US House speaker vote: how did we get here and what happens next?
Congressional Republicans are hoping to elect a new speaker to the House of Representatives after days of furious behind-the-scenes politicking after last week’s brutal ousting of the previous incumbent, Kevin McCarthy.
After nominating Louisiana congressman Steve Scalise on Wednesday, the Republican party is hoping to build consensus before heading to a final vote.
The ballot comes amid fierce criticism – including from some Republicans
– that the GOP’s bitter internal divisions has left Congress’s lower chamber rudderless at a time when urgent decisions are needed regarding
US emergency funding for Israel after Saturday’s deadly attack by the Palestinian group Hamas.
How has the House been left without a speaker?
In brief, because McCarthy made history in an unwanted way by becoming the first speaker ever to be voted out of the role, thanks to a rebellion from his own side.
Having only assumed his post last January after undergoing an agonising 15 ballots, he lost the speaker’s gavel when one of his fiercest critics from his own party, Matt Gaetz, made good on multiple threats to remove him by forcing a vote on a motion to vacate the speaker’s office. Gaetz, a congressman from Florida and member of the pro-Donald Trump far-right Freedom Caucus, was acting in protest against McCarthy’s last minute deal with Democrats to avert a government shutdown.
Although most Republicans supported McCarthy – with only eight of his own party members, including Gaetz, voting against – he lost his post because Democrats opted to remain unified in voting against him.
Trump, the former president and Republican frontrunner for next year’s presidential election, was reportedly instrumental in the efforts to remove McCarthy.
What happens next?
The GOP held an internal party ballot on Wednesday to decide which candidate would be proposed before a vote on the floor of the House in which Scalise prevailed against Ohio congressman Jim Jordan.
But there are still many holdouts – including Marjorie Taylor Green of Georgia and Nancy Mace of South Carolina that are blocking Scalise’s path to