House conservatives say McCarthy’s efforts to address demands ‘insufficient’ ahead of Speaker election

Nine House conservatives expressed doubts about electing Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) as the next Speaker of the House, calling for a “radical departure from the status quo” ahead of the Tuesday floor vote.

In a Sunday letter obtained by The Hill, Reps. Scott Perry (R-Pa.) and Chip Roy (R-Texas) led seven other hard-line Republican House members and members-elect in calling McCarthy’s responses to their preelection demands “insufficient.”

“The times call for radical departure from the status quo — not a continuation of past and ongoing Republican failures,” they wrote. “For someone with a 14-year presence in senior House Republican leadership, Mr. McCarthy bears squarely the burden to correct the dysfunction he now explicitly admits across that long tenure.”

Besides Perry and Roy, the GOP lawmakers who signed the letter are Dan Bishop (N.C.), Andrew Clyde (Ga.), Paul Gosar (Ariz.) and Andy Harris (Md.).

GOP Reps.-elect Anna Paulina Luna (Fla.), Eli Crane (Ariz.) and Andy Ogles (Tenn.) also signed.

The letter was released after McCarthy on New Year’s Eve submitted a written response to the conservatives, seven of whom in early December demanded several changes to House rules and policies from Speaker candidates. They did not name McCarthy in that letter, but it came as other House Republicans expressed opposition to the minority leader becoming Speaker.

In his response, titled “Restoring the People’s House and Ending Business as Usual,” the group said McCarthy detailed dysfunction in the House and vowed to set it right once he takes up the Speaker’s gavel.

But the Republicans said it came “almost impossibly late to address continued deficiencies ahead of the opening of the 118th Congress on January 3rd.”

“There continue to be missing specific commitments with respect to virtually every component of our entreaties, and thus, no means to measure whether promises are kept or broken,” the group wrote.

One of the demands the group made was for a mechanism that would allow lawmakers to more easily call a motion to remove the House Speaker.

But McCarthy pushed to maintain restrictions on that ability in his formal response, according to the letter writers, who said they will “not accept” the next Speaker without that mechanism.

McCarthy won a Republican conference vote for the Speakership last month but must garner the support of a majority of the House on the floor Tuesday to secure the position.

McCarthy will need 218 votes to win, and with Republicans holding on to just 222 seats in the next Congress, he can’t afford to lose many GOP voters.

Only one opponent, Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.), has mounted an official challenge against the GOP leader for the role.

In addition to Biggs, at least four far-right Republicans have already said they will vote against McCarthy. None of those five lawmakers are among the signatories of Sunday’s letter.