Republican Pennsylvania Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick said an alternative candidate for speaker of the House who could challenge House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy would have to come from outside of Congress.
The U.S. Constitution does not require that the speaker be a member of the House of Representatives, though every speaker so far has been a member.
McCarthy is in a tight race for the speakership after receiving the nomination in November. The California congressman will have to accrue 218 votes to win the gavel, and can afford only four defections due to the GOP’s thin majority. As of Monday night, five members refused outright to support McCarthy while another nine were holding out for more concessions.
Fitzpatrick told CNN host and former Daily Caller reporter Kaitlan Collins on Tuesday that any alternative to McCarthy would have to come from “outside the House.”
“I don’t think that there’s enough people that are willing to set the precedent that you can work for four years and bring a party from the minority to the majority and they get jettisoned at the end,” he said, referring to McCarthy’s four years as minority leader. “Nobody’s ever going to put the work in if that happens, so I think that the habitus would be to go outside of the House at that point.”
Rep. Andy Biggs of Arizona unsuccessfully challenged McCarthy for the Speaker nomination in November and received thirty-one votes. “Even after the McCarthy Machine’s attempts to whip votes and smear my name for several weeks, McCarthy is still well short of the 218 threshold,” Biggs told the Daily Caller. “Our party still requires new leadership and I will continue to oppose McCarthy on Jan. 3.”
Virginia Rep. Bob Good told Fox News on Monday that McCarthy’s opponents will support Biggs on the first ballot and have already decided who to support on the second ballot, though he did not reveal who that candidate is. (RELATED: ‘We’ll Have A Good Day Tomorrow’: Reporter Presses McCarthy On Securing Votes For House Speaker)
Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz, who opposes McCarthy, told a crowd in July 2021 that he would nominate former President Donald Trump for speaker if the GOP took back the House. Trump endorsed McCarthy for speaker in December.