Patrick McHenry and GOP Chaos

On Thursday, October 19, House Representative Patrick McHenry (R-NC)—who took over as temporary speaker of the GOP after Kevin McCarthy’s removal on October 3— threatened to resign from his position after members of the Republican Party (GOP) pressured him to act as interim speaker and start moving legislation to the House Floor. However, McHenry was unwilling to oblige without an official vote to appoint him as Speaker Dorothy Lee ’26 News Associate of the House. The Republican Party is currently divided on which candidate to vote into this position, as McHenry openly stated his belief that temporary House speakers in the future should not hold the same level of legislative authority as officially-elected speakers. In McHenry’s view, if he were to take on more jurisdiction like his party members have been urging him to, it “could mean that the House wouldn’t need to elect speakers in the future” at all as temporary speakers could simply fill that role, according to NBC News.