Speaker chaos leaves US Congress in limbo

WASHINGTON: The US Congress has been paralysed by a dramatic split in the Republican Party over who should fill the third most powerful office in the country.

For the first time in a century, the party with a majority in the House of Representatives was unable to elect a Speaker on the first ballot, after 19 Republicans rebelled against their party’s nominee Kevin McCarthy.

The House will now have to keep repeating the vote until a majority of members are willing to support a Speaker – who is second in line to the presidency – or otherwise it will not be able to begin its business of passing legislation.

Mr McCarthy had the backing of Donald Trump but some of the former president’s strongest supporters led the charge against him, leaving Mr McCarthy well short of the 218 votes he needed to claim the speakership.

He lost two further ballots before the House adjourned until Thursday as backroom negotiations continued.

In a fiery internal meeting prior to the shenanigans on the floor of the House, Mr McCarthy declared he had “earned this job”, prompting hard-right rebel Lauren Boebert to reportedly declare: “This is bullsh*t.”

She later hit back at Mr McCarthy and his allies, saying Republicans were “being sworn at instead of being sworn in.”

Florida congressman Matt Gaetz, another Republican opponent of Mr McCarthy, said they were demanding “a change because this town is broken”.

“If you want to drain the swamp, you cannot put the biggest alligator in charge of the exercise,” he said.

At the centre of the bitter dispute was a push by hardright Republicans to change House rules so individual members could spark a vote to kick the Speaker out of the post.

Mr McCarthy appeared willing to relax those rules but could still not win over enough party members, saying there were “a few individuals who want something for themselves” and he would not “reward bad behaviour”.

He threatened to ban conservative opponents from holding powerful committee positions, only for Mr Gaetz to tell colleagues he did not care if Democrat leader Hakeem Jeffries ended up in the Speaker’s chair.

Mr McCarthy vowed he would “stay until we win”, while one of his allies added: “We’ll be here to the 4th of July voting for McCarthy.”