It’s like the dog that caught the car and then had to try to drive the contraption.

At this writing on the morning of Jan. 6, the slim Republican majority in the U.S. House has spent three days failing to elect a speaker, holding 11 nearly identical votes that saw the speakership slip further from GOP leader Kevin McCarthy’s grasp as the spectacle wore on.

The California Republican began the week with 202 votes but dropped to 201 on the second day, as one Republican changed her vote to “present,” and then fell to 200 votes on the third as Colorado’s Ken Buck departed the chamber for a medical appointment. Buck, a McCarthy loyalist in the early rounds, said mid-week that McCarthy needed to seal the deal or step aside, at one point hinting that he was ready to abandon his preferred candidate to help spur a resolution, but stuck with McCarthy until he took off.

All 212 of the chamber’s Democrats voted for their party’s leader, New York’s Hakeem Jeffries, in every round, and 20 Republicans voted against McCarthy, denying him the 218 votes needed to claim the gavel. The anti-McCarthy faction cast ballots for four different Republicans through the week, from Ohio’s Jim Jordan and Florida’s Byron Donalds to Oklahoma lawmaker Kevin Hern and former President Donald Trump.

Colorado Republican Lauren Boebert has been among the most vocal of McCarthy’s detractors, nominating two of the alternate candidates and voting for three of them across as many days. In a whirlwind of cable news appearances following Day Two of the slog, Boebert fended off criticism from Fox News Channel personality Sean Hannity, who asked whether she thought the election was “a game show,” and joked with MSNBC’s Stephanie Ruhle that she might nominate the TV host at some point if things dragged on.

McCarthy’s foes say they want guardrails in place guaranteeing that favored legislation will get a vote on the House floor and giving members of the House Freedom Caucus seats on key committees, among other demands. A handful of the Republicans have vowed that they’ll never vote for McCarthy, including Florida’s Matt Gaetz, who nominated Trump and cast the lone vote for the former president on the third day of balloting, though it’s unclear whether there are enough holdouts to prevent McCarthy from bridging the gap and achieving a majority. 

One of the Republicans who placed McCarthys name into nomination – on the second day of voting – compared the proceedings to the 1993 movie “Groundhog Day,” which features comic actor Bill Murray portraying a weatherman stuck in a time loop. But instead of learning how to play the piano and becoming an expert ice sculptor – among the pursuits taken up by Murray’s character as he tries to figure out how to get out of the seemingly endless recursion – this version’s protagonist has so far just lost vote after vote while giving up more and more  to his Republican foes.

At press time, McCarthy and some of the holdouts had reportedly negotiated a package of concessions, which some observers say are sufficient to hobble the speaker out of the gate, giving a tiny minority of GOP lawmakers effective veto power over the chamber’s activity and boding poorly for prospects of a McCarthy-led House passing necessary legislation, such as funding the government or raising the country’s debt ceiling, potentially leading to protracted shutdowns and imperiling the world economy.

McCarthy’s Republican critics counter that they’re merely taking back power that has long been concentrated in the speaker’s office in an effort to represent their constituents, though their critics suggest that the chaotic start to the session augurs two more years of turbulence.

Brittany Pettersen, the Lakewood Democrat elected in November to represent Colorado’s Jefferson County-based 7th Congressional District, spoke with Colorado Politics on Jan. 5 as House members-elect began the 10th roll call vote for speaker.

Like everyone elected in November to the chamber’s two-year terms, Pettersen was at that point a member-elect, since the House has to pick a speaker before commencing most of its functions, including swearing in members and making committee assignments, much less considering legislation. In a sort of limbo until they’re sworn in, members-elect can’t be given sufficient security clearance to be briefed on national security matters, and they can’t get busy handling problems brought to them by constituents. There’s also a question whether members can pay their staff if the impasse continues, and newly elected members have had to idle their work setting up district offices.

A 10-year veteran of the state legislature, Pettersen takes over for Ed Perlmutter, the Arvada Democrat who served eight terms and announced a year ago that he wouldn’t seek another term.

It’s a long way from Colorado’s state Capitol, where even amid hardcore partisan battles, most legislation passes with bipartisan support and lawmakers are used to working across the aisle day in and day out.

“It’s definitely frustrating to see them fall apart,” she said with a weary laugh. “We can’t even get through the (opening) day when we’re supposed to all come together and celebrate with our families and actually move on to do the work of the people, so it definitely makes me fearful for what the next two years are going to look like.”

Like other members-elect, Pettersen welcomed family to the Capitol for her since-postponed swearing-in, including her nearly 3-year-old son Davis, who spent much of the first day on the House floor with her – napping through much of the tumult, she noted.

“I worked, like everybody, so hard to get here to try to solve problems that are facing our communities, and I think we are all just very apprehensive about what this leadership is going to look like for two years,” she said, that weary laugh returning more than once.

“What we’re seeing are extremists leading and dividing the Republicans, so I think we’re going to see a lot of that throughout the next two years,” she added. “We need to make sure that we’re making a clear argument what we would be doing if we were in charge, and why elections matter and the people who represent them matter so much.”

A few House Democrats have floated the notion of attempting to peel off a few Republicans to form a coalition government in the House. It would only take six GOP votes, if all the Democrats agreed, though skeptical observers point out that there probably aren’t that many willing lawmakers left in the GOP caucus, since the few who might have fit the bill in the previous Congress went down to defeat in primaries last year.

It’s dubbed the Aaron Sorkin scenario, named after the creator of the NBC drama “The West Wing,” which portrayed a very different Washington than the one that exists today, if it ever did.

Pettersen acknowledged that she isn’t privy to those talks, if they’re happening, but splashed cold water on the possibility.

“I’m not in these conversations, but my understanding is that they have not included Democrats in any of these discussions, and they don’t want us involved, so maybe they need a wake-up call that they actually do need to work with us now and in the future,” she said.

Democrats, she added, “have to figure our what our role is in this – we are united in who we support and who we know would be the best leader for our country, and it’s obviously not going to go that way. I think they have to figure this out within their party but also be willing to work with us.”

Describing the experience as “surreal,” Pettersen said it was so far unlike anything she’d anticipated.

“People are watching this, probably absolutely frustrated. We can’t even do the very basic thing, which is to elect a speaker to ultimately move forward so that we can roll up our sleeves and get to work,” she said, that weary laugh bubbling under her words again. “We need a functioning government. We need to be able to start getting to work.”