tonight on the reidout no person having received the majority of the whole number of votes cast by surname, a speaker has not been elected. an epic fail and stunning humiliation for kevin mccarthy. who took the knee for donald trump, then gave away the store to the koo-koo fringe of his party but is still not speaker of the house. and we begin tonight with the new congress. the 118th. today was supposed to be swearing-in day, typically a big day for the country, filled with pomp and pageantry and often a feeling of hope and excitement as a new congress kicks off and implements its vision. for some, it serves as bring your kids to congress day, so that children get to see their parents or their grandparents take the oath, and perhaps make history themselves. history was certainly made on this opening day in the house of representatives when house democrats nominated their caucus chair, hakeem jeffries, of new york, to succeed nancy pelosi as speaker. i rise today a
gillette was elected on the ninth ballot. that took a couple days. before that, there was the longest and most contentious speaker vote in u.s. history which happened in 1856 during the 34th congress. it took nearly two months for the house to choose its leader. as anti-slavery congressman nathaniel banks ran against multiple candidates who wanted to expand slavery. banks finally won after 133 rounds of voting. there was also the bizarre situation in 1931 when after republicans won a two-seat house majority in the 1930 midterms a year after the stock market crash that sparked the great depression, 14 members-elect died. they died between election day and the start of the 72nd congress, including the sitting speaker, nicolas longworth iii, giving democrats control of the house and the speakership to john nance garner. you can t make it up.