The Republican Party secured a majority in the US House of Representatives last night, winning the 218th seat in the slow vote count following the November 8 election.
With the Senate in Democratic hands, the conservatives will be able, among other things, to curb the legislative capacity of the Joe Biden government and force the opening of investigative commissions in that body of Congress. They may not, however, legislate against the Administration or block appointments of judges, diplomats and senior officials.
The until now leader of the minority, Kevin McCarthy, will appear as a candidate to preside over the Lower House, replacing the Democrat Nancy Pelosi. McCarthy will have to make concessions to the thirty hard-line representatives of Donald Trump who on Tuesday, led by Andy Biggs of Arizona, voted internally against his aspiration.
McCarthy needs to overcome that threshold of 218 votes, which in this chamber of 435 seats, grants the necessary majority to appoint a president. And, to give him the support he needs if he wants to reach that minimum, the Trumpists have already advanced that they will demand a plan that provides for the presentation of political trials or impeachments against members of the Government and even against Biden himself.
Despite the impossibility or at least the difficulty of promulgating laws adverse to the Executive that require the approval of both Houses, since the Senate is in the hands of the Democrats, the Republicans will try to use their majority in the largest of them to reduce the costs of the social security and Medicare programs, as well as cutting or canceling certain taxes.
It is equally probable that the conservatives, in order to impose these and other objectives, will assert their majority to stop the rise in the debt ceiling that the investment and spending projects of the Government may require.
The Republican victory in the House of Representatives after the Democrat in the Senate augurs, in short, new high-profile political conflicts in the United States. But not only between the two great parties of the nation but also within the conservative formation, at this moment very divided as a result of the relative failure of the party in general, and in particular of prominent candidates supported by Trump, in the mid-term legislative elections. .
Although the scope and duration of this fracture remain to be seen, for now it seems that the former president’s decision to run for office again in 2024 has only deepened the internal differences.
The distribution of seats in the Lower House was not complete last night, when the Republicans secured a majority. The projections suggest that in the end the conservative party will get 220 or a few more representatives compared to 215 or a little less for the Democrats. The tightness of such figures may force the parties, in some cases, to negotiate bipartisan agreements that make possible substantial progress in the management of the country.
In this regard, and in view of some initial results that already made it possible to anticipate the essentially new situation in Congress, President Biden declared last week: “I think the American people have made it clear that they expect the Republicans to be prepared to work with me. also”.
