WASHINGTON — After 13 rounds of voting this week in Washington, the U.S. House still has not elected a Speaker.
This is despite several Republicans flipping their votes to GOP leader Kevin McCarthy Friday afternoon. There are still six holdouts and two people who didn't vote in the 13th round.
McCarthy had 214 votes to Democrat Hakeem Jefferies' 212 votes, so not enough to secure the speakership.
Associate Professor of Political Science at the University at Buffalo Jacob Neiheisel has been watching this very closely and says he is not surprised at what's happening in Washington this week.
"Once they give concessions, once they agree to back McCarthy for speaker, then they, you know, go into having their own mediated channels with which to garner attention, so it's difficult to negotiate with a group like that, I think," Neiheisel said.
"In terms of what impact it has on Western New York, well, there are a whole bunch of members-elect who are not really fully fledged members yet, and that might have some kind of impact on representation if this continues to drag on."
And remember, the members-elect have their families in Washington with them in many cases so they can be sworn-in. That's usually a big celebration for them.
Neiheisel told 2 On Your Side earlier on Friday that he thinks this is just the first of many bad days for the person eventually elected speaker.
"Democrats have obviously no incentive to work with him, and he's got a significant faction within his own party," Neiheisel said.
"You know, this is assuming McCarthy eventually is Speaker, who doesn't really want to work with him on much and is going to try to extract lots of concessions, whether that's, you know, plumb committee assignments or other kinds of things, and so he has to deal with them, and yet at the same time, you know, they're going to do things that are in their best interest at any turn, so, yeah, I don't think it gets a lot better from here on out."
So what happens next? Round 14 of voting and that's expected to happen later Friday night when they reconvene at 10 p.m. The two people who didn't vote Friday afternoon should be back in Washington by then, and they're expected to vote for McCarthy.
Remember the U.S. House can't do anything until a Speaker is elected.