(Washington) Two Republican elected officials were in the running on Friday in the battle for the presidency of the House of Representatives after the withdrawal of the candidate designated by the majority of the party, Steve Scalise, on the tenth day of a crisis with no visible outcome.
Steve Scalise, leader of the Republican majority in the House and elected representative from Louisiana, announced Thursday evening that he was abandoning his candidacy, two days after narrowly winning an internal party vote against Jim Jordan, chairman of the Judiciary Affairs Committee.
PHOTO JOSE LUIS MAGANA, ASSOCIATED PRESS
Louisiana Rep. Steve Scalise
The House, controlled by the Republicans unlike the Senate with a Democratic majority, has been almost paralyzed since the surprise dismissal on October 3 of its “speaker” Kevin McCarthy, who exposed the gaping fractures of the party, one year before the presidential election. 2024.
The parliamentary group, torn between moderate elected officials and troublemakers gravitating in the orbit of former President Donald Trump, meets in the afternoon to decide between Jim Jordan, new candidate, and Austin Scott.
Unlike Mr. Jordan, elected from Ohio who had obtained the support of the former president, Mr. Scott, representative from Georgia, is little known to the general public, but both belong to the conservative wing of the party.
PHOTO KEVIN LAMARQUE, REUTERS
Georgia Rep. Austin Scott
The two men, however, dissociated themselves during the vote on the certification of the election of Democratic President Joe Biden in 2020, vehemently contested by Donald Trump: Jim Jordan had voted against the validation of the results and Austin Scott for.
Even if there is agreement on a Republican candidate, a vote by the entire House of Representatives should not take place on Friday, many elected officials from both parties having left Washington.