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The rebellion of the most radical minority plunges the Republicans into chaos in the United States

2023-01-05T11:05:45.992Z


The failure in the election of the president of the House of Representatives blocks parliamentary activity


Joe Biden and Donald Trump disagree on almost nothing, but this Wednesday they used the same adjective to refer to what is happening in the House of Representatives: "Shameful."

For the first time in a century, the majority party has been unable to elect a House speaker on the first ballot —or on the second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth...—.

The failure of Kevin McCarthy's candidacy has plunged Republicans into a mess of infighting, factions, blackmail and boycotts.

In addition, it blocks parliamentary activity and paralyzes the legislative branch.

For how long?

Nobody knows.

The Chamber is convened again this Thursday at noon in Washington (6:00 p.m. in mainland Spain).

The Republicans achieved a narrow majority of 222 to 213 seats in the legislative elections on November 8.

There was no red tide (the color of the Republican Party) that Donald Trump predicted, but there has been a later tidal wave and a heavy hangover in the ranks of his party.

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How is it possible that the US Republican Party is so divided?

There has first been a search for culprits, in which many eyes have been directed at Trump.

The differences between the former president and part of the party leaders —particularly that of the Senate, Mitch McConnell— seem irreconcilable and reach personal insults.

The appearance of Ron DeSantis, governor of Florida, as a likely alternative to Trump, has also stirred the Republican ranks.

But until the constitution of the new Congress, the battle for power, egos and agenda within the party had not become so starkly apparent.

That the majority party is not able to agree to appoint the

speaker

in the first vote is something that has not happened for a century.

Kevin McCarthy, the party's majority nominee, has led the Republicans for four years, when they were in the minority.

With the November victory, he believed the time had come to make his great ambition come true: to be named speaker of the House of Representatives, the third highest authority in the United States, second in the line of presidential succession after the vice president, Kamala Harris.

McCarthy, however, has lost the first votes because some twenty deputies from the hard wing of his party have decided to boycott his election.

The rogues don't really have a viable alternative candidate.

They have been changing their vote among others, simply as long as McCarthy did not get elected.

The reasons for rejecting him vary.

There is a personal component, a distribution of blame for the relative electoral failure and a censorship of what they consider to have been too tepid opposition to President Joe Biden.

In addition, that minority demands to impose its conditions on the bulk of the party.

Republican representative Matt Gaetz, with his back turned, was speaking with other members of the party, yesterday in Washington. JIM LO SCALZO (EFE)

Neither closed lists nor strict voting discipline

A country in which there are no closed lists (but rather competitive primaries by single-member districts), nor strict voting discipline nor sufficiently powerful party apparatuses, allows the perfect breeding ground for factions, dissidents and congressmen who go free.

The precarious Republican majority in the Chamber has placed the ultra-conservative faction within their group in a position of strength and does not seem willing to miss the opportunity.

Concessions to dissidents

The internal opposition is led by the so-called Freedom Caucus, which presented a list of somewhat humiliating demands for McCarthy in December, including that it be enough for a single representative to vote a motion of no confidence for his removal.

The candidate agreed to set the threshold for that sword of Damocles at five signatures and agreed to make other concessions to the dissidents, but they considered them vague and insufficient.

They want to take away more power from the

speaker

and also require him to commit not to get involved in the party's primaries.

But they also question him personally and maintain that electing him would be the "continuation of past and present Republican failures," according to a letter signed by nine of them this week.

McCarthy agrees to create a commission to investigate the use of the federal government as a political weapon to attack Joe Biden and to question decisions such as the search of the Trump mansion in Mar-a-Lago (Florida) by agents of the Federal Office of Investigation (FBI) and other proceedings of the Department of Justice against the former president.

He also admitted prohibiting in the new regulations of the Chamber, as the wayward demanded, telematic voting or remote participation in the commissions.

He agreed to remove the metal detectors that Nancy Pelosi, former Speaker of the House, ordered to install after the assault on the Capitol to prevent access to the chamber with weapons, a measure that outraged pro-gun activist Lauren Boebert, one of the opponents,

who wants to access the Capitol with his gun without any control.

It also admits draconian restrictions to approve new expenses and grant a minimum of 72 hours from when a bill is raised until it is submitted to the plenary session, as they claimed.

The defectors are declared Trump supporters and the vast majority are electoral deniers who agree with the hoax that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from Trump, but they no longer even respond to the former president's requests.

This Wednesday, Trump tried to impose his authority without success.

"It's time for all of our great Republican members of the House to vote for Kevin [McCarthy], get the deal done, get the win, and watch the very crazy Nancy Pelosi fly home to a very broken California." ”, he wrote on Truth, his social network.

“Republicans, don't turn a huge win into a gigantic, embarrassing loss.

It's time to celebrate.

You deserve it," added the former president.

Even Trump realizes that the show hurts the Republican Party and calls into question his ability to run the country, but that doesn't seem to matter to the dissenters.

The former president had a reply on the House floor in the nomination of a dissident candidate by Lauren Boebert, who referred to him as her "favorite president": "The [ex] president needs to tell Kevin: ' Sir, you do not have the votes and it is time to retire," he said.

McCarthy is reluctant to back down.

“I will continue until we win.

I know the way,” he said defiantly as he left the Capitol on Tuesday.

The House of Representatives is blocked and paralyzed until a

speaker is elected.

Members cannot even be sworn in and all legislative activity is paralyzed.

There are doubts about what would happen in an emergency and some congressman from the last legislature who has left the Chamber has come to wonder if he was still a parliamentarian, although this is not the case.

The Senate, under Democratic control, has officially taken office.

With a divided Congress, the legislative output of the second half of Biden's term may get bogged down.

However, the fact that the legislature cannot even function is a full-fledged anomaly that President Biden underscored this Wednesday.

“For the first time in 100 years, we can't move... It's not a good picture, it's not a good thing.

This is the United States of America, and I hope they manage,” he noted.

“It's a bit embarrassing that it's taking so long and the way they're treating each other.

And the rest of the world is watching, ”he added after stressing that this Republican battle is not his problem.

No one yet knows what the way out of the blockade is.

In 1855 it took 133 ballots and two months to elect the president of the House of Representatives.

McCarthy's withdrawal and the search for a new candidate is a possibility.

For that course, the name of his

number two sounds,

Steve Scalise.

But McCarthy does not throw in the towel and some of his supporters came to wear a badge with the acronym OK (for Only Kevin, Solo Kevin).

The pact with the dissidents is another option, although some of the rebels personally object to McCarthy, which narrows the room for manoeuvre.

However, the candidate and his allies are taking advantage of the times out of session to start new negotiations and it seems that some progress is being made.

The talks are being "constructive", said one of the Republican congressmen, although no agreement has yet been reached.

The political action committee dependent on congressional leaders has announced that it will not interfere in the Republican primaries, one of the demands of the radicals.

In last year's primaries, that committee funded moderate candidates whom it saw as more likely to beat the Democrats, which was taken as an affront by the hard-liners.

The commitment not to intervene was one more of the demands of the wayward.

In the letter last Sunday rejecting McCarthy's latest offer, nine members of the Freedom Caucus criticized that the matter had not been addressed at all.

About going to the House Floor.

pic.twitter.com/81QVxmbHBb

— Ted Lieu (@tedlieu) January 3, 2023

McCarthy needs the rebels to vote for him because his abstention would end up giving the presidency to the Democratic candidate, Hakeen Jeffries.

The Democrats seem to be enjoying the spectacle of seeing their rivals get entangled in a mess for which they can not find a way out for now, according to the photos with popcorn on Capitol Hill that some of them have mockingly tweeted.

So for now nothing points to another hypothetical solution: that the Democrats take the chestnuts out of the fire to their rivals with the abstention or absence of part of their own.

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Source: elparis

All news articles on 2023-01-05

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