2023-10-03 00:49:08
The right-wing hardliner Matt Gaetz has filed a motion to impeach the Republican leader of the US House of Representatives, Kevin McCarthy. The representative from Florida made a motion on Monday (local time) to declare the position of chairman “vacant”. McCarthy had previously agreed with the Democrats on a compromise on temporary funding for federal authorities and did not implement the spending cuts demanded by the hardliners.
Gaetz is considered a supporter of former US President Donald Trump and has been a member of the House of Representatives since 2017. The Republicans currently only have a very narrow majority there. As a result, a smaller circle of extreme MPs from their own party were able to push Chairman McCarthy ahead of them. Gaetz has been one of McCarthy’s bitterest opponents for some time – he only announced his motion for dismissal on Sunday.
The motion does not mean that McCarthy will automatically lose his position as speaker. This requires a majority in the House of Representatives. A vote might also be prevented with motions. The Chamber of Congress will have to deal with this in the coming days. No chairman of the House of Representatives has ever lost his office as a result of such a move, and such a motion has only occurred sporadically in recent decades.
McCarthy had recently appeared confident of victory and assured that he would never give up and would overcome this resistance. He also responded immediately on Monday on
It is unclear how many MPs might ultimately join Gaetz and vote once morest McCarthy. So far there is no opposing candidate that the different wings of the deeply fragmented faction might agree on. However, Gaetz has already announced that, if in doubt, he would submit such a request once morest McCarthy several times in order to achieve his goal. Under certain circumstances, McCarthy might rely on the support of the Democrats.
McCarthy was only elected to office in the 15th round of voting in January and is considered to have been severely weakened by the shaking at the beginning. At that time, he had to go a long way towards accommodating the radical right in his group in order to be elected to his position with the help of their votes – among other things, under their pressure, the threshold for a motion for removal was significantly lowered.
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