The rejection of 20 radicals to McCarthy as ‘speaker’ of the Lower House is maintained after seven votes | Negotiations between the two conservative factions continue in parallel behind closed doors
In the last few hours there have been concessions“conversations positive” And supposedly, “progress”. Even so, the Congress of United States follows paralyzed by the refusal of a handful of far-right Republicans to vote for kevin mccarthy to preside over the House of Representatives. This Thursday the seventh ballot in the election process that began on Tuesday, and which for the first time in a century was not resolved in the first round, has once again been inconclusive. And McCarthy’s exit routes continue to narrow.
The group of 20 rebels against the election of the Californian is entrenched in his opposition total. Even after the negotiations of the last few hours and McCarthy’s agreement to grant some of their demands, including that a single congressman can start the process of impeachment of the leader, the seventh vote has had the same final result as those of Thursday: 201 votes for him in front of 212 from Democrat Hakeem Jeffries, 20 for other candidates and one “present”. The hardest core follows promising never to vote for him. And even for a congressman who has acceded to claims that would severely limit its powerthe Mathematics of the election still does not come outat least for now.
“We are going to keep working until we fix it& rdquor ;, McCarthy said before the first round of voting this Thursday, also assuming that the result would not be favorable to him. “What we’re doing is having really good conversation and breakthroughs. And I think everyone wants to find one solution”.
Frantic and unsuccessful negotiations
McCarthy has to submit to these votes that he knows he will lose because the rebels also threaten not to give enough support to postpone the session while it is being negotiated (something that became clear on Wednesday night, when the session was postponed but with an agonizing majority). And McCarthy must bear the denigrating rejection votes while those negotiations continue behind closed doors.
This Thursday, for example, those conversations they continued even while you were voting. And in the office of Tom Emmer, one of the congressmen allied with McCarthy whose space in Congress has been the scene of many of these meetings in recent days, several of the most recalcitrant opponents of the candidate for ‘speaker’ entered this morning, such as Scott Perry, the chairman of the ultra Freedom Caucus Y Chip Roy. was also present Byron Donaldsthe Florida congressman whom opponents have been voting for since Wednesday (although Matt Gaetz this Thursday he verbally gave in the seventh round his i vote for donald trumpa symbolic gesture, especially after the former president has urged since Wednesday to vote for McCarthy).
“It will not be enough”
McCarthy’s hopeful words of a solution can be read more like wishful thinking than reality. Several of the rebels say that even if some of his colleagues change the vote and support McCarthy, “they will not be enough to make him a speaker& rdquor; in Lauren’s words Boebert, one of the recalcitrant opponents. “God bless you,” added the congresswoman from Colorado.
Perry, the president of the Freedom Caucus, has also been critical, entering the meeting in Emmer’s office. “There’s no deal. And it does not show good faith filter discussion agreements& rdquor ;, has denounced in reference to the information since Wednesday night about the last round of concessions that McCarthy is willing to make.