Republican Rep. Kevin McCarthy has failed to win the votes he needed to become the Speaker of the House for the fifth ballot now — something that hasn’t happened since 1923. Multiple-ballot House speaker elections were more common before the Civil War.

The result of McCarthy losing multiple ballots election and the House unable to successfully elect a Speaker meant that it entered something called a “floor fight,” that has spanned for two days now. 

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What is a floor fight?

According to the political dictionary, a floor fight is “an argument that threatens to derail either a convention or a congressional proceeding. Most of the time, floor fights are non-violent; the fighting is verbal. However, American history also includes some memorable incidents in which floor fights became physical. Today, ‘floor fight’ usually refers to a fight on the Senate or House floor.”

In the efforts to conduct a Speakership Election, the 118th session of the Congress has entered a once-in-a-century fight through multiple ballots –something that has not happened in 100 years.

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Since 1789, Congress has been conducting sessions and they have required multiple ballots to elect a Speaker just 14 times before. As the two-party system was evolving back then, all except one multi-ballot speaker election took place before the Civil War. At that time, Floor fights were not that uncommon. 

The only floor fight to take place since the Civil War, exactly 100 years ago, was when it took nine ballots for Rep. Frederick Gillett of Massachusetts to be elected speaker in 1923.

Interestingly the maximum number of voting rounds for a Speakership election took place in the 34th session of Congress (1855–1857). The second highest was the 31st session of Congress (1849–1851), with 63 rounds.