US Congress | The House of Representatives still without a president

(Washington) Still no white smoke: Republicans in the US House of Representatives failed to reach a sufficiently consensual agreement on Wednesday on the name of the next president of the institution, their fratricidal quarrels paralyzing Congress for more than of a week.

Louisiana elected official Steve Scalise, nominated by the majority of his peers during an informal vote in the middle of the day, has not yet convinced enough Trumpists to support him to gain access to the perch and thus allow the organization of a vote in plenary session, plunging Congress into crisis.

Aid to Israel blocked

Congress has two chambers: one, the Senate, is won over by Joe Biden’s Democrats, but it is the other, the House of Representatives, which is experiencing an unprecedented mess.

The vast majority of the powers of this institution were suspended by the surprise dismissal of “speaker” Kevin McCarthy on October 3, victim of divisions between moderates and Trumpists in the Republican Party.

The House is therefore currently unable to submit any text to a vote, which makes it impossible to release any additional aid to Israel, a historic ally of the United States, after Hamas’ surprise offensive on Saturday.

Or a new envelope for Ukraine invaded by Russia, under discussion for weeks.

Fractures

Republicans met behind closed doors at 10 a.m. with the hope of finding a possible successor to Kevin McCarthy and ending this unprecedented vacancy. Group leader Steve Scalise, 58, came out on top in an informal election, facing a candidate supported by Donald Trump.

Mr. Scalise is known to the general public for having been seriously injured by gunfire during baseball practice in 2017.

But to be elected head of the House of Representatives, the fifty-year-old, who suffers from blood cancer, must now be dubbed by 217 elected officials during a vote in plenary session in the hemicycle – probably the most important step. more difficult of this process.

This vote has not yet been scheduled. It could be a matter of a few hours, or a few days…

Because several elected officials from the Trumpist fringe have already publicly opposed his candidacy, citing the elected official’s budgetary positions or his state of health to justify their choice.

“I love Steve Scalise, and I love him so much that I would rather see him beat his cancer than sacrifice his health for the most difficult position in Congress,” assured elected official Marjorie Taylor Greene, very close to Donald Trump .

“Urgent measures”

Illustration of the gaping fractures that run through the party: the dismissed “speaker” Kevin McCarthy had already had to fight for 15 rounds in January, and swallow more than one snake, to reach this majority.

However, the Republicans want at all costs to avoid this humiliating sequence, captured at the beginning of the year by televisions across the country.

Joe Biden’s Democratic Party is in the minority in the House and therefore mainly spectators of the chaotic negotiations in Congress.

The American president, however, urged Congress to take, as soon as it was able, “urgent measures” to “finance the imperatives of our partners in terms of national security”.

Without a “speaker”, the American Congress cannot vote on a new budget for the federal state either. The latter expires in a handful of weeks, once again placing the world’s leading economic power in danger of paralysis of its public administration.