1-3-22 – 3 Votes – No Speaker

Today, the 118^th Congress conducted their first day of business. The Senate swore in new members, no problems. The House was a different story. After conducting a successful roll call to establish that all 434 representative-elects were present, the House failed at their first real piece of business, electing a Speaker. Three attempts were made to vote for a Speaker and three times the Representative-elect McCarthy (R,CA) failed to reach the necessary 218 votes, even though there are 222 Republicans in the 118^th Congress.

	McCarthy	Jefferies	Others
Roll Call #2	203	212	19
Roll Call #3	203	212	19
Roll Call #4	202	212	20

On the first vote (Roll Call #2) the ‘Others’ category included the nominated Biggs (R,AZ) and four ‘write-in’ votes. On the two subsequent votes Jordan (R,OH) was the third nominee and received all of the ‘other votes’. After the third leadership vote, the House adjourned until 12:00 pm tomorrow. The House will continue voting until they elect the Speaker. No other business will be able to be conducted until the Speaker is elected.

A new version of the draft resolution amending the current House Rules has been published on the House Rules Committee website. The earlier version had been posted on January 1^st and the latest version was posted today. I cannot find any significant differences, but I do not have