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Kevin McCarthy

Kevin Owen McCarthy (born January 26, 1965) is an American politician who was the 55th speaker of the United States House of Representatives. A member of the Republican Party, he was the leader of the House Republican Conference from 2019 to 2023 and served as House Minority Leader from 2019 until his election as speaker in January 2023. His tenure ended after only ten months, when he became the only Speaker to be removed from the position following a motion to vacate. Since 2007, he has been a U.S. Representative from California. His district, which encompasses most of the San Joaquin Valley has been numbered as since 2023.

McCarthy graduated from California State University, Bakersfield. He served as a member of the California State Assembly from 2002 to 2006, the same year he was first elected to the U.S. House. McCarthy served as the House Republican chief deputy whip from 2009 to 2011 and as House majority whip from 2011 to 2014. After House Majority Leader Eric Cantor's reelection loss in the 2014 Republican primary, McCarthy was elected majority leader under speaker John Boehner. He retained that position during Paul Ryan's speakership. In 2019, after Ryan retired, McCarthy was elected house minority leader.

When Joe Biden won the 2020 U.S. presidential election, McCarthy supported Donald Trump's debunked claims of voter fraud and initially participated in efforts to overturn the results. After the U.S. Capitol was stormed during the 2021 electoral vote count, McCarthy reversed his previous comments on voter fraud in the election and blamed Trump for the riot. By 2022, he had publicly reconciled with Trump. McCarthy led the House Republicans through the 2022 elections, in which they gained a slimmer-than-expected majority.

McCarthy was the Republican nominee for speaker in January 2023, but did not win the speakership on the first attempt, only securing the office after days of successive votes and negotiations within his own party as well as 15 different ballots. As Speaker, McCarthy dealt with a standoff between the House Republican conference and Biden administration that led to the 2023 debt-ceiling crisis and what would have been a first-ever national default. To resolve the crisis, the parties negotiated the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023, which passed with bipartisan support in Congress before Biden signed it into law.

In late September 2023, McCarthy relied on Democrats to help pass a bipartisan continuing resolution to avert a government shutdown. As a result, Republican congressman Matt Gaetz filed a motion to vacate against McCarthy. Following a largely unprecedented House floor debate between members of the majority party, McCarthy was voted out as speaker on October 3, 2023. His tenure was the third-shortest for a Speaker of the House in United States history, and he is the first speaker to ever be removed from the role during a legislative session. On December 6, 2023, McCarthy announced that he would be resigning as a member of the House at the end of that year. Provided by Wikipedia