What Republicans can’t do until they finally make a deal to vote in a Speaker

House Republicans’ stalemate over who will serve as Speaker has put all other business on hold in the lower chamber, including classified briefings and investigations into the Biden family. 

GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy failed to win the gavel in a series of six votes over two days. Instead of progress, he went from 203 votes to 201.  

Lead Republicans on the House Committees on Foreign Affairs, Armed Services and Intel put out a warning Thursday morning that the in-fighting on Capitol Hill could threaten national security. 

Since there aren’t any chairs on committees, they can’t conduct any oversight business. That means the high-profile investigations into Hunter Biden, China and the Afghanistan withdrawal are on pause. 

‘The Biden administration is going unchecked and there is no oversight of the White House, State Department, Department of Defense, or the intelligence community. We cannot let personal politics place the safety and security of the United States at risk,’ Reps. Mike Rogers, Mike Turner and Michael McCaul said in a statement.

Rep. Mike Bost, lead Republican on the Veterans’ Affairs Committee, told reporters: ‘We cannot organize our conduct or oversight. We cannot hold the Biden VA accountable.’ 

He said the committee can’t conduct oversight to make sure the PACT Act, passed last Congress to expand healthcare for veterans, is being implemented properly.  

On Wednesday Rep. Mike Gallagher said he and Rep. Don Bacon were supposed to meet with the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs to discuss issues in the Indo-Pacific region in the SCIF (sensitive compartmented information facility). 

Gallagher said he was denied entry to the meeting. ‘I’m informed by House security that technically, I don’t have clearance.’ 

‘We don’t have access to anything,’ Rep. Brad Wenstrup, R-Ohio. ‘The secure facility that we work in every day when we’re here, we can’t go in there right now…We’re in there all the time. And right now, we can’t be in there at all.’ 

‘I sit on the House Intelligence Committee. We oversee all 19 intelligence agencies. We are currently offline,’ Rep. Mike Waltz underscored. 

There will be no legislating in the period without a speaker – committees cannot amend or approve bills and send them to the floor for a vote.

Rep. Mike Gallagher said he was denied entry to a classified meeting. ‘I’m informed by House security that technically, I don’t have clearance’

There aren’t any House rules either – what McCarthy has been negotiating with his defectors – as a speaker has to oversee the adoption of rules each Congress. 

If no rules package is adopted by January 13, the fallout will extend to staffers – those employed by committees will not be paid, according to guidance circulated by the House Administration Committee. 

The lower chamber is entering day three of a political standoff that’s seen little movement over a series of six votes where McCarthy failed to become Speaker. 

Overnight he conceded nearly everything his dissenters had said they wanted – including a single member motion to vacate where one member can call a vote to oust him, hand-picked committees and subcommittee chairs for Freedom Caucus members and guaranteed floor votes on border security and term limits bills.

It’s unlikely that the rules concessions will be enough to change the minds of the 20 in his opposition, however. The ‘Never Kevin’ faction is believed to be larger than the four votes McCarthy can afford to lose and still win the speakership.