Twenty elected Trumpists refuse to vote for the Republican Kevin McCarthy, who failed to obtain the necessary votes and be elected “speaker” in the House of Representatives.
At the Capitol, we hadn’t seen that for a century. The parliamentary work of the House of Representatives has been blocked since Tuesday, the 435 elected officials having failed to elect the new president of the lower house of the American Parliament. A situation that plunges Washington into uncertainty, the Assembly having closed its day without choosing its new “speaker.”
Republican Kevin McCarthy was however a big favorite to replace Democrat Nancy Pelosi. His party, which had obtained a narrow majority during the “midterms” in November, had designated him during an internal vote as future number 1 in the House of Representatives.
No majority
But the health walk turned into a nightmare for the 50-year-old. In the first round, Kevin McCarthy collected only 203 votes, 19 Republicans failing him. The opponent of Joe Biden even came in second, behind Democrat Hakeem Jeffries and his 212 votes.
Blame it on a group of Trumpists who consider McCarthy too moderate. After a second and then a third round, the elected officials agreed to suspend their votes until Wednesday morning, the time to negotiate behind the scenes.
The election of the “speaker”, the third most important figure in American politics after the president and the vice-president, requires a majority of 218 votes. As long as this majority is not reached, the elected members vote again: there is no relative majority in the third round as provided by the regulations of the French National Assembly.
The election of a President of the House of Representatives could therefore be a matter of a few hours… or of several weeks: in 1856, the elected members of Congress only agreed after two months and 133 towers, recalls AFP.
“Unnecessary bustle”
Kevin McCarthy seems to want to give pledges to this conservative fringe to prevent history from stuttering: in 2015, he had already narrowly failed to become Speaker of the House of Representatives in the face of a sling from the right wing of the party.
Donald Trump criticized at the end of the day a “superfluous agitation” within a party which he wishes to obtain the nomination in order to reconquer the White House in 2024.
A solution, issued by former Republican Governor of Ohio John Kasich, would be that the “moderates” of the two parties form an alliance to designate another speaker and find a majority. An option for the moment whimsical.
