The Republican Party – and with it the United States House of Representatives and the country itself – became a little more ungovernable this Thursday evening when Steve Scalise, Congressman from Louisiana, withdrew from his race for speaker, a position that was aspired to succeed Kevin McCarthy was dishonorably removed from office last week at the request of one of his colleagues, Matt Gaetz.
Scalise defeated Jim Jordan (Ohio) in a party-internal vote on Wednesday by a narrow margin (113-99). Since then, the congressman has been trying behind the scenes to persuade his fellow believers to support him before scheduling a floor vote in which he expected Democrats to oppose him. He needed 217 yes votes among the 222 seats that the conservative formation has in the lower house. Ultimately, everything indicates that Scalise gave up his candidacy out of helplessness.
Several Republicans with a strong media profile, such as George Santos (New York) and Marjorie Taylor Greene (Georgia), had announced that they would not support him. Given that the calculations did not quite work out for him, the congressman, who announced in August that he was suffering from multiple myeloma and was undergoing chemotherapy for it, has ultimately given up his ambitions to fill the third party post She is the most important authority in the country and is second in the race for the presidency.
Until October 3, Scalise was the Republican majority leader in the House of Representatives. He was also second only to McCarthy El Breve, who served as congressional president for just nine months after his election last January, when he needed 15 votes to overcome opposition from his party’s hard wing. Gaetz, one of its most visible members, filed a no-confidence motion last week to remove the speaker’s gavel. Seven other Republicans and all Democrats present in the plenary session that day (208) supported him in his destabilizing mission. It was a historic day: In the 234 years of the Capitol, the dissident position in the House of Representatives had never been vacant.
This vote plunged the Capitol into chaos and the country into legislative paralysis. And that includes the impossibility of approving military aid to Israel, so the news from Gaza has increased pressure on the institutional crisis in Washington. With the aid program for Ukraine frozen, the deadline of November 17th, the day on which the extension signed with the Democrats to avoid a partial government shutdown expires, is also getting hopelessly closer. That was the compromise that cost McCarthy his job.
“No one is going to use me as an excuse to slow down our ability to get the House of Representatives back to normal,” Scalise told reporters on Capitol Hill Thursday night after announcing his resignation. When asked if he planned to support Jordan for president, Scalise replied that he had “not done business with anyone.” “I am sure there will be many people who will want to apply for the position now; I just hope they don’t do it just out of personal interest,” he added.
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Proof that the Republican Party has become an ungovernable entity came from a meeting where he announced to his people that he was throwing in the towel. According to Punchbowl News, a recently created website that specializes in the intricacies of the Hill, the way Washington refers to the Capitol based on topography, Scalise said: “Our party has yet to unite and is not at that point yet . There are still some people who have their own plans. I’ve been clear: We must get everyone to put their personal interests aside and focus on what this country needs. This country is counting on us to come together again. This House of Representatives needs a President; There is an urgent need to put it back into operation. Of course, not all of us have reached this point. And there are still divisions that need to be resolved.”
In 2017, Scalise starred in a tragic chapter in the history of political disgrace in Washington when he was shot by a fanatic who opened fire on several congressmen attending a league baseball game that pits representatives against each other every year fans of the sport compete. It took months for him to recover from his injuries.
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