WASHINGTON — Republican officials are telling Raw Story that they are furious at how humiliating their fellow members are making the party look.
It has happened in the past that the Speaker wasn't elected on the first ballot, but the House is finishing up its fifth ballot where Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) has still failed to garner enough votes.
Oklahoma Congressman Tom Cole (R) told Raw Story that he's a pretty "old guy" and he's "never seen anything like this." Given that he's been in Congress so long, he doesn't have his family here this year for the swearing-in. Most members will bring family and key staff to Washington to be there to celebrate the swearing-in ceremony. This year, McCarthy has demanded a vote ahead of the ceremonies. So there are family members waiting around while watching the embarrassing ordeal unfold on the House floor.
"It's very unusual, but we'll just work through it," Cole said. "There's a lot of things being slowed up and it's disappointing because I don't see that much being different from ideological differences or true differences. I do think that we're starting to hear about it in our office. I think that's a pretty common view and not just of folks who follow this every day. I think it's caught people's attention and we're starting to hear about it. And it's not for and against it's just 'get it done.'"
It puts members in a difficult position when providing services to the people in their districts. The key responsibility for each official is providing constituent services and if members aren't sworn in they can't technically do any services. Cole told Raw Story that since they've been around for so long they're still able to conduct some constituent services. People in his state, he said, "will not go without" simply because of the insanity.
Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL), who was just elected in 2022, told the press that she hopes to meet with McCarthy soon and that due to COVID the party hasn't been able to have the kinds of conversations about the future of the GOP that are happening now. Luna wasn't in office during COVID.
"I left the meeting this morning and there were some members that felt that it was very disrespectful," said Luna. She noted that it likely pushed them into a category of not supporting McCarthy. If they're in that "category," she said, then "I don't see how he'll ever become speaker."
Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX), who faced off with the MAGA world during his last election and beat them, told Raw Story "there is no plan."
"This is so stupid," he complained, saying that he's not sure what's behind it. It isn't due to the concessions, he said, because those concessions have already been agreed to. Crenshaw even went so far as to call his GOP colleagues "f*ckin clowns" for the behavior witnessed on Wednesday. "If they wanted to run someone else they could have run someone else. They could have had somebody running for a year and they didn't do it."
With additional reporting by Matt Laslo
