US House of Representatives to conduct next round of voting
(VOVWORLD) - On the first day of the new Congress, Kevin McCarthy failed to secure the 218 votes necessary to become Speaker of the House in three rounds of voting.
 Kevin McCarthy (Photo: Getty Images) |
The House cannot conduct any business, including swearing in new members, until a speaker is chosen. McCarthy faces a Republican bloc of critics who want changes to the way the House operates. Although he has given in to many of their demands, he is still short of the votes he needs.
The US House of Representatives will conduct the next round of voting on Wednesday afternoon. If no candidate wins a majority of votes on the fourth ballot, members of the House of Representatives will have to keep voting until a new Speaker is elected. According to the law, a new term of the US House of Representatives can’t start until the election of the head of the body has been completed.
The last time a Speaker election took more than one ballot was in 1923, when Speaker Frederick Gillett was reelected on the ninth ballot. But a few extra rounds of balloting would be a far cry from the nearly two months and 133 votes the House took to choose its leader in 1856, the longest and most contentious Speaker election in its history.