Republicans with no way out in the face of congressional paralysis
The Republicans are meeting again on Thursday to try to end the crisis by agreeing on a new “speaker”, but the approach has little chance of success.
PublishedOctober 12, 2023, 9:36 p.m.
Steve Scalise (center) won an informal election on Wednesday, but around ten conservatives immediately made it known that they would oppose his candidacy at all costs.
Getty Images via AFP
We take the same ones and start again: the Republicans will try again on Thursday to put an end to the paralysis they have caused for more than a week in the American Congress, by agreeing on a new speaker. The conservatives met in the middle of the day to try to break this unprecedented impasse.
Otherwise the United States will not be able to vote for new aid to Israel, a historic ally in the midst of war with Hamas, or an additional envelope for Ukraine invaded by Russia, under discussion for weeks.
Congress has two Chambers: one, the Senate, is won by Joe Biden’s Democrats, but it is the other, the House of Representatives, in the hands of the Republicans, which is experiencing an unprecedented mess.
Historic impeachment
Its leader, Kevin McCarthy, was dismissed on October 3, the victim of fratricidal quarrels between moderate elected officials and Trumpist troublemakers within his party. Never in its more than 200 years of history has the United States deposed the speaker.
This eviction has exposed the gaping fractures that run through American conservatives, one year before the 2024 presidential election. But it has also plunged this House, supposed to be one of the most powerful in the world, into unprecedented paralysis. The institution is currently incapable of submitting any text to a vote, a mess that the United States – still attached to its role as world policeman – would have liked to do without.
Sans speaker, the American Congress cannot vote on a new budget for the federal state either. The latter expires in a few weeks, once again placing the world’s leading economic power in danger of paralysis of its public administration.
Steve Scalise wins the vote
Several avenues have been studied to put an end to this imbroglio. Two candidates, one from the party’s general staff, the other dubbed by Donald Trump – the two opposing factions – faced each other during an informal election on Wednesday.
Louisiana elected official Steve Scalise, Republican group leader and known for having survived a shooting in 2017, won this election against loyal Trumpist Jim Jordan. The fifty-year-old hoped to immediately be able to submit his application to a vote with all the elected representatives of the Chamber. A necessary step to access the perch.
Finding a way out this Thursday seems unlikely
But around ten conservatives immediately made it known that they would oppose his candidacy at all costs, pointing out the elected official’s budgetary positions, the fact that he suffers from cancer or his speech given there. was twenty years old at a convention linked to a former leader of the Ku Klux Klan. “Steve is a man who has serious problems because of his cancer,” Donald Trump declared in an interview, assuring that the elected official would do better to avoid “the stress” linked to such functions.
“Steve is a man who is in serious trouble because of his cancer.”
Donald Trump
A series of meetings are planned by Steve Scalise to try to bring the refractories back into line, but for the moment it seems unlikely that a solution will be found on Thursday. 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.
(AFP)Show comments
2023-10-12 19:36:38
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