On Tuesday, House Republicans voted Kevin McCarthy out of the speakership, plunging Congress even deeper into chaos. Lawmakers left Washington immediately after the vote and headed back to their home districts. It’s unclear who might even run for Speaker or how the House will avoid a government shutdown, with the new deadline set for November 17.
With all these crises facing the GOP conference, House Speaker pro-tempore Patrick McHenry took swift, decisive action … to really stick it to Nancy Pelosi.
Within hours of taking over as interim Speaker, McHenry informed Pelosi that she had just one day to vacate her office in the Capitol. Former Democratic leader Steny Hoyer received a similar order. While both lawmakers also have offices in buildings across the street, as do most members of the House, the two Democrats had been allowed to keep coveted spaces in the Capitol itself as part of an informal privilege earned by leading their caucus for decades.
But no more: Pelosi was informed that she was being evicted in a curt email from the House Administration Committee, according to NBC News.
“The Speaker pro tempore is going to reassign H-132 for Speaker office use. Please vacate the space tomorrow, the room will be re-keyed,” the email stated.
As if the impersonal notification wasn’t enough of a snub, McHenry knew that Pelosi wouldn’t be able to personally oversee the move. The former Speaker missed the vote on McCarthy because she is in California for Senator Dianne Feinstein’s funeral. Politico reported that House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries’s staffers were spotted helping Pelosi’s team with the move on Tuesday night.
Pelosi released a statement, saying, “This eviction is a sharp departure from tradition,” and noting that she let former GOP Speaker Dennis Hastert keep “a significantly larger suite of offices for as long as he wished.”
She went on to claim that McHenry’s pettiness over the office space “doesn’t matter” to her, “but it seems to be important to them.”
“Sadly, because I am in California to mourn the loss of and pay tribute to my dear friend Dianne Feinstein, I am unable to retrieve my belongings at this time,” Pelosi said. “Now that the new Republican Leadership has settled this important matter, let’s hope they get to work on what’s truly important for the American people.”
Unsurprisingly, that doesn’t appear to be happening. Instead, Pelosi’s eviction became a source of more intraparty tension, with a source floating the idea that it was McCarthy’s idea, not McHenry’s. Per NBC News:
A source familiar with the situation said that “this decision was made by the former Speaker’s office, not the Committee on House Administration.”
A spokesman for former Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., declined to comment. McHenry’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday evening.
Republicans can’t even take a jab at their Democratic foes without starting an argument among themselves.
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