Published on: 01.07.2023 – 06:49 Modified on: 01.07.2023 – 07:22
After several days of lockdown, California Republican MP Kevin McCarthy finally managed to be elected President of the US House of Representatives on Friday night.
end of the series. Kevin McCarthy finally won the votes necessary to be elected President of the US House of Representatives on the night of Friday January 6th to Saturday January 7th, ending a process that ended with very strong ones tensions in the Republican ranks.
Due to negotiations, the group of Trumpists who paralyzed the 50-year-old Californian’s nomination eventually gave way, ending a congressional chaos unprecedented in more than 160 years and foreshadowing much agitated debates in the American Congress during the next two years. .
I hope one thing is clear after this week: I will never give up. And I will never give up for you, the American people. https://t.co/uLqPKa1maZ
— Kevin McCarthy (@GOPLader) January 7, 2023
These free electrons kept the suspense going until the end, blocking the elected officer’s candidacy for the last time in the 14th vote and causing a real mess in the Chamber. Kevin McCarthy then walked towards the group of Trumpists while pointing fingers accusingly. Amid the hubbub, the congressional secretary urged elected officials to remain calm.
All week this hard-core elected conservative, who accuse the elected official of bowing to Washington establishment interests, used the razor-thin Republican majority won in November’s midterm elections to play spoilsport.
>> For further reading: In Congress, the Trumpists are making “noise” and blocking … their own camp
They only eased the pressure after receiving substantive guarantees — including a process designed precisely to facilitate the “speaker’s” eviction.
Chosen but weakened
Eventually elected Kevin McCarthy replaces Democrat Nancy Pelosi as Speaker of the House but emerges weakened from an election that bodes well for a very difficult mandate.
On the agenda for the next few months are negotiations about raising the US government debt ceiling, financing the state and possibly releasing additional envelopes for the war in Ukraine.
With their new control of the House of Representatives, Republicans have also promised to launch a series of inquiries into Joe Biden’s handling of the pandemic or the withdrawal from Afghanistan. But after exposing their divisions to the big day, will their investigations have the same echo?
>> To see: Chaos in the American Congress: Twenty elected Republicans block the election of the “Speaker”
Confronting a hostile but disorderly House could prove a political boon for Joe Biden if he confirms his intention to run again in 2024 – a decision he is due to announce earlier this year.
Without bicameral scrutiny – which has been the case since his inauguration in January 2021, albeit with a very narrow majority in the Senate – the American president can no longer hope to pass major legislation. But with a Senate in the hands of Democrats, neither are Republicans.
Donald Trump’s disruptive power
During this “speaker” appointment process, Joe Biden’s party did not fail to tighten the stranglehold of Donald Trump’s supporters — many of whom still refuse to acknowledge his defeat in 2020 — on the Republican Party, two years after the Storming Republicans to denounce Capitol.
But the Democrats, who lost control of the House after November’s election, didn’t have enough votes to end that paralysis.
Marathon negotiation sessions on the galleries next to the hemicycle, a horde of journalists picking up on every statement made by this group of free spirits… That choice sometimes seemed endless. And with good reason, the representatives of the House of Representatives had no choice but to keep voting until a “speaker” was elected by a simple majority.
A Republican voting with her dog under her arm, Democrats sharing a newspaper to pass the time… The cameras of the American Parliamentary Channel, usually subject to very strict rules on authorized shooting, have many moments of life this atypical procedure captured the delight of viewers and social networks.
However, this paralysis of the American Congress had very concrete effects: Without a “Speaker”, the third most important figure in American politics after the President and the Vice President, the elected officials could not take the oath. It is therefore impossible to vote for a bill, participate in parliamentary committees, or access information classified as defense secrets.
With AFP