New book recounts House speaker fight's most chaotic moment

A single vote, a committee dispute and a near-lunge on the House floor captured how far the 2023 speaker fight had fallen into open disorder. In a new book set for release June 23, John Leganski, a longtime aide to Kevin McCarthy, describes the moment as one of the most chaotic scenes in modern House history.

Glory, Grief, and the Gavel: An Inside Guide to Running for Speaker of the House revisits January 6, 2023, during the 14th ballot in the House speaker election, when Rep. Mike Rogers of Alabama appeared to charge toward then-Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida before Rep. Richard Hudson of North Carolina restrained him. The clash followed Gaetz’s decision to vote present, leaving McCarthy one vote short of the speakership on that ballot. Leganski, who rose to deputy chief of staff for floor operations in McCarthy’s office, uses the episode to show how a leadership contest that should have been procedural became combustible in public.

The fight over speaker unfolded over five days and 15 ballots, the first multi-ballot election for the office in a century and the longest in modern House history. McCarthy ultimately won the gavel only after absorbing repeated setbacks, concessions and public humiliation that exposed how fragile his coalition had become. The Rogers-Gaetz confrontation was not just a personal flashpoint. It reflected a chamber where routine negotiations over committee posts had hardened into leverage and threats.

The book says Gaetz had earlier that day sought to be named chair of a subcommittee on the House Armed Services Committee, a request that was rejected. Rogers was in line to chair the full House Armed Services Committee, which made the exchange about more than tempers. It was about power, standing and the way committee assignments had become part of the speaker fight itself, with each side trying to extract advantage from McCarthy’s narrow path to victory.

The episode did not end with the men still at odds. Rogers later apologized to Gaetz and stepped down from the House Republican Steering Committee, the panel that helps determine committee assignments. Leganski’s account also says Gaetz remained fixated on the House Ethics Committee investigation into allegations against him and that McCarthy was in communication with Rep. Hakeem Jeffries during the battle. Taken together, the details point to a House in which the fight for the gavel spilled well beyond the ballot box and into the chamber’s daily governing machinery.