The US House of Representatives has once again suspended voting on a new president. Republican leader Kevin McCarthy has failed to get enough lawmakers behind him.
Normally, the largest party in the House provides the speaker. Since the midterm elections late last year, it’s been the Republicans. The party has 222 seats. To become president, McCarthy needs 218 votes or fewer if MPs abstain. The party leader must therefore receive more votes than Democratic candidate Hakeem Jeffries. He repeatedly wins the votes of all 212 House Democrats.
New ride tonight
‘They failed again, a new attempt will be made at 18:00 Dutch time. This is the seventh round,” says US correspondent David Hammelburg. ‘The twenty opponents do not want McCarthy, while it is not entirely clear why. McCarthy himself thinks he can solve it, but I have my doubts.’
“You see the Republican party is split between people for and against McCarthy,” says Americanist Koen Petersen. “But no other candidates are being put forward. It’s really good or bad for McCarthy.” And that makes things very difficult for him, Petersen thinks. “It apparently aroused a lot of distrust in the critical faction of the Republican party. If he makes further concessions to this group, he could further lose the support of the rest of the party. He is between one rock and hammer.’
trump (isti)
McCarthy, like his “Trumpist” opponents, has received the support of former President Donald Trump. But he didn’t say that until the fourth round, so one might as well say Trump is partly to blame for the deadlock. And his call to vote for McCarthy also went unheeded,” Hammelburg says. This could be another sign that Trump’s influence within the Republican party is waning. “Everything shows that the party has had enough of him,” says Hammelburg.
The fact that the conservative group in the Republican Party ignored Trump’s appeal indicates that there is chaos within the party, Petersen thinks. “It’s not convenient now, but it doesn’t bode well for the 2024 presidential election.”
About 20 Republicans don’t think McCarthy is conservative enough and each time they chose a different party member or cast blank votes, so that McCarthy received no more than 201 votes. After the last (sixth) round of voting on Wednesday afternoon, the party discussed how to get out of the impasse. Progress has been made, according to McCarthy, but more time is needed. At the start of what should have been the seventh round of voting, he then requested a suspension. That request was approved by a vote of 216 to 214.
Formalities
Normally the appointment of the leader of the major party as Speaker of the Chamber is a formality, but now for the first time in a hundred years it has failed. The last time the election of the new president didn’t go well was in 1923, when Republican Frederick Gillett was elected president after nine rounds of voting in three days.
The House met in a new composition for the first time since the midterm elections late last year. Members cannot be sworn in until there is a new president. Until then, work in the lower house of parliament has stalled.
Biden
Incumbent Joe Biden called on House members to put things in order. “He calls the situation awkward,” says Hammelburg. Without speakers the House of Representatives cannot function and, on balance, American politics has stalled. Commentators say this is how democracy works in America. The Netherlands also took 299 days to complete its latest cabinet formation. It won’t take three hundred days, there will only be one speaker, but it’s not clear who it will be and when it will be clear.’
Source: BNR
Sharon Rock is an author and journalist who writes for 24 News Globe. She has a passion for learning about different cultures and understanding the complexities of the world. With a talent for explaining complex global issues in an accessible and engaging way, Sharon has become a respected voice in the field of world news journalism.
