After 11 attempts, the stalemate continues in the US House of Representatives, which still has no president-elect.
With the 11th vote in three days underway, there was still no sign that McCarthy had a path to the presidency.
247 - Hardline Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives rejected Kevin McCarthy's candidacy for Speaker of the House for the 11th time on Thursday (5), even after he proposed reducing his own influence, raising doubts about the party's ability to wield power, Reuters reports.
After failing to form a majority around the Republican McCarthy's candidacy, the House reached a level of dysfunction not seen since 1859, when it took 10 ballots to elect a leader during a turbulent period leading up to the Civil War.
Unable to choose a leader, the 435-seat House is powerless—it can't even formally swear in newly elected members, much less hold hearings, evaluate bills, or oversee Democratic President Joe Biden and his administration.
Republicans won a narrow majority -- 222 seats to 212 -- in the November midterm elections, meaning McCarthy cannot afford to lose the support of more than four Republicans, with Democrats united behind their own candidate.
McCarthy, a California congressman who was backed by former President Donald Trump for the job, offered the rebels several concessions that would weaken his role as president, which political allies warned would make the job even more difficult if he gets it.
At least 200 Republicans supported McCarthy in each of the votes this week. Less than 10% of Republican lawmakers voted against him, but that was enough to deny him the 218 votes needed to succeed Democrat Nancy Pelosi as Speaker of the House.
“What you are seeing on the floor does not mean that we are dysfunctional,” said Republican Representative Anna Paulina Luna, as she nominated McCarthy’s rival, Byron Donalds, for the 10th vote.
McCarthy's supporters say they are making progress in closed-door talks, but none foresee a solution anytime soon.
“I can say that there are some good things happening,” said Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, a McCarthy supporter who is among the most vocal conservatives in the House. “I think we’ll see some movement.”
McCarthy's opponents remain adamant, saying they don't trust him to maintain the scorched-earth tactics they want to use against Biden and the Democrat-controlled Senate.
“This ends one way or another: either Kevin McCarthy withdraws from the race or we build a straitjacket from which he is unable to escape,” said Republican lawmaker Matt Gaetz, who voted for Trump for Speaker of the House.
As chairman, McCarthy would hold a position that typically shapes the House agenda and is second in the line of succession to the U.S. presidency, behind Vice President Kamala Harris. He would have the power to thwart Biden's legislative agenda and launch investigations into the president's family and administration, in the lead-up to the 2024 presidential election.
In a late-night negotiating session, McCarthy offered resistance fighters greater leverage over which legislation would be put to a vote, according to a source familiar with the talks.
He also offered any member of the House the ability to call a vote that could potentially remove him from office -- a measure that helped drive at least one former Republican Speaker of the House, John Boehner, into retirement.
These concessions may help McCarthy win over some diehards, but they would leave him more vulnerable to hardliners over the next two years, that is, if he ultimately manages to win the presidency.
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