Elected members of the US House of Representatives have currently been unable to elect a president, following two unsuccessful attempts by Republican Kevin McCarthy, the first in 100 years.
The heavy favorite to replace Nancy Pelosi, the 50-year-old has failed to appease an uprising emanating from a group of Trumpists who did not consider him conservative enough – an example of the dissent within Joe Biden’s opposition party.
House representatives will continue to vote until a “speaker” is elected.
The Republicans, who won the majority in the lower house in the November elections, have promised to use their new counterpower by opening a series of investigations into US President Joe Biden, focused, for example, on his handling of the pandemic.
But before launching such hostilities, they must at all costs agree to elect the Speaker of the House of Representatives.
Trumpist elected officials block elections
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. A threshold that Kevin McCarthy has not been able to reach for the moment, after two rounds, twenty elected Trumpists having decided to play the spoilsport.
“Kevin believes in nothing, he has no ideology,” confronted Matt Gaetz, a rowdy Florida elected official.
However, Kevin McCarthy’s candidacy finds broad support within his party: the announcement of his nomination on Tuesday in the hemicycle was greeted by a great standing ovation in the Republican ranks.
But California’s elected representative is weakened by Republicans’ poor performance in the midterm elections.
The election of a Speaker of the House of Representatives could be a matter of a few hours… or several weeks: in 1856, elected members of Congress agreed after only two months and 133 rounds.
Kevin McCarthy seems to want to give commitments to this conservative fringe to avoid stammering history: in 2015 he already narrowly missed becoming Speaker of the House of Representatives in the face of a slingshot from the right wing of the party.
But he also can’t afford to exaggerate and alienate moderate Republicans.
Although its leeway is small, it currently does not have a credible competitor. Only the name of Ohio elected official Jim Jordan is circulating as a possible alternative, without his chances appearing serious.
A windfall for President Biden?
With the Republicans in the majority in the House, Joe Biden and the Democrats will not be able to advance new big projects. But with a Senate in Democrat hands, neither will their rivals.
Will they entrench themselves in systematic opposition? That would require them to convene, while some of their elected officials — such as during the budget vote before Christmas — voted with the Democrats.
The election of the “speaker” therefore also serves to measure their ability to harm the president.
Facing a hostile 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 expected to announce earlier this year.
The president was also careful not to comment on Republican dissents, his spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre assuring that the Democratic leader would not “meddle in this process”.
In the event of legislative paralysis, he will no doubt blame the weakened Republicans of the bloc, hoping to turn the situation to his advantage.
