Members of the House of Representatives on Saturday finally took their oath of office, hours after GOP Rep. Kevin McCarthy clinched the House speakership in a dramatic 15th round of voting.
Oaths for incumbents and those newly elected to the House in the November midterms were initially scheduled for Tuesday, but that process couldn't move forward until a Speaker was voted in.
After falling short of the 218 votes needed to clinch the role, McCarthy finally converted the votes he needed from fellow Republican hold outs, mainly in the Freedom Caucus, to take the gavel after midnight Saturday.
"That was easy, huh?" McCarthy quipped upon receiving the gavel around 1 a.m. EST. "I never thought we'd get up here," he laughed.
The battle for the new Republican majority to replace outgoing Democratic Speaker Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., slogged through the week with Democrats consistently delivering their unanimous 212 votes to Democrat Minority Leader Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., while McCarthy, who had a 222-vote majority, ended up making concessions to some 20 Republican Freedom Caucus members to eke out the 216 he needed to win.
Among the concessions McCarthy had to make to take the gavel included the ability to "vacate the chair" with just one member of Congress calling for a vote to remove the speaker, a provision Pelosi quashed during her tenure during the last four years.
"What we’re seeing is the incredibly shrinking speakership, and that’s most unfortunate for Congress," Pelosi told reporters as she entered the chamber Friday, according to the New York Times.
Freedom Caucus members also negotiated significant representation on the powerful House Rules Committee, which determines which bills get to the floor for a vote, full debate on spending bills and allowing members to propose amendments on the fly, the Times report said.
McCarthy credited former President Donald Trump for backing him for the job, saying that Trump was "all in" and making calls on McCarthy’s behalf right through Friday night, CNN reported.
"He was with me from the beginning — somebody wrote the doubt of whether he was there — and he was all in," CNN reported McCarthy saying following his victory. "He would call me, and he would call others. And he really was — I was just talking to him tonight — helping get those final votes."
According to the Times, it was the first time since 1859 that more than a dozen votes were needed to pick a new speaker for the chamber.
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