Republican Matt Rosendale of Montana, who voted to oust Kevin McCarthy as House majority leader, recently spoke with the Daily Caller News Foundation and detailed the qualities he seeks in the future speaker.
Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan and Majority Leader Steve Scalise launched their candidacies for speaker after the House voted 216 to 210 to remove McCarthy. Meanwhile, Republican Study Committee Chairman Kevin Hern is also considering a run ahead of next week’s vote.
The new speaker, according to Rosendale, must be ” a real leader” with “trustworthiness” and “integrity.” A continuing resolution, which Rosendale vehemently opposed, resulted from a spending struggle that, according to him, McCarthy betrayed commitments to conservatives he made during his speakership bid in January and the debt ceiling negotiations in May.
Rosendale and Florida Representative Matt Gaetz were the few Republicans who joined 208 Democrats in voting to remove McCarthy from office. Rosendale claimed the conference’s faith in McCarthy had been betrayed and called for his dismissal. A spate of McCarthy’s supporters have said that Gaetz should be expelled for leading the charge to have the Republicans remove the speaker from office.
Some Republicans in the House who voted against the vacate motion are now considering amending the rules to make it more difficult to bring forth a resolution to remove the speaker. As part of the ground rules established when McCarthy took the gavel in January, any one member may submit a motion to resign. In Rosendale’s opinion, undermining the newly restored Congress would be a huge mistake.
McCarthy has stated that he would not be seeking reelection to his role as speaker, and as such, North Carolina’s Financial Services Committee Chairman Patrick McHenry has been elected to serve in the interim. After next Wednesday’s candidate forum, the House will vote on a new speaker.
