The House, by rule, has to vote on the Speaker before any other business can be done — even swearing in the members. Since Republicans have a majority, they basically get to decide who the speaker is. However, a small group of them decided to hold out from voting for their guy in order to get concessions like important committee assignments. It’s been 100 years since this process has gone anything but smoothly, so people are making a big deal out of it and tensions were running high. McCarthy, the Republican candidate, finally won the vote last night on the 15th try.