216 congressmen voted to fire McCarthy. There were 210 people against it. This is the first time in US history that the Speaker of the House of Representatives has been dismissed early.
Let us note that the entire Democratic Party voted for McCarthy’s resignation, although on the eve of the vote there was a lot of talk in the American media about whether the Democrats would try to save McCarthy from resignation by putting forward certain conditions for him, including support for providing assistance to Ukraine.
Why was McCarthy fired?
The proposal to send the Speaker of the House of Representatives to resign was put forward by his fellow Republican Matt Gaetz after McCarthy did not allow the US government to stop funding due to problems with the adoption of the 2024 budget.
McCarthy supported a bill to fund the US government through November 17, but did not introduce any of the spending cuts or changes to border security that his GOP colleagues have called for.
Today, the House of Representatives failed to delay or block Gaetz’s attempt to launch the process of removing McCarthy. This paved the way for a vote to remove McCarthy from office, but first members of Congress had to hold an hour-long debate.
What will happen next
After McCarthy’s dismissal from office, his seat will obviously be taken by a temporary successor (from the list of congressmen that McCarthy himself compiled immediately after his election in January of this year). However, his powers, according to most experts regarding the rules of the House of Representatives, will be extremely limited: he will only be able to lead a meeting to elect a new speaker.
The search for a new speaker promises to be extremely problematic: the Democratic Party has a minority in the House of Representatives, so it cannot lay claim to the position of speaker. Instead, a group of Trumpist Republicans (which includes several dozen congressmen) is capable of blocking the election of any speaker from their party. In January, McCarthy was elected speaker because of the position of the Trumpists only on the 15th attempt.
Why is this important for Ukraine
Continued allocation of military and other aid to Ukraine requires an effective vote in Congress. If the House of Representatives is effectively blocked due to the absence of the Speaker, it will be impossible to make such a decision.
At the same time, the White House assured that events in the US Congress should not affect assistance to Ukraine. “We know that the overwhelming majority of members of Congress support additional assistance to Ukraine,” said US Presidential Administration spokesman John Kirby.
2023-10-03 20:46:59
#House #Representatives #fires #Speaker #McCarthy
