U.S. House adopts rules package after dysfunctional opening week

WASHINGTON, Jan. 9 (Xinhua) -- The U.S. House of Representatives adopted a rules package on Monday after the dysfunctional opening week.

The package, which will govern how the House led by Republicans operates for the next two years, was passed in a 220-213 vote, mainly along party lines.

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy -- whose bid to take the gavel last week paralyzed the lower chamber for days -- said on Monday evening that "Congress has been broken for a long time."

McCarthy, a California Republican, made multiple concessions to House Republican hardliners in order to rise to the post, including a measure to allow a single member to call for a vote to remove the speaker.

Republicans flipped the House in the 2022 midterm elections while Democrats held onto their majority in the Senate.

The new, divided Congress convened early last week, but McCarthy didn't secure enough votes to become House speaker until the 15th ballot due to intra-party division and partisanship.

The longest House speaker election contest in 164 years prevented Congress from being fully operational.