Why Wyoming’s Congresswoman Voted For Speaker McCarthy

During the long battle for U.S. Speaker Of The House newly elected Wyoming representative Harriet Hageman continually voted for Kevin McCarthy.

McCarthy is now speaker of the house, after a long battle that was caused by just a few Republican holdouts.

There were several calls to Wyoming's statewide morning talk show from listeners wondering why she was voting for McCarthy. Many wanted her to pick somebody else.

Hageman's phone lines in DC were ringing. Her email was filling up.

Comments on the congresswoman's Facebook page were typically like this one:

The congresswoman did not respond to any comments like this on her social media.

So why did she support McCarthy?

In a podcast interview with Wyoming's David Iverson she explained:

I have been trying to give the space and time to the people who need to negotiate changes to the rules.

The folks who have been objecting to Kevin McCarthy have repeatedly stated, it's not personal. It's about changing how things are done back here.

I have been voting for Kevin McCarthy because the alternative Hakeem Jeffries, or a coalition that would be picked by the most liberal members.

You can hear the entire interview with David Iverson and Harried Hageman at this link.

In an interview with Fox News Florida Repetitive Byron Donalds explained what concessions he was given in order to vote for McCarthy.

More than anything it was important to him that he was given committee assignments and a seat at different tables over important issues.

Some new members of the house that are considered more "extreme" by McCarthy and his crew felt as if they were being left out. That is what began the week-long battle.

"Early on I gave Kevin the benefit of the doubt. But it came pretty quickly clear to me that we were getting nowhere. And so, at that point, it was saying, ‘OK, how long is this going to go? What’s this going to play out like?’" Donalds said. "And so it was really about trying to make sure that we can get people to the table in order to construct a framework that everybody in our conference can get behind."  (Rep Donalds).

Between the drama, we often see from elected officials in the capital, and how the media fans those flames, it is often hard to understand what is really going on.