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With McCarthy out of Speaker race, will anyone else jump in?

Posted at 12:55 PM, Oct 08, 2015
and last updated 2015-10-08 18:27:38-04

WASHINGTON (CNN/WXMI) — House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy has dropped out of the race to succeed House Speaker John Boehner, in a shocking move that reflected his inability to gather the support of the Republican caucus.

The move comes as House Republicans were in a closed-door meeting to select their nominee for speaker and came without any warning. Boehner has postponed the vote.

"I think I shocked some of you, huh?" McCarthy told reporters following the decision.

Members had no indication the move was coming, including West Michigan Rep. Bill Huizenga, R-Zeeland, who represents Michigan's 2nd Congressional District, said he was "stunned."

"Everyone expected this to move forward as we had expected," he told FOX 17.

Huizenga said he's warming to the idea of having an interim or "caretaker" Speaker to serve through the remainder of this term until someone new is selected. He suggested fellow Michigan congresswoman Candice Miller or Minnesota Rep. John Kline.

“Somebody who has been around, has the experience, is tough and has been in a leadership position but doesn’t have to be beholden to anybody while we sort out some of our internal family issues," Huizenga told FOX 17.

Boehner is poised to resign at the end of the month. There is no clear successor who can overcome the deep divisions in the party and win the post. An influential group of conservatives endorsed a long-shot candidate, Rep. Daniel Webster, on Wednesday, placing McCarthy's ability to win the House floor vote later this month in doubt.

"If we're going to unite and be strong, we need a new face to do that," McCarthy said, adding that he did not want to win the race on the House floor with only enough votes to squeak by.

A source close to McCarthy told CNN the decision to drop out came down to "numbers, pure and simple," adding that "he had the votes to win the conference vote, but there just wasn't a path to 218" -- the number of votes needed to lock down the speakership on the House floor.

The uncertain future of House GOP leadership comes less than a month before Congress must take action to raise the debt ceiling to keep the U.S. from defaulting on its debt obligations -- a critical vote conservatives have in the past sought to stall in order to pull concessions from Democrats.

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid was quick to call on House Republicans to "bring a clean debt ceiling increase to the floors of the House and Senate immediately" to avoid a credit downgrade. "Republican chaos is likely to get worse before it gets better but the economic livelihood of the American people should not be threatened as a result of Republicans' inability to govern," Reid said in a statement.

McCarthy's candidacy ran into trouble last week after he suggested that the House's select committee on Benghazi was an attempt to hurt Hillary Clinton's poll numbers.

Asked if that affected his decision, McCarthy acknowledged: "Well, that wasn't helpful."

Rep. Jason Chaffetz, who late last week jumped into the Speaker's race, called an impromptu news conference less than an hour after Republicans began pouring out of the GOP conference meeting. The Utah Republican said he was also "absolutely stunned, surprised and shocked."

Chaffetz said he would continue to campaign for the top House post and said "we need to find somebody that our whole body can unite behind and do what were elected to do."

"I do believe it is time for a fresh start. That was the whole genesis for my campaign, but we need to have a lot more family discussion," he said. "I think we have a lot of internal fracturing that's happening. And we need to figure out a way to unite the party."

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-California, described McCarthy's move as "courageous," saying this is "exciting" for the party because there is now a "wide open" race for speaker.

"Because of his verbal blunder last week there were some of us that were very apprehensive and this going to create great unity among Republicans," Rohrabacher said.

What about Amash?

Thursday's announcement from McCarthy certainly didn't mark the first time Rep. Justin Amash, R-Cascade Township, who represents Michigan's 3rd Congressional District, has been mentioned as being a possible option to make a run for Speaker of the House.

Amash, a Tea Party conservative, could mount a strong opposition force as some politicos have suggested.

Even prior McCarthy dropping out, an Oct. 1 write-up in The Week declared the 35-year-old Republican congressman could revolutionize the House and should be speaker.

The Michigan congressman also ignited discussion with his CNN op-ed earlier in the week calling out Speaker Boehner and others in GOP leadership for favoring what he referred to as the "govern by crisis" approach, a model he said is broken.

With Speaker Boehner's resignation, we have a historic opportunity to change course for the better by electing a speaker committed to upholding the open process that allows the body to reflect the policy preferences of the people," Amash wrote.

"A mere reshuffling of current leadership won't work. That a promotion of Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy to speaker is being seriously discussed by leadership allies demonstrates how little they have learned from recent events."

Amash did not return FOX 17s repeated requests Thursday for comment, only taking to social media to re-post his CNN op-ed on his Facebook page and tweet that if Reps. Chaffetz or Webster had dropped out the election would've gone on, citing it as "one more example of the House's broken process."

When asked about the potential of Amash joining the race for Speaker, Huizenga would only say he looked forward to speaking with him if he did intend to run, but hadn't heard otherwise.

No successor in sight

Boehner said in a statement he will remain in his post until a new speaker is elected, though he has yet to announce the date for the new vote.

"I'm confident we will elect a new Speaker in the coming weeks. Our conference will work together to ensure we have the strongest team possible as we continue to focus on the American people's priorities," he said in a written statement.

Boehner also canceled a scheduled appearance Thursday night on "The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon," an NBC spokeswoman said.

Rep. Tim Huelskamp, a Kansas Republican and member of the conservative House Freedom Caucus that opposed McCarthy's bid, said the decision creates a "brand new race for speaker."

"I am not the one," McCarthy told the Republicans in the meeting, according to Huelskamp.

Huelskamp also took shots at McCarthy, saying the majority leader was campaigning for the top post until "three hours ago" and said the lack of "advance notice" was characteristic of the "stunts" that have defined Boehner's leadership as speaker -- including his surprise resignation the day after Pope Francis addressed a joint meeting of Congress.

And just as McCarthy got a brief heads up moments before that announcement, McCarthy also gave Boehner notice shortly before Thursday's conference meeting, a Boehner aide told CNN.

Members had no indication the move was coming. "Totally stunned," said Rep. Peter King, R-New York, on CNN.

"What Kevin has done is extremely selfless, and I think he's done a brave and courageous thing," said Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas. "He was close to being right there and he chose to unite the conference rather than waging battles. "

The House Freedom Caucus entered a closed-door meeting before 1 p.m., Rep. Mick Mulvaney said on CNN, saying the group will review some possible candidates.

Ryan, Gowdy out

Rep. Paul Ryan, the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee and someone who had been viewed as a contender for the job, immediately said he is not interested.

While I am grateful for the encouragement I've received, I will not be a candidate. I continue to believe I can best serve the country and this conference as Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee," Ryan said in a statement.

With conservatives again floating his name, Rep. Trey Gowdy said he will not run for speaker. Asked if he would reconsider and join the race if his GOP colleagues urged him to get in he replied, "No."

FOX 17s Josh Sidorowicz contributed to this report.