, 7-minute House speech record set by Speaker Nancy Pelosi in 2018 in support of the Deferred Action for Child Arrivals program. Before this, McCarthy’s longest floor speech was 20 minutes and 17 seconds, according to his staff.
SPENDING BILL VOTE DRAGS INTO FRIDAY AFTER TOP HOUSE REPUBLICAN DELIVERS EIGHT-HOUR ‘FILIBUSTER’
Unlike the Senate, the House has limits on floor debate for bills. Members speaking for or against legislation are allotted time, usually a minute, on the House floor. Party leaders, though, are afforded the privilege of the “magic minute,” allowing them to speak for as long as they wish without being interrupted.
“This one minute feels almost like eight hours now,” McCarthy said shortly after 5 a.m. while opposing the nearly $2 trillion social spending bill, which includes free preschool, new healthcare subsidies, paid family leave, an extension of the expanded child tax credit, and green energy policies. “There’s a reason why. This is a tipping point. This is a point of no coming back from.”
On the House floor for votes before Democrats passed the bill, and just a few hours after McCarthy finished his speech, Republican members greeted McCarthy with pats on the back in acknowledgment of his constant-speaking, always-standing feat.
“A lot of people were very happy about it,” said Wisconsin Rep. Glenn Grothman.
“We were all encouraged to see him do it,” said Ohio Rep. Warren Davidson.
Even the head of the hard-line conservative House Freedom Caucus, whose members had given McCarthy heat in a House Republican Conference meeting earlier in the week over imposing consequences for members who voted against the infrastructure bill, gave McCarthy a notable metaphorical fist-bump for his speech.
“Just a few weeks ago, House Democrats and 13 Republicans voted to unlock the barn door for this socialist boondoggle,” Freedom Caucus Chairman Rep. Andy Biggs of Arizona said in a statement. “With today’s vote, the horse has left the barn, and galloping inflation will be the result. Thank you to Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy for holding the line last night and exposing the Democrats’ socialist agenda.”
FIVE MEMORABLE MOMENTS FROM MCCARTHY’S EIGHT-HOUR FLOOR SPEECH
Texas Rep. Chip Roy, who reportedly got in a heated discussion with McCarthy in front of the Republican conference, acknowledged the benefit of his speech even though he could not change or block the bill.
“It demonstrates a resolve to say that we’re opposed to this, and it sends a strong signal to the Senate,” Roy said. “You galvanize people, right? You catch people’s attention. … I want the leader to fight. And that was good. Go fight. Let’s fight more. Let’s throw everything we’ve got at this nonsense.”
Roy indicated, though, that McCarthy’s speech will not seal the deal for the speakership. “We’ll see what happens over the next year,” Roy said.
McCarthy: Can I be speaker? pic.twitter.com/QifyqkBpTQ
— Acyn (@Acyn) November 19, 2021
During one moment in his speech, McCarthy almost blatantly showed that his “filibuster” was a way to shore up his position ahead of a potential speakership election in a year.
“Where’d the speaker go?” McCarthy said as the presiding officer briefly stepped away from the chair. ”Can I be speaker?”
But McCarthy faces both internal and external criticism as he eyes the speaker’s chair.
“They’re not skating to where the puck is. And so I would give them a grade of a ‘D,’” Mark Meadows, former White House chief of staff under President Donald Trump, said of Republican leadership on Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz’s podcast released Thursday. He suggested that Trump become speaker if Republicans win.
And McCarthy did not win praises from all the vocal critics in his conference.
Speaking to Newsmax, Gaetz said that McCarthy’s floor speech “was like a really long death rattle.”
“We had the ability to block everything,” Gaetz said. “The outcome was already determined as a consequence of poor leadership and poor strategy.”
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Asked what McCarthy’s speech could mean for him in terms of his stature in the Republican conference, Colorado Rep. Lauren Boebert told the Washington Examiner: “I don’t know how that’s relevant. His speech was about Build Back Brandon.”
“We should have stopped the infrastructure bill. It wasn’t infrastructure, period. That’s what we should have stopped. We knew that this was gonna happen,” Boebert added.
