"The presidency of the Lower House is declared vacant", said the legislator in charge of directing the session of the Congress of the .
Revenge against Kevin McCarthy for helping to keep the Government financially open is now served. The civil war between Republicans, unleashed by a minority of ultras (eight) led by Matt Gaetz, ended yesterday with the impeachment of the president of the Lower House, and leader of the conservative majority, something never seen in the history of the USA.
The result was 216 votes in favor of his expulsion (among them eight Republican dissidents) against 210, and marked a day for the annals. Seven legislators did not vote. Four of them were Democrats, including Nancy Pelosi.
The party that surrenders to Trump is the one that is portrayed in front of society. At the same time, enraged by McCarthy's concessions to the Republican extremists - we must not forget that he is another collaborator of Trump -, the Democrats did not miss the opportunity to dig into the wound and vote en bloc to expel the president
"Unfortunately, our Republican colleagues are not able to break with the extremists," announced Hakeem Jeffeis, leader of the Democratic minority when he recommended that a vote be taken in favor of expelling McCarthy. Only five Republican votes were needed to force McCarthy out, if progressives responded as a group.
His removal means entering uncharted territory. He had never been forced to vacate the position of president of the Lower House. There were two previous requests that failed. One in 1910. The last in 2015 against the Republican speaker John Boehner. It never came to a vote, but Boehner left office ahead of schedule.
Without a president, the House is paralyzed waiting for someone to take the reins and suppose to leave vacant the third position of power in the USA.
McCarthy faced 15 votes last January to take office. Gaetz then led the opposition, until Trump told him enough was enough. In this new invitation, McCarthy insisted that he had majority support within the conservative group, so that, in the event of losing, he responded with a "we'll see" to the possibility of trying to compete again for the mace.
To neutralize the operation, a proposal was quickly put forward to prevent a single lawmaker from forcing a vote to impeach the Speaker of the House. But it failed. Eleven Republicans opposed it, along with the Democrats, and then the show began.
It was an incredible spectacle to see how Republicans took the floor to make fun of not a rival, but one of their own, their supposed leader, while others, more numerous, praised the speaker and criticized the dissidents for being agents of the chaos in the Chamber and in the country. "Chaos is McCarthy, someone whose word you can't trust," Gaetz retorted.
Meanwhile, the Democrats listened and didn't open their mouths, they didn't need to.
