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Steve Scalise speaks to the press
Photo: Jose Luis Magana / AP
Republican Steve Scalise, the nominee for the presidency of the U.S. House of Representatives, continues to fight for sufficient support for his party. The arch-conservative majority leader of the Republican caucus tried on Thursday to convince doubters in his own ranks. However, there was no sign of a sufficient majority for the 58-year-old.
"There is no consensus candidate for the office of chairman," wrote Republican Rep. Anna Paulina Luna on the online service X (formerly Twitter) after a party meeting. "We have to stay in Washington until we resolve this. I'm not going to vote for Scalise again."
Scalise was nominated on Wednesday by the Republican caucus to succeed House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, who was deposed at the beginning of October. In an internal party vote, however, the congressman from the southern state of Louisiana only prevailed with a narrow majority of 113 to 99 votes against the right-wing hardliner Jim Jordan. Several Republicans subsequently announced that they would not vote for Scalise in the plenary.
Because conservatives have only a narrow majority in the House of Representatives, Scalise can afford few dissenters in his own ranks. He needs 217 votes to be elected president of the chamber of Congress, while the Republicans have 221 deputies. It is estimated that around 30 Republicans do not want to support Scalise.
Without a leader, the House of Representatives is paralyzed at a time when the U.S. government wants to decide on further military aid to Israel and Ukraine and prevent a budget freeze looming in mid-November.
The previous chairman, Kevin McCarthy, was voted out of office as speaker of the House of Representatives in a historic vote last week. Radical Republicans had driven the 58-year-old out of office. It was the first time in U.S. history that a leader of the U.S. House of Representatives lost his job in this way.
cop/AFP/dpa