9 Republicans in race for House Speaker

Washington: As many as nine Republicans are officially running for speaker as Congress reconvenes to resolve the three week gridlock to elect House Speaker since the ouster of Kevin McCarthy.

The GOP leadership in the house will hear from each of the nine candidates in a closed-door session on Monday night. A secret-ballot vote will be held Tuesday morning to select the most fitting lawmaker to be the nominee followed by a floor vote as early as Tuesday to decide the new speaker.

Republicans have gone through this rigmarole twice since Kevin McCarthy was ousted as speaker in early October. House Majority Leader Steve Scalise and House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, could not break through the strong divisions and holdouts in the party to be elected as McCarthy’s successor, leaving one half of Congress in an unprecedented limbo.

The Congress has been unable to pass important legislations such as war time aid to Israel and Ukraine as US President Joe Biden has forwarded a resolution to the house to permit flow of $105 billion in aid to Israel, Ukraine and the southern border patrol force for humanitarian and military aid amid the middle east war and border crossing by illegal immigrants, reports said.

More than 67 per cent of Americans polled by USA Today and Suffolk University wanted the Congress to elect a speaker immediately to end the 21 day stalemate and the “soap opera” in the house as legislators were testing their patience with their personal agendas while they should be doing their jobs for which they had elected them to the house in the first place, USA Today said.