By Cat Kemp
After a long and eventful vote for the House of Representatives speakership, Republican Kevin McCarthy from Bakersfield, California was elected. Facing heavy opposition from a small group of Republicans, McCarthy was unable to reach a majority vote for the first 14 rounds of votes. In response, McCarthy listed many concessions such as promises to cap spending, allowing the House’s committees to have new members, and creating a rule that only one member is needed to vote to oust him as speaker. Although elected, McCarthy arguably has little remaining political strength and respect due to the sheer amount of power he gave up during the election process.
Additionally, many of the claims McCarthy was elected on have been proven to be incorrect or fabrications. For example, McCarthy gloated about how the first bill passed by the new Republican House majority has “repealed funding for 87,000 IRS agents.” Although it is true that the Republican House majority passed a bill that seeks to remove additional funding for the IRS granted through Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, a more accurate term is that the House Republicans have voted to repeal funding, but have not yet actually passed into law with the Senate and President’s consent.