Election chaos in the US House of Representatives: Who are the dissenters?

A group of 20 Republican MPs from the extreme right wing is uncompromising and refuses to elect Kevin McCarthy as speaker of the US House of Representatives. Who are they and what do they want?

Yes, what is happening in the House of Representatives is chaotic. Republicans concede that. But, Wisconsin Congressman Mike Gallagher called into the microphone, “Democracy is messy, on purpose!”

And if it is up to a handful of colleagues, mainly from the extreme right-wing camp, it will remain chaotic. Because they don’t want a strong chairman, they want to have as much say as possible themselves.

Conservative hothead shoots at McCarthy

“If you want to drain the swamp, you can’t make the biggest alligator the boss of the exercise”: With this sentence Matt Gaetz has just made it into every news program. By the alligator he means Kevin McCarthy, whom Gaetz apparently believes is corrupt.

Matt Gaetz, 40, from Florida, is often referred to in the US media as a conservative hothead, which is a friendly description. Gaetz is loud and extreme; he believes everyone has the right to defend his estate with arms; he alleges cheating in the 2020 election and he has been endorsed by Donald Trump.

Trump’s support for McCarthy changes little

That relationship could be about to change. The man, who wants to be president again in 2024, has urged Republicans to support Kevin McCarthy. Gaetz then tweeted that it was the worst personnel decision Trump had ever made.

And his party friend Lauren Boebert said in the Capitol that the other way around would be correct. The President – she means Trump – must tell Kevin McCarthy that he does not have the necessary votes and must withdraw. There were boos in the hall.

Lauren Boebert, 36, a member of parliament from Colorado, is also making a name for herself in the House of Representatives with her extreme initiatives. On a Christmas card, she and her children posed with guns, she is against wearing anti-corona masks and against same-sex marriage. In addition, the mother of four would like to put the church above the state. Despite being well-loved in the extreme Trump supporters’ camp, her re-election in the fall was very close.

Self-proclaimed “freedom faction” wants less government influence

Boebert and Gaetz belong to the Freedom Caucus, a coalition of the most right-wing conservative MPs within the Republicans. Nineteen of the 20 who voted against Kevin McCarthy are affiliated with this freedom faction, including Byron Donalds. The 44-year-old African-American from Florida is beginning his second term in office and was promoted to the front row yesterday, opposing McCarthy. His message: Too much has happened on demand in this city for too long. And that’s not good for the American people, Donalds said yesterday on CNN.

He and many others want the federal government to stop incurring debt and lose any influence at all. In return, the Congress and, above all, the members of parliament should become stronger, also in relation to their chairman. In the future, they no longer want to vote on large legislative packages, so-called omnibuses, but rather individual drafts.

Uncompromising right wing

This group is so uncompromising in its demands that it is too much for even Freedom Caucus colleagues, such as Jim Jordan, the Caucus’ first chairman. “The differences we may have pale in comparison to the differences between us and the left, which unfortunately now controls the other party,” he shouted in parliament.

No matter who ends up chairing the House of Representatives, the far-right wing will make life difficult for him or her.