Three circulating scenarios.. All you need to know about the crisis of electing a speaker for the US House of Representatives

Washington

- The US House of Representatives adjourned its session, yesterday, Thursday, for the third night in a row, due to the inability to elect a new president.

The attempt to vote (after 11 rounds) ended with the failure of any candidate to obtain a majority of the votes of 218 deputies out of the total number of deputies of 435, at a time when 20 Republican deputies insisted not to vote for their party’s candidate, Representative Kevin McCarthy, and the Republican candidate has not yet received the support of more than 203 from his colleagues.

This is the second time in American history that the House of Representatives has failed to choose a president for it, and Congress preceded the failure to choose a speaker for the House of Representatives 100 years ago, when Frederick Gillette snatched it after 9 rounds of voting.

Without a president, the House of Representatives becomes paralyzed, unable to carry out any activity.

Nor do the new members of the Council officially take the constitutional oath.

It does not seem clear that there are any prospects for resolving the crisis that the Republicans created for themselves after they obtained a narrow majority, after the midterm elections last November, when they won 223 seats compared to 212 for the Democrats.

Al Jazeera Net presents, in a question and answer, all aspects of the current crisis related to the election of a Speaker of the House of Representatives.

What caused the crisis of electing a speaker of the US House of Representatives?

A handful of Republicans, ranging from 19 to 25, don't want Kevin McCarthy to become Speaker of the House.

McCarthy had previously held the position of Republican minority leader in the House of Representatives for the party for 4 years, but that does not seem enough for those who refuse to budge from their strict stance against him so far.

Matt Gaetz, one of the anti-McCarthy MPs who have come to be called the "Never Kevin" caucus, described him as a "desperate man" and said his request was simple: "That McCarthy drop out of the race."

While the Republicans who supported McCarthy described their colleagues who rejected him as "enemies", "narcissists" and even "Taliban Republicans".

Who are these naysayers?

These Republican representatives belong to the Freedom Caucus in the House of Representatives, which is the most right-wing and conservative bloc among Republicans.

And this bloc was born from the womb of the Tea Party movement in early 2010, a current located on the right of the Republican Party, and this trend was previously challenged by Republican House Speaker John Boehner.

However, this current, which includes nearly 50 deputies, is divided towards McCarthy, as some prominent names such as Representative Jim Jordan and Representative Marjorie Taylor Green support McCarthy's candidacy.

And last November, McCarthy won his party's nomination for speaker of the House of Representatives in a secret session, where 30 Republicans voted against him.

By December, a group of five "except Kevin" members—Andy Biggs of Arizona, Matt Gaetz of Florida, Bob Goode of Virginia, Matt Rosendell of Montana, and Ralph Norman of South Carolina—emerged, and opposition grew. McCarthy nomination.

Why do they reject McCarthy's presidency of the House of Representatives?

Opponents in the Republican Party pointed out that McCarthy is closely allied with the "quagmire" of American politics in Washington, D.C., the same accusations that Trump has already repeated against the Republican elite in the past, and accuse McCarthy of doing little to change the way Washington is governed.

Former President Donald Trump's support for Kevin McCarthy's candidacy was not enough for these deputies to change their positions so far.

What do opponents of McCarthy want?

This team calls for changing several legislative procedures from the authority of the Speaker of the Council, including the method of presenting legislation away from the power of the Speaker of the Council or the heads of specialized committees, especially with regard to issues and issues of the budget and federal financial allocations.

They also demand a change in the mechanism for requesting a vote of no confidence in the Speaker of the Council, provided that the minimum for submitting the request is limited to only one deputy.

The holdouts are also seeking to extract various concessions in return for their support, including promises to vote on bills addressing congressional term limits and border security, and demanding a stake in committee chair appointments.

What are the possible scenarios to get out of the crisis?

There are 3 basic scenarios in circulation as follows:

Scenario 1: Kevin McCarthy wins

The current strategy from Kevin McCarthy appears to be to fight a war of attrition where his supporters keep putting his name in the running until opponents get tired of voting against him.

This scenario predicts that voting results will change with endless attempts until they can figure out what the opponents want.

Over Wednesday and Thursday nights, McCarthy made a number of concessions, including a promise to appoint a holdout to the influential Rules Committee, which sets the terms for discussion of legislation in the House.

He also agreed to lower the threshold for starting a vote on whether to remove the speaker of the House of Representatives to just one member of the House.

While these offers may be enough to change some of the naysayers from their positions, they do not appear to be enough to change the mind of enough MPs to reach the 218 votes needed to win office.

McCarthy hopes his concessions will increase pressure on his opponents and appease rank-and-file members of his side who are increasingly frustrated by the continuing stalemate.

The ultimate challenge is that these concessions will weaken his grip on power if he wins, raising the possibility that he will face a vote to oust him when he fights tough legislative battles over budget issues and raising the debt ceiling later in the year.

McCarthy also hopes that the Democrats will tire of the battle, stop supporting their leader in the House, Hakeem Jeffrey, and support McCarthy to end this absurdity rather than what appears so far as a Democratic enjoyment of chaos among the Republicans.

The second scenario: that Kevin McCarthy surrenders and another Republican is nominated

After failing in several attempts to get elected within 3 days, it cannot be ruled out that McCarthy would choose to resign himself to defeat, rather than continue to fight.

And the Republicans who currently support McCarthy may decide to give the hard-line Republicans what they want and change the candidate for speaker of the House of Representatives.

Rep. Steve Scales of Louisiana, the second-in-command in the House of Representatives, might be the best option as a candidate acceptable to both hardline conservatives and the rest of the House Republicans.

However, the biggest obstacle at the present time is the unwillingness of Scales for the position, as he did not express this desire publicly.

Other possibilities include Congressman Jim Jordan of Ohio, the chair-in-waiting of the House Judiciary Committee. However, neither of them - Scales and Jordan - seems able to unite the entire party to vote.

The third scenario: that the Republicans and Democrats agree on a consensual candidate

In a similar situation, Democrats and Republicans met in the Ohio House of Representatives last Tuesday to reject a right-wing candidate and elect a moderate consensus candidate.

A number of experts spoke about this alternative.

And as McCarthy's predicament deepened in recent days, some of his supporters promoted it as a warning to conservative hardliners to support McCarthy, or else the Democrats will be called upon.

Rep. Don Bacon, a moderate Republican from Nebraska, earlier said he was open to working with Democrats to elect a compromise president if McCarthy failed.

But some see this scenario as impossible amid the extreme polarization that separates Republicans and Democrats.

What is the maximum time limit for electing a Speaker of the House of Representatives?

There is no constitutional provision on any time frame for electing the Speaker of Parliament.

It is not clear how long McCarthy can continue negotiating concessions.

No matter how this crisis ends, hardliners in the Republican Party are stronger and bolder than ever.

In the end, it seems that we are facing an unknown future regarding the presidency of the House of Representatives, with which no scenario can be ruled out.