October 3, 2023 House Speaker REmoved

Kevin McCarthy, a Congressman from California, was elected as the Speaker of the House on January 4, 2023, after 15 grueling rounds of voting. Although he had criticized President Trump shortly after the January 6th riots, he had opposed the seating of the Biden electoral votes. However, McCarthy swiftly reconciled with Trump, even visiting him at Mar-a-Lago. His path to the speakership was far from smooth, forcing him to make several concessions to the party's far-right faction. This was partly because the Republicans held a slim five-vote majority in the House of Representatives. One significant concession he made was allowing any member of the Republican caucus to initiate a vote to remove the Speaker at any given time.

The Federal budget is set to commence every October 1st. Ideally, appropriations should originate in the House of Representatives, with each government agency receiving its own set of appropriations. Furthermore, each agency is overseen by a House committee responsible for reviewing and approving its budget. However, in recent times, the House has frequently missed the mark, failing to pass the majority of these budgets promptly. Consequently, Congress has regularly adopted a continuing resolution (CR) to sustain government funding. In 2023, history repeated itself. Approaching the deadline, McCarthy endeavored to rally the Republican caucus behind a staunchly conservative CR, which proposed robust border security measures. Nevertheless, the party's far-right members did not yield. The threat of a government shutdown loomed, but at the eleventh hour, McCarthy conceded to a straightforward CR that provided added disaster relief aid without supplementary funding. This 45-day CR was approved in the House by 209 Democrats and 126 Republicans, with opposition from one Democrat and 90 Republicans.

This maneuver by McCarthy greatly displeased the far-right members of the Republican party. Consequently, Congressman Matt Gaetz put forth a resolution to dethrone McCarthy from his position as Speaker. On October 3, the House voted in favor of the resolution, effectively removing McCarthy. With the Speaker's chair now vacant, the House promptly went into recess.