Rep. Matt Gaetz on Monday moved to oust Speaker Kevin McCarthy from the top House leadership post, offering a motion to vacate the chair on the House floor – a rare procedural move that can be used to force a vote to remove the speaker.
It’s not yet clear how the challenge to McCarthy will play out, but the effort represents the most serious threat to his speakership to date. A floor vote to oust McCarthy would require a majority to succeed.
“Bring it on,” the California Republican wrote on X shortly after the motion. Gaetz responded to the post with one of his own, writing, “Just did.”
The move marks a major escalation in tensions for a House GOP conference that has been mired in in-fighting and could be thrown into chaos if McCarthy is pushed out of the speakership. It comes as a bloc of House conservatives have continued to thwart McCarthy, voting against key priorities of GOP leadership and repeatedly throwing up roadblocks to the speaker’s agenda.
No House speaker has ever been ousted through the passage of a resolution to remove them, but threats over the use of what’s known as a “motion to vacate” can be a powerful way to apply pressure to a speaker.
Gaetz, a Florida Republican and frequent critic of McCarthy, had been pushing to oust the speaker by using the congressional mechanism to vacate the chair, which allows any one member the ability to call for a new speaker election, though GOP leadership has a few options to stop or stall such an effort.
According to House precedent, a resolution to remove the speaker would be considered privileged, a designation that gives it priority over other issues.
