Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) came within one solitary vote from being elected speaker of the House of Representatives in a nail-bitingly close election on Jan. 6 that ran almost until midnight in the lower chamber of the U.S. Capitol.
McCarthy needed 217. He got 216.
McCarthy’s 216 total again bested Rep. Hakeem Jeffries of New York who received the votes of every Democrat present in the chamber on all but one—the 12th—of the 14 votes that began a little after noon Jan. 3 when the 118th Congress convened for the day.
When the smoke cleared from the 14th ballot, six still recalcitrant members of the group originally of 20 populist conservative dissident Republicans determined to oppose McCarthy until he agreed to a lengthy list of reforms in how the House operates….