The same ultraconservative lawmakers who forced Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, to move up his planned resignation are now keeping him in a cruel congressional purgatory with no departure date in sight as his assumed successor dropped his speakership bid with no clear next-in-line.



Current House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., who was being groomed as Boehner’s replacement, sent shockwaves through Washington Thursday when he announced he would no longer seek the job. His withdrawal from consideration came just as a closed-door Republicans-only test vote for speaker was scheduled to begin.

According to a source in the room, McCarthy walked up to the microphone in front of the full conference, stood far away from it so he could barely be heard and began to make his remarks. After being cajoled to speak louder, McCarthy told his colleagues he never came to Congress to be speaker and that he would no longer be campaigning for the job.

Everyone in the room — including Boehner, who learned of McCarthy’s decision just moments before he announced it to the full GOP conference — was stunned. So were the throngs of reporters waiting outside the large conference room in the Capitol basement where members were meeting.

“I think I shocked some of you, huh?” McCarthy joked with reporters, after emerging from what was supposed to be a session that proved he had the votes to become the next speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives.

McCarthy’s decision is no laughing matter for Boehner, however. It forces him to go back to the drawing board for a strategy on how to exit Congress and shape a future for his party, over which he lost full control long ago.

Boehner had announced an Oct. 30 resignation date, but it is now very unlikely he will leave the speaker’s chair by then. Although McCarthy faced two challengers in Jason Chaffetz of Utah and Daniel Webster of Florida, neither is a clear successor, and the House has a long list of legislative items that must be cleared in the weeks to come. Boehner announced at the conference meeting Thursday that the speaker elections had been postponed indefinitely.



Outgoing House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio arrives for a meeting where Republicans will nominate candidates to replace him on Thursday on Capitol Hill in Washington. (Photo: Evan Vucci/AP)

An aide to the speaker said that Boehner “will not leave before a new speaker is in place.”

McCarthy’s bid had been complicated by an announcement Wednesday from the Freedom Caucus, a group of approximately 40 members who represent the farthest-right views within the GOP, that they would back Webster en bloc.

McCarthy would have needed 218 votes to win the gavel, and had previously hoped to pick off some of the strongest conservatives who have given the leadership heartburn over the years.

Congressional staff approached for this story said they had no idea who would be the next speaker now that McCarthy has bowed out.

McCarthy himself framed his decision to not seek the speakership — and instead run to stay in his post of majority leader — as a move to unite the party. That’s also how Boehner depicted his retirement announcement at the end of last month.

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