The House of Representatives is still making history today, failing to elect a Speaker after a fifth round of voting, which concluded just a few minutes ago. The last time the voting for Speaker among the House Members went beyond the first ballot was a hundred years ago. The level of opposition to Kevin McCarthy of California among the House Republicans actually grew between the first and the fifth votes.
Month: January 2023
President Biden Signs FY23 Appropriations Bill Into Law
President Biden signed the FY23 appropriations bill right before the end of the year to fund the government and its agencies through the 2023 fiscal year.
The bill includes $772.5 billion in nondefense spending ($42.5 billion more than FY22) and $858 billion in defense spending ($76 billion more than last year). The bill also includes $1.8 billion in new funding to implement the bipartisan CHIPS and Science Act of 2022. In a previous blog (linked here) we highlight other final numbers including the Pell Grant increase, ARPA-H, etc.
The final FY23 numbers can be found on our appropriations tracker linked here. We will continue to update these numbers as final calculations come in.
Something We Haven’t Seen in A Long Time…
As expected, the new 118th House of Representatives gathered earlier today to elect the new Speaker. Before the new Members gathered to vote, all of Washington knew that Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), who was the Minority Leader in the 117th Congress, was going to have a difficult time garnering enough support from the most hard-core rightwing of the House Republican caucus. The first vote for Speaker demonstrated exactly how difficult a path McCarthy faces.
With 218 voted needed to become Speaker, McCarthy received even fewer votes that many of his supporters had predicted: he received 203 votes, with 19 House Republicans opposing his Speakership. In fact, the new Democratic leader, Hakeem Jeffries of New York received more votes for Speaker, with a total of 212. For the first time in 100 years, the vote for Speaker is now headed to a second ballot.