Kevin McCarthy To Leave Congress After Dramatic Ouster As Speaker

WASHINGTON, DC — Former House Speaker and U.S. Rep. Kevin McCarthy will leave Congress at the end of the year, he announced in a Wall Street Journal opinion piece on Wednesday, following the California Republican's recent dramatic ouster from the speaker role.

"No matter the odds, or personal cost, we did the right thing," he wrote. "That may seem out of fashion in Washington these days, but delivering results for the American people is still celebrated across the country.

"It is in this spirit that I have decided to depart the House at the end of this year to serve America in new ways. I know my work is only getting started."

McCarthy went on to write that he would recruit "our country's best and brightest" to run for office and work to support the party's younger generation.

McCarthy is the only speaker in history to be voted out of the job.

He arrived in the House in January 2007 after a stint in the California Assembly, where he served as minority leader. In Congress, he maneuvered through his party's hierarchy — serving as majority whip and Republican leader along the way — before being elected speaker in January 2023.

His toppling from the chamber's top post was fueled by grievances from the party's hard-right flank, including over his decision to work with Democrats to keep the federal government open rather than risk a shutdown.

The dayslong floor fight that preceded his elevation to the House's top job foreshadowed a stormy tenure, at a time when former President Donald Trump remained the de facto leader of the party and deep divisions within the GOP raised serious questions about the party's ability to govern.

It took a record 15 votes over four days for McCarthy to line up the support he needed to win the post he had long coveted, finally prevailing on a 216-212 vote with Democrats backing leader Hakeem Jeffries and six Republican holdouts voting present. Not since the Civil War era has a speaker's vote dragged through so many rounds of counting.

McCarthy emerged from the fight weakened, especially considering Republicans held only a fragile margin in the chamber after a predicted "red wave" failed to materialize in the 2022 elections.

"I remained cheerfully persistent when elected speaker because I knew what we could accomplish," he wrote in the piece Wednesday. "... We kept our government operating and our troops paid while wars broke out around the world."

Once installed as speaker, his well-known savvy for fundraising and political glad-handing appeared ill-suited for corralling his party's disputatious hard-right faction. And deals he cut to become speaker — including a rules change that allowed any single lawmaker to file a motion to remove him — left him vulnerable.

"It often seems that the more Washington does, the worse America gets," he wrote. "I started my career as a small-business owner, and I look forward to helping entrepreneurs and risk-takers reach their full potential. The challenges we face are more likely to be solved by innovation than legislation."

McCarthy, 58, represents California's 20th District in the central part of the state. He is a native of Bakersfield, the son of a firefighter and was a deli owner before going into politics.

"I never could have imagined the journey when I first threw my hat into the ring," he wrote. "I go knowing I left it all on the field — as always, with a smile on my face. And looking back, I wouldn’t have had it any other way."

The Associated Press contributed to this story.