Case study the removal of Kevin McCarthy

October 3rd 2023 -Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) was ousted as House speaker after failing to withstand a rebellion among far-right dissidents, as the House voted for the first time in history to remove its leader and entered a period of unpredictability and paralysis. McCarthy later announced he would not seek the position again, setting up an expected intraparty battle for the position second in line to the presidency. 

When McCarthy became speaker in January after a hard-fought battle, he agreed to a demand by Republican opponents that let any lawmaker offer a motion to vacate the speakership and remove him from the job. Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) introduced such a motion Tuesday, and eight Republicans joined all Democrats.

McCarthy was not the first recent speaker to find his leadership hectored by a rebellious faction on the right. Two of his predecessors, former speakers John A. Boehner (Ohio) and Paul D. Ryan (Wis.), eventually departed in disgust. Following the removal of Kevin McCarthy as speaker in October 2023 on a motion to vacate (the first time in history that a speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives was successfully removed by the House), Patrick McHenry was revealed to be the first name on McCarthy's list and became acting speaker 

After 22 days of leaderless, gridlocked chaos following the ouster of Kevin McCarthy. Mike Johnson of Louisiana won all 220 Republican votes cast on the House floor .House Republicans  ran through all of their top leaders,  without success then they landed on Mike Johnson as a relatively unknown candidate and therefore least disliked He has allies on the right, he is a fundamentalist Christian and he has also liked and was endorsed by former President Donald Trump.  He therefore represents a victory for the ideologically right-wing, Trump-aligned faction of the Republican Party.

The removal of a sitting speaker has never happened before  in the more-than-240-year history of the House of Representatives. An increasingly radicalized Republican faction that, emboldened since the rise of the tea party, has repeatedly shut down the government and led the country to the brink of a default on its debt. The increased polarization and radicalism in (mostly Republican)  party politics has undermined the traditionally powerful position of the Speaker and given further evidence for the disfunction of Congress.