Kevin McCarthy leaving Congress at year’s end. Was first California Republican as House speaker

WASHINGTON

California Rep. Kevin McCarthy, ousted as House Speaker this fall in a rebellion by a band of hard-right conservatives, announced Wednesday that he will retire from Congress at the end of the year.

“No matter the odds, or personal cost, we did the right thing,” McCarthy wrote in a Wall Street Journal op-ed about his time in Congress and retirement. “That may seem out of fashion in Washington these days, but delivering results for the American people is still celebrated across the country.”

“It is in this spirit that I have decided to depart the House at the end of this year to serve America in new ways,” he said. “I know my work is only getting started.”

McCarthy’s exit after 17 years, most of them in House leadership, ends years of turmoil that he could rarely escape. He wanted to succeed then-Speaker John Boehner in 2015 but couldn’t persuade hard-right colleagues to back him. He expressed dismay at the Jan. 6, 2021, riot — but, realizing he needed to keep his shaky grip on the GOP caucus, visited Donald Trump three weeks later, giving the embattled former president important credibility with his party.

And he made concession after concession to far-right colleagues to finally secure the speaker’s job last January, only to eventually learn he couldn’t satisfy the influential cadre that would force him out.

McCarthy’s downfall came in early October, when eight House Republicans, enraged by a compromise he offered to Democrats to keep the government open, joined the left side of the aisle to make him the first speaker removed by colleagues. In a lengthy press conference a few hours later, he said he would not attempt to reclaim the speakership.

But McCarthy, who turns 59 in January, sent mixed messages in the following weeks, alternately leaving the door open to a another run for speaker and hinting at retirement.

“If I’m walking away from something that I spent two decades at, I don’t want to look back and say I made an emotional decision,” he said at The New York Times DealBook Summit on Nov. 29.

His announcement comes two days ahead of the Dec. 8 filing deadline to run in California’s March 5 primary.

Depending on when McCarthy resigns, California Gov. Gavin Newsom must decide whether to call a special election to replace him. The seat will be vacant for a period of time regardless, narrowing an already-slim Republican House majority.

California’s 20th Congressional District is solidly Republican, covering parts of Kern, Fresno, Tulare and Kings counties.

Depending on what his next career steps are, McCarthy’s prowess as a prolific fundraiser will be hard for the California and national Republican party to replace. But he wrote that would be part of his next steps.

“I will continue to recruit our country’s best and brightest to run for elected office,” he wrote. “The Republican Party is expanding every day, and I am committed to lending my experience to support the next generation of leaders.”

Kevin McCarthy leaves a slim majority slimmer

McCarthy’s departure will leave House Republicans with a razor-thin majority. The vacancy created by Rep. George Santos, expelled last week, will not be filled until early next year. A special election to fill the seat is scheduled for Feb. 13, and Democrats are given a decent chance of winning. Chances are McCarthy’s seat won’t be filled until later.

Funding for about 20% of the federal government is due to run out January 19, and the deadline for funding the rest is Feb. 2. The House is scheduled to leave for the year at the end of next week and not return until January 9.

Last month, Republicans needed the help of Democrats to keep the government open, a move that many conservative GOP members opposed.

The House currently has 221 Republicans, 213 Democrats and one vacancy.

Kevin McCarthy’s troubled speaker journey

McCarthy spent years chasing the speaker’s gavel. But he was viewed with suspicion by the far-right wing of the House GOP, largely enrolled in the Freedom Caucus, which regarded him as a purely transactional operator who lacked core conservative principles.

He was House majority leader in 2015 — number two to Boehner — when he tried to succeed the resigning speaker. However, the same Freedom Caucus that bedeviled Boehner helped sink McCarthy’s chances. That defeat prefigured struggles to come. Republican Paul Ryan won the post and served until 2019 when Democrats gained control and the young speaker himself retired from Congress.

In January, after Republicans took back the House, McCarthy struggled through 15 rounds of votes and a series of concessions to get the far-right flank behind him.

Throughout his nine-month speakership, the Freedom Caucus and other GOP mavericks plagued him, threatening to call for a snap vote to remove him. After McCarthy presented a plan that staved off a government shutdown, Freedom Caucus member Matt Gaetz, a Florida Republican, followed through on the threat.

Several McCarthy allies lobbied against his ouster — and for his reinstatement as speaker — as Republicans struggled for three weeks to pick a successor. They settled on a lesser-known conservative, Rep. Mike Johnson, R-La. Like McCarthy, Johnson is a Trump ally; he crafted a legal argument to support overturning 2020 presidential election results.

In the end, it was a lack of trust, not ideology, that doomed McCarthy’s speakership.

Colleagues on both sides of the aisle considered him a frequent liar. In budget negotiations this year, he and congressional allies developed a deal with President Joe Biden’s White House to lift the debt ceiling this spring.

But McCarthy later sought deeper spending cuts under pressure from conservative hardliners and ultimately presented a stopgap measure this fall that contained none of them.

“He’s a liar. He’s a fraud. And he’s an extremist,” said Rep. Robert Garcia, D-Long Beach, at the time.

McCarthy defended himself vigorously to reporters after his removal. He said he did not renege on the debt limit deal.

“I kept my word,” he said.

Donald Trump and ‘My Kevin’

McCarthy became an ally of the former president in the lead up to the 2016 election.

As minority leader, he kept House Republicans largely unified in two impeachment votes on the former president, including one on charges that he incited the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. The Democratic-controlled House voted both times to impeach.

McCarthy also provided the former president with a political boost after he left office. Two weeks after he blasted Trump for the attack, saying on the House floor that he “bears responsibility,” he traveled to the former president’s Mar-a-Lago estate.

Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., recounted in her new memoir confronting McCarthy about the Jan. 28 trip. He responded by saying Trump was depressed and not eating, justifying the visit and much-discussed photograph with the men smiling side-by-side. His apparent approval helped keep Trump in good graces among many in the GOP.

Over the past couple of years, McCarthy’s congressional predecessor and mentor, longtime Republican Rep. Bill Thomas, has been critical of McCarthy for his support of Trump’s false claims about the 2020 election his response to Jan. 6, and his concessions to be speaker.

Trump, who had famously referred to McCarthy as “My Kevin,” declined to help save his job. In a phone call afterward, according to the Washington Post, Trump said he didn’t try to stop Gaetz because McCarthy had failed to get his two impeachments expunged and had yet to endorse his 2024 candidacy for president. McCarthy allegedly told Trump, “F--- you.”

A McCarthy spokesperson told the Post he did not swear and that their relationship was good.

Kevin McCarthy’s congressional rise

A fourth-generation resident of Kern County, McCarthy graduated from Bakersfield High School in 1983.

He attended community college for a year before dropping out and running a sandwich counter, Kevin O’s Deli, in his uncle’s frozen yogurt shop. McCarthy later attended California State University, Bakersfield, graduating in 1989 and returning for a Master’s in Business Administration, which he received in 1994.

He started in Thomas’ office in 1987, working as an in-district intern, aide and district director. McCarthy won his first election in 2000 to become a Kern Community College District trustee. Two years later, Thomas endorsed his successful run for the California State Assembly. McCarthy was selected minority leader, holding the role from 2004 to 2006.

In 2006, when Thomas announced his retirement after nearly three decades in Congress, McCarthy ran to succeed him and won easily. He rose swiftly to the GOP’s third-in-command as majority whip in 2011 and became the majority leader in 2014. He was the first California Republican to be House minority leader and speaker.

He never had a close congressional contest in his Bakersfield district.

Who could succeed Kevin McCarthy?

A handful of candidates announced in California’s 20th before McCarthy said he wouldn’t seek re-election. There’s still time for other contenders to file necessary paperwork to run.

Two Republicans David Giglio, a Madera Ranchos business owner, and Matthew Piatt, an Oregon consultant, entered the field.

Democrat Marisa Wood, a Bakersfield school teacher who fell to McCarthy by more than 34 percentage points in the 2022 election, said she is running again.

Democrats John Burrows, a Fresno public affairs entrepreneur, and Andy Morales of Bakersfield, a recent college graduate working in private security, are also running. Ben Dewell, who ran as a Democrat in the primary for California’s 20th last year, is campaigning in 2024 as an Independent.

Several Republicans from the southern San Joaquin Valley could mount campaigns: State Sen. Shannon Grove of Bakersfield; retiring Asm. Devon Mathis of Porterville; Truth Social executive and former California Republican Rep. Devin Nunes, and Fresno County Supervisor Nathan Magsig. They were all mentioned as potential candidates during conversations with consultants this week. None have announced.

Who will succeed McCarthy as a major fundraiser for the California Republican Party is unclear, depending on his next career move.

Hotly-contested races on the line for a House majority will get aid from the Republican National Committee or leadership groups, said GOP consultant Mike Madrid in an October interview. “But what about the other 50 seats?” he said. “That’s where the [California Republican Party] is in really, really deep trouble.”

McClatchy DC’s David Lightman contributed to this story.

This story was originally published December 6, 2023, 8:50 AM.