ORLANDO, Fla. — The U.S. House of Representatives will have a new House Speaker after a historic vote to remove now-former speaker Kevin McCarthy from the position.

The vote came down Tuesday afternoon, after Florida Republican U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz filed a motion to have McCarthy removed.

What You Need To Know

  • The motion to remove Kevin McCarthy was proposed by Florida Representative Matt Gaetz; however, majority of the votes leading to his removal came from Democrats with only eight republicans voting in favor of the motion

  • Work will not continue for the House, including work to resolve the temporary funding agreement until after a new speaker is appointed

  • McCarthy said he will not rerun for his position

“I will not run for speaker again. I’ll have the conference pick somebody else,” said McCarthy after the decision was made.

A group of Republicans claim McCarthy broke promises made to conservatives when he earned the gavel earlier this year. Now, not even a full year into the position, Democrats played a large role in helping to remove him, while many Republicans opposed the effort.

“We cannot be responsible for a governing party that cannot govern,” said Washington Democrat Rep. Pramila Jayapal. “And this Republican Party has been unable to govern for a long time.”

The vote was 216-210, placing the responsibility on the House to vote in a replacement in the midst of other large issues at the top of mind; issues that Florida Republican Rep. Maria Elivira Salazar says will continue to linger as they take on a new challenge of finding someone to replace McCarthy.

“Now we don’t have a speaker, but we still have the same problems we had yesterday and the day before: spending and the border,” she said.

For the time being, North Carolina Republican Patrick McHenry has been named House Speaker pro tempore. Political experts say they believe despite who initiated the vote, Democrats played a pretty strategic role in its execution.

“At first, Democrats weren’t even reacting to whether they would support McCarthy or not. They wouldn’t even speak on it. I think they made a political decision, by the way. I think that political decision was to vote him out because it is good for Democrats to have Republican instability,” said Republican political analyst Eddie Fernandez, former Orange County Clerk of the Court.

Former Democratic State Rep. Dick Batchelor agreed, sharing that McCarthy kind of shot himself in the foot with a new concept allowing a single Congress member the power to “vote to vacate” the House Speaker.

“McCarthy made the biggest mistake when he basically said you can have the one vote, one member of the Congress can vote to vacate the speaker. And look what happened, it came back to bite him,” said Batchelor.

Although McCarthy announced he does not plan to rerun for his old position, and that Congress will now have to go through the process of selecting a new person, Fernandez said he doesn’t believe it’ll be an easy task to complete.

“We could see other candidates, there’s certainly other viable candidates. But it’s going to come down to who can obtain the support,” he said.

Ten months ago, winning the House Speaker position didn’t come easy for McCarthy; however, Batchelor shared that he believes voting him out was not the best move for Republicans at this time, though he does believe there is a pretty clear path for someone specific to snatch the seat.

“I think Hakeem Jeffries frankly,” said Batchelor. “Because of the disarray in the House and the Republicans runs a good shot of the Democrats taking the House back in the midterms and Hakeem Jeffries being the new speaker of the House.”

In the midst of several other pressing issues, like the temporary funding agreement that has to be resolved within the next 40 days, the house will have to appoint a new speaker before any work can continue.