The Speaker of the House of Representatives, Republican Kevin McCarthy, faced the unprecedented step of submitting a motion to remove him from office presented by his own party, after an effort to reject it failed. the request.
In the first vote on Tuesday afternoon, the full House of Representatives gave the green light to a vote of no confidence after 218 Republicans voted against the idea of shelving the motion, compared to 208 who favored rejecting it. in the move to remove McCarthy from office. .presidency.
In the vote it was evident that the Democrats were not going to put their votes in to help McCarthy survive this real ‘civil war’ that the Republican Party was experiencing.
Republicans have 221 seats, a slim majority of 4 seats, so McCarthy can’t afford to lose more than 4 votes.
Now follows the final vote on McCarthy’s future
After the vote, a period of debate began on the proposal of the Republican representative from Florida, Matt Gaetz, head of the radical right-wing group that prevented McCarthy’s presidency.
In Gaetz’s measure, called an override motion, one person could force the Lower House to consider removing its president. That motion has never been successful before.
Democrats couldn’t save McCarthy
Democratic House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries called on moderate Republicans to separate themselves from “extremists” and join Democrats “to move Congress and the country forward.”
“We’re ready, willing and able to work with our Republican colleagues, but it’s up to them to join us,” Jeffries told reporters after hours of meeting with the Democratic caucus, where it was decided not to help. McCarthy on the motion. survive.
The Democrats would have helped McCarthy if some of them had voted against the motion in sufficient numbers to neutralize the Republican defections, by voting ‘present’ (neither for nor against), or by abstaining from attending the session.
In these last two cases they lowered the quorum and allowed McCarthy to survive on the votes of the majority of his caucus supporting him.
The only time the House of Representatives voted to impeach a president was in 1910, when Joe Cannon kept his gavel.
Another “motion to override” attempt was in 2015, when Republican Rep. Mark Meadows tried to fire Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), but that initiative was referred to committee and never received a floor vote, because the Si ‘speaker’ resigned from his position.
