WASHINGTON (CN) — California Representative Kevin McCarthy, longtime congressman and short-lived House speaker, will leave Capitol Hill at the end of the year, he announced Wednesday.
“While I’ll be departing the House at the end of this year, I will never, ever give up fighting for this country that I love so much,” McCarthy, first elected in 2007 to represent the Golden State’s 22nd Congressional District, said in a video message published Wednesday morning.
The lawmaker, who previously served as Republicans’ House majority whip and majority leader, capped his career with a nine-month stint this year as House speaker.
McCarthy’s tenure as Congress’ top lawmaker was plagued by intraparty conflict from the beginning — it took 15 rounds of voting to confirm him as House speaker in January. He would later weather a revolt from the more conservative members of his caucus over his decision to negotiate with the White House on the federal debt ceiling.
The California congressman was finally stripped of the speakership in early October, thanks in large part to his move to work alongside Democrats to reach a spending compromise that averted what would have been a costly and painful government shutdown.
McCarthy’s ouster led to a month-long leadership crisis in the Republican caucus, as lawmakers failed on three separate occasions to coalesce around potential replacement speakers. The GOP finally settled on Louisiana Representative Mike Johnson for the job, representing a decidedly rightward shift in Republican leadership.
Despite his tumultuous tenure as House speaker, McCarthy instead focused his parting words on what he framed as Republican accomplishments.
“We won a House majority twice,” the congressman said. “We elected more Republican women, veterans and minorities to Congress than ever before.”
McCarthy also touted his deals to avoid a first-ever national default in the spring and a government shutdown in the fall — both the result of bipartisan compromise.
With his forthcoming departure, the former speaker joins a growing list of lawmakers who have announced their intention to leave Capitol Hill before the 2024 election. McCarthy’s exit will also shrink Republicans’ already slim majority in the House, raising the bar even further for the caucus as it hopes to make some major legislative strides during an election year.
That fact was not lost on some Republican lawmakers Wednesday.
Georgia Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, a onetime member of the hard-right House Freedom Caucus who later emerged as one of McCarthy’s staunchest defenders, appeared to shift blame onto her colleagues for the former speaker’s departure.
“Congratulations Freedom Caucus for one and 105 [Republicans] who expel our own for the other,” Greene wrote in a post on X, formerly Twitter. “I can assure you Republican voters didn’t give us the majority to crash the ship.”
The Georgia lawmaker pointed out that the GOP’s majority could shrink to just a single vote in 2024 after McCarthy leaves. “Hopefully no one dies,” she said.
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