McCarthy holdout Dan Bishop denies he’ll quit Congress if he doesn’t get his way
Virginia Aabram
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Rep. Dan Bishop (R-NC) will not resign if the speaker’s race doesn’t play out the way he wants after comments he made this week were construed as him saying he’d step down.
Bishop is striving for substantial reforms to how the House operates and never planned to remain in Congress for life, his communications director Allie McCandless said Thursday, though lack of reform could make him consider shortening how long he wants to remain a lawmaker.
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A report in Roll Call on Thursday morning appeared to quote Bishop, one of the 20 conservative House members standing between Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) and the speaker’s gavel, saying he would resign if McCarthy won without the concessions he wanted.
https://twitter.com/AllieMcCandless/status/1611004314306101251
“This is NOT what he said. This reporter is purposefully misconstruing the full quote,” she tweeted. “Congressman Bishop said that he doesn’t plan to be on the hill for life, & that if we *eventually* can’t get the necessary changes to the institution, that he would shorten his planned tenure.”
“He was not referring to this term or this specific fight. Congressman Bishop has consistently been clear that he does not plan to stay in DC for the rest of his life,” McCandless continued.
Roll Call quoted Bishop saying during negotiations Wednesday night, “We’re going to either see improvement up here the same way we made remarkable improvements in North Carolina in the state legislature, or I’m out.”
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Though Bishop voted against McCarthy in all six votes across Tuesday and Wednesday, he says he’s not part of the “Never Kevin” subfaction and could consider voting for him with more changes to the rules package.
The election for speaker of the House has entered its third day as McCarthy is still fighting for enough members of his party to change their votes to get him to a simple majority. Democrats have been united behind Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), and the GOP’s narrow majority means McCarthy can only afford four members of his party not voting for him. This is the first time since 1923 the speaker election has gone past one ballot.