Anna Moneymaker Getty Images via Agence France-Presse Republican elected representative of the House of Representatives Jim Jordan, Friday, in Washington DC
One of the Republican Trumpist tenors, Jim Jordan, was named Friday his party's candidate for the presidency of the House of Representatives, but a way out of the crisis caused by the vacancy of this strategic position still appeared distant.
The House, controlled by the Republicans unlike the Senate with a Democratic majority, has been virtually paralyzed since the surprise dismissal on October 3 of its “speaker” Kevin McCarthy, following an internal rebellion which put exposed the gaping fractures of the party, one year before the 2024 presidential election.
The United States is currently unable to vote for any new aid to Israel, a historic ally engaged in a war with Palestinian Hamas. Nor even an additional envelope for Ukraine invaded by Russia, under discussion for weeks.
This is the second vote this week within the Republican parliamentary group, torn between moderate elected officials and gravitating troublemakers in the orbit of former President Donald Trump.
The previous one, Tuesday, was narrowly won by Steve Scalise, leader of the Republican majority in the House and elected from Louisiana, against Jim Jordan, chairman of the Judiciary Affairs Committee and elected from Ohio supported by Mr. Trump .
But Steve Scalise announced Thursday evening that he was abandoning his candidacy, unable to gather enough votes to be elected “speaker”.
Short majority
Jim Jordan, who beat Austin Scott in a secret ballot on Friday, another member of the conservative wing of the party, elected from Georgia, could find himself in a comparable situation, given the narrow Republican majority (217 votes against 212 Democrats), according to political commentators.
He received 124 votes against 81 for his opponent, report the American media.
Then in a second vote to find out how many of Republican elected officials would actually give him their vote in front of the entire House of Representatives, he obtained 152 for and 55 against, a deficit of 65 votes, according to the same sources.
Unless suddenly, the situation appears frozen until next week. Late Friday afternoon, many elected officials from both parties had left Washington.
Although defending fairly similar conservative positions on the right to abortion, the death penalty or guns, Jim Jordan and Austin Scott dissociated themselves during the vote on the certification of the election of Democratic President Joe Biden in 2020, vehemently contested by Donald Trump.
The first had voted against the validation of the results, and the second for.