St. Mary's reps stand by McCarthy in speaker vote

Both congressmen who represent St. Mary Parish stood by fellow Republican Kevin McCarthy’s bid to become speaker of the House of Representatives during a historic intermural fight over the top leadership post.

As this is written Wednesday, the fight continued and after four votes, McCarthy had failed to get the 218 votes he needs to overcome opposition from hard-line conservatives.

U.S. Reps. Clay Higgins, R-Lafayette, and Garret Graves, R-Baton Rouge, both supported McCarthy through the first four votes. Higgins represents most of St. Mary Parish, while portions of extreme east St. Mary were placed in Graves’ 6th Congressional District after the 2020 Census.

A statement from Higgins’ office Tuesday said he supported Freedom Caucus Chairman Andy Biggs, R-Arizona, during conference deliberations in November. But when 185 fellow Republicans put McCarthy, R-California, forward as their choice for speaker, Higgins said it was time to support McCarthy.

The initial votes packed plenty of drama for political junkies and C-SPAN nerds. After months of negotiations with Freedom Caucus members, McCarthy was reported to have given ground on such issues as creating a “no confidence” vote option on his leadership and giving priority to investigations of Biden administration figures.

But on the first vote Tuesday — with a whole House full of members-elect who could not be seated without a speaker — McCarthy received only 203 votes, 15 short of the number he needed.

McCarthy’s support begin to slip. By the end of the fourth vote Wednesday, he had only 201 votes.

McCarthy’s difficulties raised the possibility that U.S. Rep. Steve Scalise, R-Metairie and the second-ranking Republican in the house, would be an alternative who could attract enough support to become speaker.

No Louisiana representative has risen so high within the party’s House ranks since 1998, when Republican Bob Livingston, the designated successor to Newt Gingrich as speaker, declined the post after porn publisher Larry Flynt published details of Livingston’s extramarital affair.

U.S. Reps. Julia Letlow, Mike Johnson and Scalise joined Higgins and Graves in support of McCarthy. The state delegation’s lone Democrat, Troy Carter of New Orleans, supported Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, the top House Democrat and outgoing Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s successor.

Here’s the text of Higgins’ statement on the speaker vote:

“Over the past several months, members of the House Republican Conference have engaged in a season of unprecedented negotiations and sometimes contentious debate. Those conversations have been driven by the House Freedom Caucus, of which I am a member. However, to their credit, Republican leadership has been receptive and has facilitated these conversations to the benefit of our Conference and our party. The rule changes that we fought for help restore the power of each individual office to this deliberative body.

“Now, this is the beginning of a new Congress. We have a Constitutional duty to elect a Speaker of the House before any legislative business can be conducted. Not a rule or a tradition… it’s Constitutional writ that Congress shall elect a Speaker of the House at the beginning of each new Congress. Without a Speaker, no committees are formed, no hearings take place, and no conservative legislation moves forward.

“In our internal debates, Kevin McCarthy received 185 votes. There were 31 of us who voted for another candidate. I was one of those 31. I have had a solid working relationship with Kevin since 2017 and I’ve spoken on that truth very candidly for six years. My vote for Andy Biggs in November reflected my support for deep Conference debate regarding Constitutionalist reform during that season of Conference deliberation. My vote in November reflected my core principles as a man who has sworn an oath to our Constitution, not to any one individual. That season of debate has been largely successful in unprecedented ways. HFC drove that debate, and Kevin McCarthy facilitated the debates. Heavy, passionate, long unscripted debates, over and over again. Conservatives won by introducing and encouraging very significant Constitutionalist reforms deep into the actual rules language of our Conference and of the House itself. … That season of debate has passed. It was worth the fight and the need for reforms continues but now is the time for unity as a party, as we fulfill our Constitutional obligation to elect a Speaker of the House. Kevin McCarthy has been duly elected as the Republican nominee for Speaker, and I am a Republican American man.”