Kevin McCarthy faces a “threat” to his presidency of the US House of Representatives on Sunday, after a prominent Republican representative within his party called for a vote to oust him after passing a bill to finance the government, according to Reutzer.
Republican Representative Matt Gaetz said on Sunday that he would submit a proposal to oust the Speaker of the House of Representatives against the backdrop of concluding an agreement with Democrats to avoid a “government shutdown,” but it did not include spending cuts demanded by the party’s right wing.
Gates said in a statement to CNN: “I think he should rip the band-aid off,” referring to stopping the containment of the crisis.
McCarthy played down the attempt, but told reporters, “If I have to risk my job to defend the American people, I will do it.”
Gates is a prominent leader in the Freedom Caucus in the House of Representatives, which is a group that includes a number of hard-line Republican lawmakers who pushed the country to the brink of closing federal institutions by refusing to make additional federal funding available without approving spending cuts.
McCarthy angered the group by concluding late Saturday night an agreement with Democrats that allows, under an emergency measure, to continue funding the federal government for 45 days.
Gaetz was among a group of about 20 representatives who forced McCarthy to go through 15 rounds of voting in January before he was elected speaker, during which they obtained concessions, including a rule change, to allow any member of the House of Representatives to call a vote to remove the speaker.
The Speaker of the House of Representatives angered Democrats last month by launching an accountability investigation aimed at isolating President Joe Biden.
The prominent Republican abandoned the party’s hard-liners’ earlier insistence that any bill be passed solely through Republican votes, a change that prompted Gaetz to try to oust him from his leadership role.
The House of Representatives supported funding the government until November 17 by a majority of 335 votes to 91, and the matter received the support of a larger number of Democrats than Republicans. About 209 Democrats supported the bill, a much larger number than the 126 Republicans who approved it. Democrats called the result a “win.”
House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries told reporters ahead of the vote: “The hard-line Republicans lost… and the American people won.”
McCarthy’s shift in position was supported by Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, who had previously backed a similar measure on which the Senate would have held a potential vote, and has broad bipartisan support, even though the House bill dropped aid to Ukraine.
The bill provides another 45 days of funding to the federal government, enough to last through mid-November, but does not provide additional money to help Ukraine fight the Russian invasion.
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2023-10-01 20:13:56
