An unprecedented scenario in 100 years: the American House of Representatives was completely paralyzed on Wednesday, dissension in the Republican ranks preventing elected officials from choosing a president.
The debates resumed at 12 noon in the hemicycle, but no agreement could be reached after a fourth vote.
Big favorite to replace Nancy Pelosi at the perch, the Republican Kevin McCarthy is hanging on the goodwill of about twenty elected Trumpists who accuse him of being too moderate and deliberately playing the spoilsport.
“Embarrassing”
Members of the most conservative fringe of the party, these elected officials take advantage of the very thin Republican majority won in the mid-term elections in November to set their conditions. Without their support, Kevin McCarthy cannot be elected.
America wants “a new face, a new vision, a new leadership”, argued the turbulent elected representative of Texas, Chip Roy.
Kevin McCarthy, a member of the Republican general staff for more than 10 years, has already acceded to many of this group’s demands, without this breaking the deadlock. Worse, opposition to his candidacy seemed to crystallize.
Democratic President Joe Biden called this situation “embarrassing”, assuring that “the rest of the world” was following this mess closely.
Among the non-refractory and largely majority Republican elected officials, annoyance was beginning to be felt, giving rise to very lively debates in the hemicycle. “It all seems messy,” conceded elected official Mike Gallagher, a close friend of Kevin McCarthy.
On Wednesday morning, former President Donald Trump came out of the woodwork, calling on his social network for his party to do everything to “avoid an embarrassing defeat”.
“Now is the time for our top Republicans in the House to vote for Kevin” McCarthy, who will do “a good job, and maybe even a great job”.
But the former president, whose reputation as a kingmaker has been seriously questioned, has also failed to convince this conservative group to toe the line.
The election of the “speaker”, the third most important figure in American politics after the president and the vice-president, requires a majority of 218 votes. In the first four rounds, Kevin McCarthy failed to get past 203.
This situation also completely paralyzes the rest of the institution: without a president, elected officials cannot take an oath, and therefore pass any bill. Republicans also cannot open the numerous investigations they had promised against Joe Biden.
Boon for Biden?
A situation that the Democrats observe with some amusement, sometimes launching sardonic laughter and applause in the hemicycle. Joe Biden’s party is united around the candidacy of Hakeem Jeffries, but the elected official does not have enough votes to be elected to the perch either.
Elected officials will continue to vote as long as a Speaker of the House of Representatives is elected. This was to be a matter of a few hours, but could extend over several weeks: in 1856, the elected members of Congress only agreed after two months and 133 turns.
Facing a hostile but disorderly House could prove to be a political boon for Joe Biden, if he confirms his intention to run again in 2024 – a decision he is due to announce at the start of the year.
The Democratic president went to Kentucky on Wednesday to praise the construction of a new large bridge financed by a pharaonic infrastructure law that he carried, and which had collected some Republican votes in Congress.
The opportunity for him to put on his favorite costume as a centrist president, fond of compromises, inherited from his long career as a senator.
Chance of the calendar, he is accompanied by the Republican leader of the other chamber of the American Congress… the tenor of the Senate Mitch McConnell.