The United States House of Representatives is unable to elect a new president 17 days after Kevin McCarthy’s impeachment, leaving it paralyzed. Trump nominee Jim Jordan gave a brief press conference at the Washington Capitol early Friday urging his colleagues to vote for him. Jordan has warned that Congress cannot approve President Joe Biden’s requested aid to Ukraine and Israel, as well as legislation to avoid a partial government shutdown, without first electing a new speaker.
Jordan appeared in his usual shirtsleeves. He began his speech by talking about how the United States had evolved from the Wright brothers’ first flight to landing on the moon. In his speech, he made it clear that he is not considering the solution of delegating powers to the interim President of the House of Representatives, Patrick McHenry, but that he intends to submit to the necessary votes until his election. “There have already been several rounds of voting for the president. We all know. “I just know that we need a speaker as soon as possible to work for the American people,” he indicated.
Republicans wanted to avoid the spectacle of last January, when it took 15 votes to elect Kevin McCarthy despite opposition from party hardliners. They organized a vote within the group in which Steve Scalise emerged as the winner. However, second-placed extremist Jordan refused to close ranks and seek support from his rival after his defeat. Republican hardliners made it clear they would block the appointment of Scalise, who threw in the towel before even submitting to the floor.
Jordan took power, but now a group of moderate Republicans is returning the favor. He lost a House vote on Tuesday and another on Wednesday. On Thursday he preferred to avoid a third defeat. Jordan and his supporters hoped that the moderates would give in, but the pressure placed on them proved counterproductive and they decided to resign. The atmosphere in the Republican group is one of open confrontation, and some of the dissident congressmen have reported threatening phone calls against them and their families.
In the first vote, 20 Republicans turned away from him and in the second, 22 refused to vote for him. There were hints on Capitol Hill on Thursday that a third vote on Jordan’s candidacy could bring even more defections to their ranks. Jordan has met with Republicans who withheld support for him to try again, and a new vote is scheduled for this Friday.
“We have important work ahead of us,” he said in his press conference. “We have to help Israel. We must get the budget process going so that important elements of our government are funded and funded the right way, especially our military. We must resume the work of our committees. And frankly, we need to continue the oversight work that I think is so important. In short, we must get to work for the American people. We must do what we told you when you elected us and put us in office, and frankly we cannot do that if Parliament is not open. And we can’t open the House until we have a speaker,” he argued.
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The House of Representatives is paralyzed at a crucial moment in foreign and domestic policy. United States President Joe Biden plans to ask Congress for an aid package of about $100 billion for Israel, Ukraine and Taiwan, as well as the border with Mexico, which requires approval from the Democratic-majority Senate and the House of Representatives Republican control, where it could face greater resistance.
Domestically, Congress has not yet passed any of the 12 budget bills that fund government operations. The budget extension agreed at the last minute a few weeks ago expires on November 17th. Parra will then have to get the laws approved (which doesn’t seem easy as they are complex and require a long process) or agree on a new extension.
Given the impasse over the speaker’s election, Republicans and moderate Democrats held talks to recognize interim President Patrick McHenry’s powers to temporarily govern the House of Representatives, which would have allowed legislative activity to resume. Jordan supported this proposal this Thursday morning, but backtracked hours later because this solution was rejected by the hard wing of his party, which they interpreted as a handover of control of the House of Representatives to the Democrats.
McHenry is a confidant of Kevin McCarthy, the ousted president. After the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States, Congress decided that a succession mechanism was needed to avoid a power vacuum in times of crisis. Since then, House leaders have provided the clerk of the House with a list of people slated to fill the post if it becomes vacant, as happened after McCarthy’s impeachment. McHenry was first on that list.
To date, it has never been necessary to resort to this solution and there are different interpretations of the powers of the interim president. At the beginning of the legislative session, the election of the speaker is the top priority, even before representatives are sworn in, and no law or initiative can be approved until the leader of the House of Representatives is elected. There are no precedents for this case and there are different legal interpretations: from those who believe that activity is blocked as at the beginning of the legislative session, to those who claim that the interim president can exercise his powers, even if they are temporary . In order to dispel doubts, the Chamber is considering explicitly allowing him to do so.
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