Mayhem in the United States Congress, while a revolt from Trumpists deemed the favorite, Kevin McCarthy, too moderate.
Washington Correspondent
The new Republican majority in the House of Representatives failed to elect its president. Kevin McCarthy, the Republican candidate who was running for the post, could not afford more than four dissenting votes within his parliamentary group. Five opponents had spoken out in advance against his candidacy. They were nearly twenty to vote against him Tuesday afternoon in three successive ballots.
Instead of the 218 votes needed to win the election, McCarthy, Republican Representative from California, got only 203 votes in the first two rounds. He did even worse in the third round, losing the support of 20 fellow Republicans. The meeting was adjourned at the end of the afternoon and should resume on Wednesday at noon.
A formality for a century
This situation is very rare, and had not occurred for a hundred years. The election of the Speaker of the House by the majority party is usually only a formality. This crisis indicates the depth of the divisions within the Republican group. It also paralyzes the functioning of the lower house of Congress. As long as the president of the Chamber is not elected, the assembly cannot sit, nor decide on the agenda, nor make appointments to the various parliamentary committees.
McCarthy refused to admit defeat. After receiving a call of encouragement from Donald Trump, he assured that the former president had asked him to bring the party together.
The Republican minority leader during the previous legislature, McCarthy was the heavy favorite to succeed Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic incumbent, after the Republicans won the midterm elections last November. This victory had been less than the announced triumph, but sufficient to regain control of the House from the Democrats. “The regime of the single democratic party is coming to an end”Republican Representative Elise Stefanik announced on Tuesday, nominating the candidate. “Kevin McCarthy is a convinced conservative”, she had assured her Republican colleagues, the one who opposes abortion, supports the right to carry firearms and says she is determined to reduce public spending. Not everyone was convinced.
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For several months, a small group of elected Republicans among the most radical had announced their refusal to see McCarthy in this post, believing that he is neither conservative enough nor firm enough to confront the Democrats, and to have even occasionally voted with them.
Members of the Freedom Caucus (the freedom group), these radicals had pressured McCarthy to grant them a right of veto, changing the rules of the House to allow a single elected representative to seek the impeachment of its president. . McCarthy made many concessions, but refused this measure which would have placed him under the control of this handful of radicals, more determined to settle their scores than to legislate responsibly.
“Alligator”
“If you want to drain the swamp, you can’t leave it to the biggest alligator,” quipped Matt Gaetz, Representative of Florida and one of McCarthy’s most vocal opponents, using a metaphor comparing Washington DC and the federal government to a swamp of corruption.
McCarthy’s supporters have accused this core of opponents of demagoguery. “They are more interested in their own notoriety than in principles”, said a representative of Texas, Dan Crenshaw, one of the supporters of McCarthy. But these twenty slingers have affirmed their intention to maintain their opposition, seeing the vote as an important moment to give the Republican party a more firmly conservative orientation.
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Outgoing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi ended her term to a standing ovation from elected Democrats. His group has appointed Hakeem Jeffries, the first black elected to the post of minority leader in Congress, to succeed him.
If McCarthy fails to muster the necessary number of votes, Republicans may have to choose another candidate. But this mini-crisis internal to the Republican Party already announces the difficulties which await the future president of the Chamber during the new legislature.