MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

US: Republican Kevin McCarthy becomes new Speaker of the House

It was the first time since 1923 that the vote on the speakership required more than one round of votes.

It took Republican Congressman Kevin McCarthy almost four days and 15 rounds of voting until he was elected Speaker of the House of Representatives to replace the Democrat Nancy Pelosi.

Despite holding the majority in Congress, a group of Republican lawmakers kept blocking McCarthy, who kept falling five to 10 votes short of what was needed for him to be appointed next in line to the presidential succession behind Vice President Kamala Harris.

McCarthy, who needed a simple majority to be elected, defeated Hakeem Sekou Jeffries by 216 to 212 votes, in the 15th round to replace 82-year-old Pelosi after the Democratic Party lost their House majority in the Nov. 8 midterm elections. The Republicans won 222 seats in the 435-member House against 212 for the Democrats. It was the first time since 1923 that the vote on the speakership required more than one round of votes.

President Joseph Biden congratulated McCarthy. “This is a time to govern responsibly and to ensure that we’re putting the interests of American families first,” Biden said.

“The American people expect their leaders to govern in a way that puts their needs above all else, and that is what we need to do now,” he added.

Biden also said he was ready to work jointly with Republicans. “Now that the leadership of the House of Representatives has been decided, it is time for that process to begin,” the President stressed.

Kevin Owen McCarthy was born on Jan. 26, 1965, in Bakersfield, California. He is the youngest of three children of a homemaker mother and an assistant fire chief father.

McCarthy earned an undergraduate business degree (1989) and a master’s degree in business administration (1994) from California State University, Bakersfield. In 2006 he was first elected to the US House of Representatives.

The new Speaker of the House used to suffer from a speech impediment as a child and worked with a therapist.