Kevin McCarthy, the House Minority Leader (Republican-California), is still struggling to secure the votes required to be the next Speaker. This is just two days before the floor vote. Conservatives claim that the major concessions that McCarthy made on a conference call in the New Year were not enough to win their support.

McCarthy informed GOP lawmakers that he would lower threshold for the motion for the resignation of the chair. This procedural tool was used to remove a sitting Speaker. It was previously changed by Democrats in 2019, from allowing only one member to initiate the motion to only being able to be brought up to a vote over objections from leadership to five members, despite resistance from moderates at his conference. His defectors, who made a list of demands, including the motion to vacate and placing more GOP hard-liners in “A” committees, as well as a ban on leadership in primaries and cuts to spending, said that while changes to the rules are a step in right direction, the California Republican does not have the 218 required to make it to the finish line.

One lawmaker said that several members of the call “said they wouldn’t vote [for the rules package] if Kevin wasn’t Speaker.” Another member stated that moderates were unhappy with the changes made to the motion to vacate, despite pro McCarthy lawmakers trying to sell it to defectors in the hope of shifting critics’ support towards the California Republican.

“They started [the conference] with this new rule package that we’re all about seeing and are clearly saying the rules package. It’s great, everybody worked so hard, and we got all these amazing things. They’re going to be historic. Then [Gaetz] said that if everyone wants it, then we should all accept it, regardless of who the speaker may be. “If these are good laws, they are good laws, right?” the lawmaker stated. “But then, the mods got on top and said that we actually hate the rules package.”

According to the member, McCarthy suggested lowering the threshold to one lawmaker after Rep.-elect Mike Lawler asked Gaetz (one of five “Never Kevin”) members who initially came out against the California Republican if that would change his position.

McCarthy stated, “Well, if there’s one, will you vote for us?” Gaetz replied: “Is it an offer?” McCarthy then responded that “There are other people who don’t like five so that they won’t really like one.”

A group of conservatives issued a letter shortly after the call stating that the changes were not sufficient to support him.

“Regrettably however, Mr. McCarthy’s statement, despite some progress made, comes almost impossibly too late to address continuing deficiencies before the opening of January 3rd of the 118th Congress. It is not surprising that there are still vague hopes expressed in many of the key points under discussion at this point,” they wrote.

“This is particularly true in regard to Mr. McCarthy’s candidacy as Speaker, because the times call out for radical departures from the status quo — and not a continuation or ongoing Republican failures. With a 14-year history in the senior House Republican leadership, McCarthy is fully responsible for correcting the dysfunction that he now admits to having experienced.

Scott Perry, Chairman of House Freedom Caucus (R-PA), spearheaded the letter. It stated that “there continue be missing specific commitments in respect to practically every component of our entreaties and so, there is no way to determine whether promises are kept or broken.”

McCarthy will lose four votes on the floor due to the narrow majority of Republicans falling short of the expected red wave. Unless his critics vote absent or not to vote, the threshold for McCarthy’s defeat from 218 can be reduced to 4 votes.