Here's how Western Pennsylvania members of Congress voted on ousting Kevin McCarthy as House speaker
PITTSBURGH (KDKA/AP) — Speaker Kevin McCarthy was voted out of the job Tuesday in an extraordinary showdown, a first in U.S. history.
The 216-210 vote, forced by a contingent of hard-right conservatives, throws the House and its Republican leadership into chaos.
McCarthy's chief rival, Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida, brought forward the "motion to vacate" drawing together more than a handful of conservative Republican critics of the speaker and many Democrats who say he is unworthy of leadership.
Stillness fell as the presiding officer gaveled the vote closed, 216-210, saying the office of the speaker "is hereby declared vacant."
Five U.S. House of Representatives from Western Pennsylvania voted in the dramatic roll call. Democrats Chris Deluzio (17th District) and Summer Lee (12th District) voted to remove McCarthy.
In a statement, Deluzio said:
"Since day one, Republican leadership has meant nothing but chaos, dysfunction, and extremism for the House of Representatives and the American people.
"The good people of Western Pennsylvania sent me to Washington to work for them and to get things done—the extremist Republican majority has made that impossible because they are incapable of governing.
"The best thing for our country would be for sensible Republicans to join House Democrats in a bipartisan coalition and support Hakeem Jeffries for Speaker of the House."
In a statement, Lee said:
"McCarthy voted to sell out our democracy to a mob of armed white supremacists to become Speaker. He then sold his Speakership to help MAGA extremists criminalize abortion, cut Social Security and Medicare, ban Black history, gut workers' rights and voting rights, and sell out our children's safety to the gun lobby and corporate polluters. If we didn't stop his shutdown last week, he would have sold out 70,000 Pennsylvanians' jobs to keep his own job as Speaker.
"He has proven unfit and incapable of leading this body."
Republicans Guy Reschenthaler (14th District), Glenn Thompson (15th District) and Mike Kelly (16th District) voted to keep McCarthy in power.
In a Facebook post before the vote, Kelly said he is "proud to stand with Speaker Kevin McCarthy," while Reschenthaler posted to Facebook on Monday that McCarthy is an "experienced champion of freedom and conservative principles" and "House Republicans are putting America First under his leadership."
Thompson released a statement after the vote, saying:
"Today's vote was nothing but a distraction from a handful of shameless self-promoters. Their form of demagoguery doesn't work without a foil. Now, they'll have no one to blame but themselves."
All 17 U.S. House of Representatives members from Pennsylvania voted along party lines.
So, what comes next? The next steps are uncertain, but there is no obvious successor to lead the House Republican majority.
A top McCarthy ally, Rep. Patrick McHenry, R-N.C., took the gavel and, according to House rules, was named speaker pro tempore, to serve in the office until a new speaker is chosen.
