“Given their unwillingness to break from MAGA extremism in an authentic manner, House Democratic leadership will vote yes on the pending Republican Motion to Vacate the Chair,” Democrat leader Hakeem Jeffries wrote in a letter to members ahead of the vote.
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But this was also a predictable mess of McCarthy’s own making.
The seeds of his fate were sown in January, when he was subjected to a painful round of 15 votes before finally clinching the Speaker’s gavel.
To secure the job he so desperately wanted, he offered his far-right detractors a wide range of concessions – including agreeing to a contentious new “motion to vacate” rule that diluted his own power.
Not surprisingly, they have been dangling that threat ever since.
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Nine months after choosing its Speaker, the House of Representatives is paralysed, unable to get on with general business – such as implementing the AUKUS security pact – until someone else is appointed to the chair.
Americans have also been plunged into uncertainty at a time when Congress has about 40 days to avert another potential government shutdown in mid-November.
And the Republicans find themselves with no unified agenda and no clear leadership, which raises the obvious question: if you can’t govern yourself, how can voters trust you to govern the country?