The US House of Representatives is unable to elect a new president 17 days after Kevin McCarthy was impeached, leaving him paralyzed. Trump’s nominee, Jim Jordan, held a brief news conference early Friday at the Capitol in Washington, urging his colleagues to elect him. Jordan warned that Congress cannot approve aid to Ukraine and Israel that President Joe Biden plans to request, nor laws to avoid a partial shutdown of the administration without first electing a new president. Loudspeaker.
Jordan appeared with his shirt sleeves as usual. He began his speech with a speech about how the United States had progressed from the Wright brothers’ first flight to the moon landing. He explained in his speech that he is not considering the solution of giving powers to the interim President of the Council, Patrick McHenry, but he intends to submit to the necessary votes in order to be elected. “There have been multiple rounds of voting for president before. We all know. I just know we need to Loudspeaker He pointed out that as soon as possible we will be able to work for the American people.
Republicans wanted to avoid the scene of last January, when it took 15 votes to elect Kevin McCarthy in the face of resistance from party hardliners. They organized a vote within the parliamentary group and the winner was Steve Scalise. The extremist Jordan, one of the founders of the Freedom Rally, which includes the most extremist members of the party, came in second place. However, he refused to close ranks and ask for support from his rival after his defeat, as is usual in these operations. Hard-line Republicans made it clear that they would block the appointment of Scalise, who surrendered before he was even presented to the general session.
Jordan has taken over, but now there’s a group of moderate Republicans paying him money. He lost a vote in the House of Representatives on Tuesday and another on Wednesday. On Thursday, he preferred to avoid a third defeat. Jordan and his supporters hoped that the moderates would surrender, but the pressure exerted on them backfired, so they decided to step down. The prevailing atmosphere in the Republican group is one of open confrontation, and some dissident members of Congress have reported threatening calls against them and their families.
In the first vote, 20 Republicans turned their backs on him, and in the second vote, 22 disenfranchised him. On Thursday, it was indicated on Capitol Hill that if Jordan’s nomination is voted on a third time, there could be more defections within their ranks. Jordan is meeting with Republicans who refused to support him to try again, and a new vote is scheduled for Friday. “I’m still a candidate for Speaker of the House and I plan to get in and get the votes and win this election,” Jordan said.
“We have important work to do,” he said in his press conference. “We have to help Israel. We have to start the budget process so that the key elements of our government are financed and financed in the right way, especially our military. We have to get back to the work of our committees. And frankly, we need to continue the oversight work that I think is very important. In short, we have to work For the American people. We have to do what we told you we would do when you elected us and put us in office, and frankly, we can’t do that if the House isn’t open. And we can’t open the House until we have Loudspeaker”, Argue.
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The House of Representatives feels paralyzed at a crucial moment for foreign and domestic policy. United States President Joe Biden intends to ask Congress for a package of about $100 billion to aid Israel, Ukraine, Taiwan and for the border with Mexico, which needs the approval of the Senate, with a Democratic majority, and the approval of the Senate. The House is under Republican control, where it may face greater resistance.
On the internal front, Congress has not yet approved any of the 12 budget laws that finance government activity. The budget extension agreed at the last minute a few weeks ago expires on November 17. Parra will then need to approve the laws (which does not seem easy, as they are complex and require a long process) or agree on a new extension.
In light of the obstruction of the elections Loudspeaker, Republicans and moderate Democrats are in talks to recognize interim Speaker Patrick McHenry’s powers to temporarily rule the House of Representatives, which would have allowed legislative activity to resume. Jordan supported this proposal on Thursday morning, but backed down hours later due to the rejection of that solution by the hardline wing of his party, which they interpreted as meaning handing over control of the House of Representatives to the Democrats.
McHenry is a trusted person of Kevin McCarthy, the ousted president. Following the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States, Congress decided that a succession mechanism was needed to avoid a power vacuum in a time of crisis. Since then, House Speakers have delivered to the Secretary of the House a list of appointees to fill the position if it becomes vacant, as happened after McCarthy’s impeachment. McHenry was first on that list.
Until now, it has never been necessary to resort to this solution, and there are different interpretations of the powers of the interim president. When the legislature begins, an election is made Loudspeaker It is the first priority, even before the representatives are sworn in, and no law or initiative can be approved until after the election of the Speaker of the Council. In this case, there are no precedents and there are different legal interpretations: from those who believe that the activity is prohibited as at the beginning of the legislature to those who assert that the interim president, although temporary, can exercise his powers. To avoid suspicion, the chamber was considering explicitly empowering him.
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