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A day after calling Donald Trump’s support for Kevin McCarthy to be speaker of the House “sad,” Rep.-elect Matt Gaetz of Florida voted for the former president and current White House candidate on the seventh and eighth ballots as lawmakers struggled to break a three-day deadlock.
McCarthy, a California Republican, had been stymied in his bid to win the gavel as some 20 far-right GOPers had voted for fellow members of the Freedom Caucus in an effort to wiggle concessions from the more moderate candidate.
The Constitution does not state that the speaker of the House must be a current lawmaker, and anyone in Congress can nominate a candidate for the parliamentary leadership position. However, a non-lawmaker has never been elevated to the position in the country’s history.
