Shortly after 10:30 p.m. Thursday a door swung open off the House chamber into a private room where Democrats had hunkered down to wait out a marathon speech by Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.).
Wp Get the full experience.Choose your plan ArrowRight
“Is he done,” a female Democrat yelled out from the cloakroom, as the California Republican briefly paused. After a momentary set of cheers, the Democrat let her voice down — “Oh” — and the GOP leader resumed what turned into an hours long filibuster.
McCarthy’s House-style filibuster, a delay tactic to force Democrats to wait another day to pass their $2.1 trillion social spending and climate change agenda, punctuated another brutal week of partisan insults and nearly all-party-line votes in a legislative chamber that has never recovered from the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol by a mob of former president Donald Trump’s supporters.
Advertisement
Story continues below advertisement
On Wednesday, the Democrat led House censured Rep. Paul A. Gosar (R-Ariz.) for posting a violent video depicting the murder of one lawmaker and an attack on President Biden, a short, heated debate that brought back many recollections of that fateful attack on the Capitol.
House readies Friday vote on spending package after GOP’s McCarthy delays process late into the night
On Thursday, a long policy debate on legislation trying to reshape everything from child care to vision benefits for the elderly devolved into a mutual show of utter disdain.
Just a few years ago, when he was a lieutenant in GOP leadership circles, McCarthy was the jovial one who built friendships with many Democrats in the House gym and on bike rides across the capital region.
Story continues below advertisement
After 10 months of watching McCarthy contort himself to remain in good standing with Trump — bragging at his Thursday morning news conference that the former president had just called him from the golf course — Democrats simply no longer wanted anything to do with their onetime friend.
Advertisement
Shortly after 8:30 p.m., as he began a speech that had been signaled as a filibuster, roughly a dozen Democrats stood up from their seats on the House floor and began heading toward the exits. Some snickered as they looked toward the Republican side of the aisle with disdain.
An hour later Democrats kept walking out.
“We’re leaving you, Kevin,” one Democrats yelled as a handful, from a boisterous Democratic corner of the chamber, departed, having grown tired of his speechifying.
Story continues below advertisement
“I’m okay, I’ll be here,” McCarthy shot back at Democrats for the dozenth time that evening.
“For how long?” one Democrat shouted across the aisle, exasperated.
McCarthy is one of three House leaders — Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.) — granted the power of a “magic minute,” allowing them to speak during debate for as long as they want and the time is only counted for one minute of the allotted debate time.
Advertisement
It usually allows for a big speech to last about 15 minutes or so, without cutting into other lawmakers time, but every few years the minority leader tries to do a marathon speech as a rallying cry to his or her caucus. In 2009 Rep. John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) spoke for about 90 minutes to delay Pelosi’s bid to pass an energy tax bill. In 2018, in the minority, Pelosi went for 8 hours — assumed to be the longest House speech ever — in support of legislation to give citizenship to undocumented immigrants brought to the United States as young children.
The second-biggest program in the Democrats’ spending plan gives billions to the rich
McCarthy, never known for seasoned oratory, used the marathon speech to air countless grievances against Pelosi, Democrats, Biden and many others. Topics ranged from inflation to the administration’s handling of China policy, to the 13 U.S. soldiers lost in the terrorist attack at the Kabul airport during the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Story continues below advertisement
Some of his claims wildly defied the facts, but they all dripped with disdain for Democrats and their agenda.
Advertisement
Republicans sitting behind McCarthy broke into applause as he railed against “one party rule for one year,” and claimed that Thanksgiving next week would cost “more than it ever has.”
Often folding his hands into his khaki pants, pacing about at his lectern, he frequently demanded silence as he spoke, irking Democrats who at times were outraged by his speech and at other junctures just ignored it. They murmured and, whenever he complained, they yelled at him to finish up.
“That’s all right, I got all night,” McCarthy said before announcing he was planning to dissect the 2,000 page bill section by section.
Story continues below advertisement
Several Democrats shouted back, “so do we!” One Democratic woman said, “we’ve been waiting for this a long time.”
The sneers continued. When the snickering and whispers grew too loud, McCarthy would often look at the presiding speaker, Rep. Pete Aguilar (D-Calif.), and inform him that “the House is not in order.”
Advertisement
The more McCarthy requested he slam down the gavel to corral Democrats attention, the less quickly Aguilar would indulge him.
McCarthy then brought up how Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D-Va.) noted in a recent interview that voters did not elect President Biden to be as aspiring of a president as Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) yelled, “I did.” Her exclamation was backed up by another Democrat who yelled, “me too!”
Trump endorses Gosar as Republicans rally around the lawmaker who posted an altered anime video with himself killing a colleague
As Democrats began to laugh and chat among themselves, an irritated McCarthy, having talked already for roughly 45 minutes taunted Democrats by reminding them that Pelosi may soon kick them off their committees given that she values decorum.
Story continues below advertisement
Exasperated, Ocasio-Cortez yelled “it’s because they incited violence” before hastily storming off the floor. McCarthy has spent the week defending Rep. Paul A. Gosar (R-Ariz.) after he posted a violent anime video of himself killing Ocasio-Cortez and fighting Biden. His delay to remove the video and unwillingness to apologize led Democrats to strip him of his committee assignments and earned him a censure by the full House.
Advertisement
At one point, Rep. Betty Watson Coleman (D-N.J.) muttered something under her breath while she looked at her phone. It was loud enough to prompt laughs by Rep. Joyce Beatty (D-Ohio) and Val Demings (D-Fla.) who nudged her shoulder playfully. But the Black women immediately grew serious as McCarthy carefully set up the stage to attack Vice President Harris. One of them warned, “careful, careful.”
McCarthy also used his time to speculate when Pelosi would step down as the top Democrat, musing that she likely won’t stick around too much longer.
Story continues below advertisement
“Yeah she will,” Beatty shot back.
“I want her to hand that gavel to me,” said McCarthy, who hopes to be speaker if Republicans take back control of the House in the next Congress.
Would-be speaker Kevin McCarthy walks the Trump tightrope, pursuing a GOP House
Just past midnight, as McCarthy’s speech approached the three-and-a-half-hour mark, Pelosi returned to the floor and began whispering to the dozen or so Democrats who were still in the chamber hoping to vote. Tapping them on the shoulder, Pelosi sent them out the doors.
Advertisement
No vote, she told them, would be held at that late — or early — of an hour.
“He wants to do it in the dead of night,” House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.) told reporters a few minutes later regarding the timing of the vote. “We are going to do it in the day.”
Story continues below advertisement
Hoyer slated the House to return to session Friday at 8 a.m., at which point Democrats hope to finish the final minutes of debate and hold a vote to pass the ambitious legislation.
But nothing could be done to stop McCarthy, who looked at the near empty Democratic side of the aisle, and a quickly thinning crowd of Republicans behind him.
“I don’t know if they think because they left I’m going to stop,” McCarthy said. “I”m not.”