From our correspondent in California,
Two days, six rounds of voting and a “house” still without a “speaker”. The civil war tearing apart the Republican Party to elect Kevin McCarthy to the House of Representatives continued on Wednesday, with around twenty elected officials categorically rejecting a candidate nonetheless supported by Donald Trump. Each faction camped on their positions and the tone rose until there was a chaotic suspension of the evening session pending a new vote Thursday at 6pm (6pm Paris time).
After Tuesday’s lockdown, Donald Trump is attempting to whistle the end of the break on Truth Social on Wednesday morning. “Time to vote for Kevin and close the deal. Don’t turn a great triumph into an embarrassing defeat. Kevin McCarthy will do a good job, maybe even a SUPER job,” encourages the former president, holed up in his Mar-a-Lago residence for the winter under the Florida sun.
But his influence in the Republican Party may be coming to an end. “Sad! (“sad”) trolls Matt Gaetz, one of the leaders of the slingshot, in a deliberately Trumpian style. Confirmation at 1 p.m. for the 4th ballot: None of the 20 rebels changed their vote in favor of Kevin McCarthy on Tuesday. They are voting for Florida Representative Byron Donalds this time, emphasizing that having two African American candidates in Democrat Hakeem Jeffries is “historic”.
Kevin McCarthy is stubborn and loses a vote in the 4th round, with one Republican elected choosing to vote present.
Kevin McCarthy has dreamed of becoming a voice artist since 2015. – Getty Images via AFP
Alcohol, popcorn and “suicide bombers”
In the 5th round, it was Lauren Boebert, who was narrowly re-elected in November in Colorado, who again nominated Byron Donalds. She denounces the pressure from her “favourite president”. And recommends him to call Kevin McCarthy to tell him: “You don’t have the voices, it’s time to give up”. But McCarthy refuses and plays the wear, to no avail. The 5th round delivers the same result, with the Democrats uniting around Jeffries. McCarthy was dropped by 21 Republicans and ended with 201 votes, a far cry from the majority’s 218.
An elected Republican then spoke up and accused the Democrats of reveling in the spectacle by “eating popcorn and drinking alcohol.” “There are no rules” in the absence of the speaker, shouts a member of the opposition. After a 6th round without a change, the elected representatives close the meeting until 8 p.m.
During the negotiations, Dan Crenshaw-elect, a former Navy SEAL who lost an eye in Afghanistan, denounced in an interview the coup by 20 “terrorists” whom he then described as “suicide bombers”. The day before, their colleague Don Bacon had dubbed them the “20 Taliban”.
“I will never vote for” McCarthy
To understand this deadlock, you have to go back 15 years, to the Tea Party era. Anti-establishment populists, ready to blow everything up, come to the chamber and oppose any compromise, particularly on the debt ceiling, even if it means “shutting down” the state. The movement didn’t last long, but in 2015 it gave birth to the Freedom Caucus, a parliamentary group of ten elected officials co-founded by Jim Jordan, Mick Mulvaney and Mark Meadows – these two would become Donald Trump’s chiefs of staff.
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The group’s founding principle: opposition to then-Republican spokesman John Boehner. Who threw in the towel in late 2015, calling the Freedom Caucus “legislative terrorists” and “anarchists who want chaos.” Kevin McCarthy is considered his natural successor, but the band rejects him. After one slip, he withdraws his candidacy, and in the end it’s Paul Ryan who plays the men of providence and picks up the gavel.
With a current Republican majority of just four seats, the Freedom Caucus, which now has about 40 members, has never had this much power, and it’s divided over McCarthy. The California representative has been scrambling in recent weeks, offering them several concessions, with committee positions and the reinstatement of a rule allowing a motion to be filed to try to eject a speaker with just five people elected. But the slingers want to lower the threshold to just one elected official, as was the case with an old rule that was rarely used. And after another meeting, Matt Gaetz said he was willing to vote “all week, all month, but never for” McCarthy.
A chaotic advance and suspended session
While McCarthy’s horizon seemed more blocked than ever, an upswing could take shape. An influential political action committee of the Republican establishment, the Congressional Leadership Fund, has pledged to remain neutral in future primary elections and give anti-system candidates a chance. In return, the Club for Growth, an organization that has funded elected officials against McCarthy, has pledged to support him, which could theoretically earn him six more votes. That wouldn’t be enough – he’d need ten more – but would give him some ‘swing’.
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Kevin McCarthy and his allies welcomed the “progress” and then asked that the meeting be adjourned until Thursday noon. Voting, this time electronic, was conducted in photo finish, with an elected official running into the chamber to write her response on a paper ballot. And while the no would win, the rebellious Paul Gosar changed his vote to yes so everyone could go home to rest. The clock is ticking: the chamber cannot function without a speaker, and parliamentary staff will no longer be paid from January 13. In 1923, voting entered the ninth round. In 1856 the chaos had lasted two months.