Endless negotiations in the corridors of the Capitol, negotiations via intermediary messages… all, for the moment, in vain: the Republicans are no further ahead Thursday in their quest for the new speaker of the American Congress.
Paralyzed for more than a week, the institution is sinking into crisis, with the way out of this unprecedented impasse appearing less and less obvious.
Congress has two chambers: one, the Senate, is won by Joe Biden’s Democrats, but it is the other, the House of Representatives, dominated by the Republicans, which is experiencing an unprecedented mess.
Its previous president, Kevin McCarthy, was dismissed on October 3, the victim of fratricidal quarrels between moderate elected officials and Trumpists in his party. This eviction has not only exposed the gaping fractures that run through American conservatives one year before the 2024 presidential election, but above all has plunged this chamber, supposed to be one of the most powerful in the world, into unprecedented paralysis.
The United States is currently unable to vote for any new aid to Israel, a historic ally in the midst of war with Hamas. Nor even an additional envelope for Ukraine – invaded by Russia –, under discussion for weeks. A mess that the world’s leading economic power – still attached to its role as world policeman – would have liked to do without.
Without President of the House of Representatives, the third political figure in the United States, the American Congress cannot vote on a new budget for the federal state either. This budget expires in a few weeks, which once again places the world’s leading economic power in danger of paralysis of its government institutions.
A continuing imbroglio
Several avenues have been studied to put an end to this imbroglio. Two candidates – one from the party’s staff, the other dubbed by Donald Trump – thus faced off during an informal election on Wednesday. Louisiana elected representative Steve Scalise, Republican group leader known for surviving a shooting in 2017, won this election against loyal Trumpist Jim Jordan.
The fifty-year-old hoped to be able to immediately submit his candidacy to a vote by all the elected representatives of the Chamber, a necessary step to access the perch. But this vote has not yet been scheduled, because around ten conservatives immediately made it known that they would oppose his candidacy at all costs. They discussed the elected official’s budgetary positions, the fact that he suffers from cancer, or his speech given 20 years ago at a rally linked to a former leader of the Ku Klux Klan.
Steve Scalise has planned a series of meetings to try to bring the refractories back into line, but it seems unlikely for the moment that a solution will be found in the short term.
Will the blockage last a few more hours? A few days ? A few weeks ? Confusion appears to reign at all levels of the party. “Why don’t we all go home and meet up next week?” »suggested Trumpist elected official Marjorie Taylor Greene Thursday afternoon.
Joe Biden’s Democratic Party is in the minority in the House, and therefore mainly spectators of the chaotic negotiations in Congress. Unless there is a surprise alliance with moderate Republicans, which could also put an end to this unprecedented situation.