This week, the US House of Representatives made history by voting to remove Republican Speaker Kevin McCarthy. It now needs to appoint another – and quickly.
In six weeks, the US government will be trying to avoid its 22nd shutdown, but there is just one problem – the world’s most powerful Democracy doesn’t have a Speaker.
Most Republicans, including Newt Gingrich, who was the House Speaker from 1995 to 1999, are now looking to expel Gaetz from the party. So enraged were these Republicans at the fact that every Democrat in the House supported the removal of McCarthy that former Speaker Nancy Pelosi was kicked out of her Capitol Hill office this week – a privilege the Republicans had afforded her only if the Democrats worked in good faith.But there is good faith no more on Capitol Hill. Trust is scant.
But it’s this fight on spending and government debt that has arguably been the cause of most of the Republican Party’s troubles, which now include a potential hit to its fundraising capacity – something that McCarthy was well known for. The committee had originally opened in 2021 alongside a Department of Justice probe into a sex-trafficking scheme that Gaetz was alleged to have been part of, but after a two-year investigation no criminal charges were made. Gaetz has long professed his innocence, but the ethics committee quietly relaunched a probe into the congressman in July, according to CNN.$US1.4 trillion , or about 5.
With his removal, McCarthy, who has long had a reputation as a top Republican fundraiser, might find he can’t haul in the $US150 million he did in the last election cycle to help Republicans win back the House majority in November last year, or the $US62.5 million he attracted during the first six months of the year through the McCarthy Victory Fund.
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