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Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) on Tuesday renewed his challenge against House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) for Speaker as McCarthy’s opponents aim to keep him from securing the gavel on the House floor but lack a viable alternative.
“I’m running for Speaker to break the establishment,” Biggs, a former chairman of the confrontational conservative House Freedom Caucus, said in a tweet on Tuesday alongside a Daily Caller op-ed railing against McCarthy’s leadership. “Kevin McCarthy was created by, elevated by, and maintained by the establishment.”
Biggs’s office told The Hill on Tuesday that despite the tweet and op-ed, he is still open to and interested in an alternative Speaker candidate. In the meantime, though, Biggs is keeping himself in the running, and said last week that he plans to vote for himself on the House floor.
Biggs, who mounted a last-minute, long-shot challenge to McCarthy for a House GOP Speaker nomination vote last month, has said he thinks a more “consensus” alternative to McCarthy will emerge before the Speakership vote.
Tensions over opposition to McCarthy escalated in a Tuesday conference meeting with McCarthy’s allies speaking up to tell critics to get behind the GOP leader and not hurt the whole team, according to Rep.
