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U.S. House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, seen here speaking to the press after a meeting of the House Republican Caucus on October 12, 2023 at the Capitol in Washington.
UNITED STATES – The American Congress is sinking deeper and deeper into crisis. Faced with endless and fruitless negotiations, the Republican candidate for chairman of the US House of Representatives gave up his candidacy on Thursday, October 12th.
Louisiana Representative-elect Steve Scalise, chairman of the Republican caucus, narrowly won an informal election last Wednesday to replace Kevin McCarthy, who was fired on October 3, as “speaker” of the House of Representatives.
But lacking sufficient support within his party, which was consumed by fratricidal conflicts between moderate elected officials and Trumpist troublemakers, he announced he was throwing in the towel.
“It’s been quite an adventure and there’s still a lot to do. “I just told my colleagues that I am withdrawing my name as a speaker candidate,” Steve Scalise told reporters.
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With this announcement, the search for a new leader for the American Congress, which has been paralyzed for more than a week, becomes increasingly delicate.
Congress has two chambers: one, the Senate, is won by Joe Biden’s Democrats, the other, the House of Representatives, is in the hands of the Republicans and is in an unprecedented deadlock.
The vast majority of that institution’s powers were revoked a year before the 2024 presidential election with the surprise firing of “Speaker” Kevin McCarthy, exposing the gaping fissures in the camp of American conservatives.
Steve Scalise, known for surviving a shooting in 2017
Faced with the inability to agree on his successor, this chamber, supposedly one of the most powerful in the world, is in incredible paralysis.
The United States is currently unable to vote for new aid to Israel, a historic ally in the midst of a war with Hamas. Not even an additional envelope for Russia-attacked Ukraine, which has been discussed for weeks.
A mess that the world’s leading economic power – still clinging to its role as world policeman – would have been happy to avoid.
Without a “Speaker,” the third political figure in the United States, the American Congress cannot vote on a new federal budget. The latter expires in a few weeks and once again puts the world’s leading economic power at risk of its public administration being paralyzed.
Steve Scalise, known for surviving a shooting in 2017, hoped to put his candidacy before all elected officials in the House for a vote. A necessary step to get to the bass.
But around ten conservatives immediately made it clear that they would oppose his candidacy at all costs. To block him, they randomly cited the elected official’s budget, the fact that he has cancer, or his speech at a convention 20 years ago that was linked to a former Ku Klux Klan leader .
Will the blockade last a few more days? A few weeks ? There seems to be confusion at all levels of the party.
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