---

I wish I could tell you the 13th vote for Speaker was meaningful but….no.

Not surprisingly, the motion to adjourn until 2200 was met with very little resistance and the members are off to the meetings to try to find the way forward to finally elect Representative Kevin McCarthy to the Speaker’s chair or give him a nice length of rope that he can give himself the Phil Connors way out of his purgatory.

It is rumoured that the two members who had traveled home to their districts (Representative Ken Buck of Colorado and Representative Wesley Hunt of Texas) had been recalled to Washington to cast their votes for McCarthy and that they should arrive in time for a 14th try late in the evening. One Democrat had also been missing during the 12th vote having a minor medical procedure done but had returned in time to vote in the 13th failed vote.

So on that ominous bombshell, we’ll leave it there until the House comes back in session later this evening…

And now thanks to the amazing magic of the Internet, we’re back and the House has been gavelled back into session just after 2200 hours!

Rumours from the McCarthy camp is that he is confident he will have the votes at the end of the 14th ballot.

And this session should be a very interesting one with the first broadside fired by the House Chaplain as she offers the opening prayer. In all my years of watching the House on C-SPAN, I can’t say I remember a more pointed prayer than the one she gave where the very clear message was that it was time to be done with this circus and get on with the job properly. Check out the transcript in this first column of the Congressional Record…I have to imagine there were more than a few uncomfortable winces as they digested her words.

Once again we’re off to the nominations and this one starts with Representative Patrick McHenry of NC offering a nice smattering of memories of his long-time colleague McCarthy as well as proving conclusively that even though his bow tie is worthy of jokes in and of itself, McHenry certainly needs some serious work on his comedy skills. He’s definitely not a comedian…well, at least a professional one anyway.

But where McHenry’s nomination speech was cute and sweet, Representative Aguilar of California pulls no punches and gives a full broadside of cannon fire to the Republicans predicting the next two years are going to be full of their divisions and reminding everyone of how many on that side of the aisle had big connections to the storming of the Capitol exactly two years ago. When he suggested that there were people over there that still needed to be held accountable for their actions (or inaction as it were) that day, that drew howls of protests from the GOP side of the chamber and Clerk Cheryl Johnson’s gavel strikes the board a bit harder than usual to restore order.

At least the usual suspects have given up on nominating randos and we’re off to the 14th vote with the Reading Clerk rocking a stunning pink ensemble and sporting a look on her face that bodes ill if the clowns don’t fall into line! And it doesn’t escape notice by the wise asses on the Interwebs that she’s bound and determined to try to use every last millimetre that tally clerk’s pencil is capable of whilst marking her order papers. Now that is some serious dedication to being a responsible steward of taxpayer dollars that the members would be wise to adopt! 😉

• Representative Andy Biggs votes for Jim Jordan of Ohio.
• Ammo-Barbie Boebert switches her vote to Present and gets an ovation for doing so
• Representative Crane votes for Andy Biggs of Arizona
• Representative Matt Gaetz does not answer to the first call of the roll because he can’t be bothered to actually be in the chamber when his name is called.
• Representative Good votes for Jordan.
• Representative Gosar doesn’t answer to the roll either
• Matt Gaetz finally comes swanning on to the House floor as if he owns the place which makes one wonder if there is some measure of grandstanding that we can expect when the Reading Clerk cleans up the list of members that didn’t answer to the first roll call.
• Someone votes for McCarthy and gets a very loud ovation. This was likely Representative Hunt of Texas who did indeed make the 14th vote on time after flying back from a quick trip home.
• There’s a shot of McCarthy sitting at his table looking awfully nervous with three votes against him at this point.
• The next camera angle shows Matt Gaetz surrounded by four other members and Gaetz really looks like his dinner isn’t really agreeing with him. All of the other usual suspects have fallen in line with Representative Rosendale of Montana being the last likely fly in the ointment.
• And to no one’s surprise but without the drama of his previous vote where he was head faking all of us watching the proceedings, Rosendale votes for Hern and that’s the maximum McCarthy can lose before the vote is doomed with about 100 members left to poll.
• The voting continues and Gaetz is really the only one who can screw McCarthy out of finally winning election as Speaker. Sensing the Gaetz is all about Gaetz’s spotlight, McCarthy’s primary henchman Patrick McHenry wanders over to Gaetz and Ammo-Barbie are sitting and seems to be imploring him not to do anything stupid to jeopardise finally getting a Speaker on this vote. Ammo-Barbie seems to be making the same point to him.
• Now we’re into the second pass through the roll and Representative Buck votes for McCarthy and also gets a huge ovation for making it to the vote in the nick of time.
• Gaetz votes present and gets an ovation for his troubles.
• Gosar votes for McCarthy and the balloting is finished.

As it stands, the unofficial vote tally is:

• McCarthy – 216
• Jeffries – 212
• Biggs – 2
• Jordan – 2
• Present – 2

Normally this would be the point where the tellers bugger off and agree their tally and the House Clerk will finally get to announce that we now have an elected Speaker of the House after a 10-15 counting session.

Except that with Gaetz and Boebert voting present, there are only 432 votes in play of the 434 maximum possible for a nominee meaning that McCarthy has fallen one vote short of the 217 that would be required for him to be elected Speaker.

Realising that, McCarthy and McHenry make a beeline for where Gaetz and Boebert are still seated to try to convince one or the other of them to change their vote to McCarthy and put an end to this farce. This conversation is animated and seemingly heated with McCarthy wagging his finger in McCarthy’s direction more than a few times in what appears to be a defiant manner.

Patrick McHenry sensing that McCarthy is about at the end of his rope asks him to head back down the aisle toward the well to try to defuse the situation which he does but then immediately does a U-turn before getting to the heart of the House as the crowd of members nearby are audibly reacting to an off-screen fracas developing near Matt Gaetz which earns a gavel of disapproval from Clerk Johnson.

What you couldn’t see in the initial coverage was that as McCarthy was walking away to let McHenry lobby Gaetz, a visibly enraged Representative Mike Rogers of Alabama has arrived on the scene and is climbing over Boebert and a couple of other colleagues to try to get his hands on Gaetz and threatening to strip him of any committee assignments before someone finally throws their arm across Rogers’ face and drags him back to the rear of the chamber.

McHenry stays near Gaetz after McCarthy heads back toward the well again and Matt Gaetz looks visibly shaken that he almost came to blows with a much larger Mike Rogers and figuring that fight wouldn’t have ended well for him. Perhaps it’s a good thing that Rogers wasn’t armed with a cane as that has been the weapon of choice when fights have broken out on the floor of Congress with the most infamous one being Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts being attacked by Representative Preston Brooks who felt that Sumner had insulted him.

After a few minutes to allow things to calm down a bit, McCarthy can be seen on camera laughing. That is until McHenry comes back to his table to join him with an expression that looked a lot happier when he was trying desperately to crack jokes during the nominations and failing miserably at it.

Representative Rosendale has now joined Gaetz who tosses several shady glances in McCarthy’s direction and looks resigned to having to implement the straitjacket strategy.

Someone is picked up on the microphones dotting the chamber saying “the vote is closed” and it sounded like Clerk Johnson. Are there some last-minute shenanigans afoot?

Marjorie Taylor Greene has now joined Gaetz and Boebert and MTG is definitely chewing his ear off about something.

The camera cuts back to the well as Cheryl Johnson confirms the tally and that McCarthy has failed by a single vote which prompts a motion to adjourn until noon Monday.

The NOs clearly have the voice vote but the recorded vote by electronic device is demanded and given and it looks like this farce will fester through the weekend. If McCarthy hated Gaetz and Boebert before, he will have a full weekend to be truly furious with them and plot his revenge when he’s finally elected Speaker.

A gallery shot shows the audience looking like they’re totally fine if someone would just shoot them and put them out of their misery as the clock is approaching midnight. We don’t see Representatives Buck and Hunt but it doesn’t take much of an imagination to figure they must be *LOVING* that decision to haul ass back to Washington for yet another failed vote.

So we’ll leave it there for tonight and see you on Monday afternoon! 🙂