Here & Now

House Republicans Hold Deadlocked Votes in Speaker Election

Zac Schultz:

Today marks two years since the January 6th insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. The New York Times reports to date, more than 950 people have been charged in connection with the storming of the Capitol and the attempt to stop the certification of the election. All eight of Wisconsin’s members of the House were there that day. Seven of them inside the building. The 8th member is Republican Derrick Van Orden, who was not in Congress then. He attended the rally outside the Capitol but claims he did not enter the building or participate in the violence that day. Van Orden was elected this fall to represent Wisconsin’s third congressional district. However, he still hasn’t been sworn in to office because Republicans have been unable to agree on who to elect as speaker of the House. Republican Kevin McCarthy has failed in more than a dozen votes since Tuesday with a small group of holdouts preventing him from getting a majority. It’s the first time in 100 years a speaker wasn’t chosen on the first ballot, and this marks the most votes since 1860 when 44 votes were needed. The record, by the way, was set in 1856, when it took 133 rounds of voting to elect a speaker.