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Front-runner for U.S. House speaker withdraws from race; election postponed

 
House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy of California walks out of a nomination vote meeting Thursday on Capitol Hill in Washington after dropping out of the race to replace House Speaker John Boehner. Boehner is stepping down and retiring from Congress at the end of the month. [Associated Press]
House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy of California walks out of a nomination vote meeting Thursday on Capitol Hill in Washington after dropping out of the race to replace House Speaker John Boehner. Boehner is stepping down and retiring from Congress at the end of the month. [Associated Press]
Published Oct. 9, 2015

WASHINGTON — Rep. Kevin McCarthy on Thursday abruptly took himself out of the race to succeed John Boehner as House speaker, apparently undone by the same forces that drove Boehner to resign.

McCarthy announced his decision at a meeting of Republicans in the Capitol, and the gathering quickly became chaotic. Boehner requested unanimous consent to postpone the election — rather than immediately moving to vote on the remaining two candidates — and then announced, "the meeting is adjourned."

The about-face appeared to stem from McCarthy's growing realization over the past 24 hours that while many of his colleagues supported him, he was risking a humiliating defeat when the vote went to the House floor later this month.

A group of about 40 hard-line conservatives announced Wednesday night that they would support Rep. Daniel Webster of Florida, making it unclear whether McCarthy, who is from California, could assemble the 218 votes needed to be elected.

It's still unclear if Webster, who is from Winter Garden, can mount a winning campaign.

Webster played down his chances, saying the dynamic had changed. Asked by a reporter if he liked playing the underdog, Webster replied, "No, I'd like to be the favorite."

Webster, who served as speaker of the Florida House, has pledged to return power to individual members and give fair hearing to bills and amendments, something that some rank-and-file members said was not happening under Boehner.

"Power doesn't like to give up its power, and so that's why many of us have gotten behind Mr. Webster," Rep. John Fleming of Louisiana, a Freedom Caucus member, told reportersThursday. "We feel that conservatives have been greatly marginalized by the current leadership."

Rep. David Jolly, R-Indian Shores, said it was "stunning, but not too surprising,'' that McCarthy dropped out.

McCarthy "recognized that he was not the person capable of uniting us,'' said Jolly, who had planned to nominate Webster for the post.

The other possible candidate to emerge is Rep. Jason Chaffetz of Utah, a young and ambitious lawmaker who was the first member of Congress to vigorously focus on the Benghazi matter. Chaffetz, who is head of the powerful House Oversight committee, will have an uphill climb.

Rep. John Fleming, R-La., said the 30- to 40-member Freedom Caucus will start with a clean slate of candidates and meet to discuss whom to support.

McCarthy has been dogged over the past week with questions about his verbal competence, his conservative credentials and his ability to coalesce a group of members — who may in fact defy unification. He said he intended to remain House majority leader, scrambling the races for all the Republican leadership positions. Many are attempting to move up in the ranks.

Boehner, who said last month that he would leave at the end of October after four years of endless badgering from the right flank of his conference, may need to decide whether to remain in the job until a new speaker is named or appoint an interim person to fill the job.

"As I have said previously, I will serve as speaker until the House votes to elect a new speaker," Boehner said in a statement Thursday.

A dynamic similar to the one driving the revolt among Republicans in the House — largely fueled by members who came to Washington on the wave of Tea Party anger against entrenched politicians — has propelled outsider candidates to the top tier of the party's presidential race. The organizing principle in both cases is a sentiment that experienced politicians are not heeding their call for change.

McCarthy's candidacy was damaged when he suggested in an interview on Fox News last week that the House committee investigating the attack in Benghazi had the political aim of damaging Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign. He acknowledged that his remarks about Benghazi had factored into his decision not to seek the speaker's job.

"I really do believe it is time for a fresh start," Chaffetz said. "That was the whole genesis of my campaign. But we need to have a lot more family discussions, because we need to find somebody that our whole body can unite behind and do what we were elected to do."

He added, "Our conference is going to have to do a lot of soul searching."

McCarthy's decision put the House of Representatives into a state of disarray just days from the first and most serious of a series of fiscal deadlines.

The Treasury Department has said it will exhaust its authority to borrow money to fund the government Nov. 5.

If Congress does not raise or suspend the government's statutory borrowing limit, the government would default on its debt days later, risking economic chaos, soaring interest rates and plunging stock prices.

Then, on Dec. 11, a stopgap spending bill expires. Without congressional action, much of the government will shut down.

At the White House, officials said they were surprised by what a spokesman repeatedly called the "chaos" playing out inside the House Republican conference.

"It certainly is easy to poke fun at the chaos," said Josh Earnest, the White House press secretary.

Earnest urged Republicans in the chamber to find a way to rein in its most conservative members. The Republicans, he said, should "either tame the forces of that small but vocal group of extreme ideologues, or buck up the mainstream — or at least more mainstream — majority within the House Republican conference."

Earnest expressed the administration's hope that the leadership drama in the House would not make it more difficult for lawmakers to raise the nation's debt ceiling by early November, when the Treasury Department has said the country's authority to borrow runs out.

"That is the responsibility of members of Congress," he said, noting that lawmakers have raised the debt ceiling several times since 2011. "We are hopeful that in spite of this chaos, Republicans and Democrats in the House will do the same thing again," he said.

Information from Times Washington bureau chief Alex Leary was used in this report.