Washington | What passed for business as usual in the US Congress, at least if you go back 164 years, crawled along on Thursday (Friday AEDT) as the House ended an 11th vote for Representative Kevin McCarthy for speaker, with the results humiliating and largely the same: more than a dozen votes short.

There was little solace that the lawmakers had made history with the longest stretch of speaker votes since the 44 that were held in the Congress of 1859. Without a speaker, the House cannot convene and start official business, and restive lawmakers were once again left hanging in the balance.