WASHINGTON – Rep. Mike Conaway entered the Capitol Thursday morning prepared for Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s ascension to top House leadership until an unimaginable announcement shook the Hill.
“I’m stunned quite frankly,” Conaway, R-Texas, said. “I sent him [McCarthy] a note earlier in the day calling him ‘Mr. Speaker,’ so I had no warning other than when the room was being set up. He was sitting at the front which would have been an odd place for him to sit as a candidate.”
Shock and awe roared through Capitol Hill after the bombshell announcement that House Majority Leader McCarthy had dropped out of the race for Speaker of the House. Only hours earlier, McCarthy appeared almost ordained to be Speaker John Boehner’s successor.
Lawmakers filled the corridors of House office buildings and mixed with reporter scrums, expressing their disbelief. Conaway said McCarthy unexpectedly took the floor in an earlier meeting to make his unforeseen announcement.
“It was one of those circumstances where something was out of whack but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it,” Conaway said.
McCarthy later said in a news conference that the House needed a fresh face to lead. He predicted the Republican Party will be strengthened by this controversy.
“If we’re going to unite and be strong, we need a new face to do that,” Rep. McCarthy said.
Thursday’s ground-shaking reveal was only one of a series of surprise announcements coming from a fractured Republican conference this fall.
Current Speaker John Boehner announced late last month that he would be stepping down from his position at the end of October. Rep. McCarthy appeared to be the clearest candidate to replace Boehner. With McCarthy gone, some Republicans predicted many new candidates will soon surface.
Across the aisle on the Democratic side of the House, there was more worry than celebration at the majority’s misfortune.
“No one saw this coming,” Rep. Bill Foster, D-Ill., said. Congress faces upcoming fiscal deadlines and today’s announcement could halt progress. “I’m personally very worried that this is a bad time for this to happen to our country…we need coherent leadership.”
Rep. Charles Boustany, R-La., also shared deep concern for the timing of the leadership vacuum. “I think it’s very destructive. It’s harmful to the constitutional order. It’s bad for the institution. It’s bad for the country. We need to settle it.”
Other candidates like Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, and Daniel Webster, R-Fla., may be ready to grab the frontrunner position. But it’s murky.
“I would not have predicted today’s happenings. So I dare not predict what will happen next,” Rep. Morgan Griffith, R-Va., said.
Published in conjunction with 