After the agreement on a transition budget in the US, an open power struggle between Republicans broke out. The radicals want to overthrow their own “President” McCarthy, who has moved closer to the Democrats.
Following the bipartisan commitment to avoid a budget freeze in the US, a power struggle erupted among Republicans. Arch-conservative Representative Matt Gaetz announced that he wanted to remove the speaker of the US House of Representatives, his party colleague Kevin McCarthy. “If Kevin McCarthy is still speaker of the House of Representatives next week, it will only be because the Democrats saved him,” Gaetz told ABC. “I’m relentless.”
The day before, the Republican, referred to as “President,” had, along with the Democrats, avoided a budget blockade through stopgap funding, against the wishes of hardliners among the Republicans. This interim budget does not contain aid for Ukraine, which radical Republicans reject. However, it does not contain any spending cuts, as these same radicals had demanded.
“I will Survive”
Gaetz had been threatening change for weeks if McCarthy approached Democrats in the budget dispute. Other archconservatives supported these statements. McCarthy looked ready to fight. “I will survive,” he told CBS. “If he’s upset because he tried to force us into a shutdown and I made sure the government didn’t shut down, then we should talk about that,” McCarthy said of Gaetz.
If Gaetz presents the proposal, it does not automatically mean McCarthy will lose his job. A vote can be avoided with motions. Furthermore, there is no clear successor to McCarthy among Republicans who can support all wings of the party.
McCarthy’s Concessions to Radicals
The fact that a single MP could force a vote for leader is due to McCarthy’s protracted election in January. Due to the Republicans’ narrow majority, he had to make some concessions to the radicals – including that a representative could request McCarthy’s elimination. This is a departure from practice when Nancy Pelosi was president: at that time, a majority of a parliamentary group still had to support this process.
The Power of Radical Republicans
The fight between Republicans is likely to make the House of Representatives’ job — and thus agreement with the Senate on a final budget for the new fiscal year — much more difficult. The transition funding expires on November 17th.
In the House of Representatives, Republicans have a comparatively narrow majority of 221 votes to 212. About two dozen deputies belong to the arch-conservative camp, which rejects compromises with Democrats.
In the USA there is no mandatory faction. But it’s difficult to predict whether and, if so, how many Democrats will support McCarthy. He angered them when he launched impeachment proceedings against President Joe Biden last month, which was ruled a no-go.
The “President” has considerable influence on the work of the House of Representatives. It decides which legislative proposals are put on the agenda and when – and which are not. If, as happened after last November’s legislative elections, the opposition has a majority in the Chamber of Representatives, the president of the Chamber can use it to block the president’s legislative proposals. This makes the “speaker” the leader of the opposition, as long as his party has not yet nominated a presidential candidate.