Rep. Dan Bishop announces how he’ll vote on attempt to oust Speaker Kevin McCarthy
Rep. Dan Bishop plans to vote against a motion to oust House Speaker Kevin McCarthy on Tuesday afternoon, he announced in a tweet.
“Mr. McCarthy is an accurate reflection of the current House Republican Conference,” Bishop said in his statement online. “Second, Congress operates by numerosity: there must be a substantial groundswell for an effort toward fundamental change. One person’s play call with roughly 5-7 potential supporters portends no path toward success, only chaos.”
The North Carolina Republican said that’s why he hasn’t previously moved to “vacate the chair,” the motion that Rep. Matt Gaetz has filed to try to unseat McCarthy.
Bishop said a “reckoning” is needed in the Republican Party “to make it a force capable of confronting the crises — and opposition — we face.” He said that’s why he is focusing on running for state attorney general.
Frustration between Gaetz, a Republican from Florida, and McCarthy grew over the weekend after McCarthy brought to the House floor an 11th-hour, short-term funding bill that prevented the government from shutting down within hours.
Until then, the House Freedom Caucus, which counts both Bishop and Gaetz as members, had been using 12 appropriations bills as a bargaining chip against McCarthy in order to get him to meet their list of demands.
Many Republicans, including North Carolina’s Reps. Patrick McHenry, Virginia Foxx and David Rouzer, threw their support behind McCarthy, even before Gaetz officially filed his motion Monday. It was clear that Gaetz did not have enough Republican support to get rid of the chamber’s leader with GOP votes alone.
But that would change if he could get enough Democrats on board. It’s unclear how North Carolina’s Democrats will vote Tuesday afternoon, but at noon McCarthy hadn’t garnered the party’s support as a whole.
“With every vote, I will continue fighting tooth and nail to put eastern North Carolinians and the American people over divisive politics and chaos,” Democratic Rep. Don Davis said in a news release Monday that did not commit to a position on McCarthy’s ouster.
This story was originally published October 3, 2023 at 12:12 PM with the headline "Rep. Dan Bishop announces how he’ll vote on attempt to oust Speaker Kevin McCarthy."