Eli Crane standing among other lawmakers.“I did not want to come up here and be a representative who heard what my voters said and came up here and caved to the pressure,” said Representative Eli Crane, Republican of Arizona.|| CreditAnna Moneymaker/Getty Images
The freshman Republican from Arizona was the only newcomer to hold out against Speaker Kevin McCarthy until the very end.
By Annie Karni || The New York Times Jan. 13, 2023
Representative Eli Crane, Republican of Arizona, was still weeks away from being sworn in to Congress for the first time when Donald J. Trump, the former president, called to try to persuade him to support Kevin McCarthy for speaker.
Mr. Trump had endorsed Mr. Crane during his campaign, helping him emerge victorious in a crowded Republican primary. The Congressional Leadership Fund, a political action committee aligned with Mr. McCarthy, had donated to his campaign. The pressure to fall in line, Mr. Crane said, was immense.
“That’s always a tough situation, when you have a lot of respect and admiration for somebody, and the commitments that you’ve made to your voters,” Mr. Crane recalled in an interview in his new office this week, just days after he voted against Mr. McCarthy 14 times in a row.
Mr. Crane, 43, a former member of the Navy SEALs and a contender on “Shark Tank,” last week was the sole newly elected congressman to vote against Mr. McCarthy until the bitter, drawn-out end — typically a perilous position for a freshman who harbors any ambition to serve on a powerful committee or play a role in legislating.
But Mr. Crane said his constituents viewed Mr. McCarthy as part of the establishment they had sent him to Washington to upend — and he was not about to disappoint them as his first official act on Capitol Hill.
On the December call with Mr. Trump, Mr. Crane said he had told the former president, “Sir, I’m sorry, we love you out in Arizona, but I’ve been listening to my voters.”
Over five days in which Mr. McCarthy suffered defeat after humiliating defeat, Mr. Crane said he had heard a lot of “What’s it going to take” from the speaker’s allies as they tried to pull together the necessary votes to win the race. He did not want a particular committee. There was no change in the rules that he was after. He said he was not seeking notoriety. He was simply there to vote against Mr. McCarthy.
