Top House Democrat Hakeem Jeffries confirmed Sunday that “informal conversations have been underway” for a bipartisan solution to the leadership crisis in the US House of Representatives.
The legislative chamber has been without a speaker since 5 October when Republican right-wingers voted to remove California’s Kevin McCarthy from his position and Democrats did not step in with votes to secure him, effectively paralyzing the body.
Since then, Steve Scalise of Louisiana has failed to get enough support from his own party to win a vote to get the role. Next up is set to be Donald Trump ally Jim Jordan of Ohio, but it remains doubtful whether he too can garner enough votes to succeed.
New York Democrat Jeffries, the House minority leader, told NBC’s Meet the Press that he is anticipating discussions next week when lawmakers return to Washington on Monday. “It’s important to begin to formalize those discussions,” he said, but warned that Democrats want to ensure that “extremists aren’t able to dictate the agenda”.
“The current rules of the House have facilitated a handful of Republicans being able to determine what gets voted on,” he added. “We want to ensure that votes are taken on bills that have substantial Democratic support and substantial Republican support so that the extremists aren’t able to dictate the agenda.”
But what exactly the nature of any solution to the paralyzing chaos might be remains unclear.
Jeffries declined to say if he would allow Democratic representatives to vote for a Republican speaker as a way of ushering one into power, given the apparent inability of any Republican to unite their members.
“We have not identified any candidate on the other side of the aisle because our focus is not on the individual. It’s on the institution of Congress,” he said.
He added that Republicans had a simple choice. “They can either double or triple down on the chaos, dysfunction, and extremism. Or, let’s have a real conversation about changing the rules of the House so it can work in the best interests of the American people.”
The election of a new speaker has important implications: lawmakers have until the middle of November to pass a new bill ensuring the funding of the US government, which runs to approximately $6.3tn a year, after securing a 45-day funding package extension in late September.
Asked if Democrats will stall any intervention until the imminent approach of a shutdown, Jeffries said that his party was “not the party of government shutdowns” and Democrats are prepared to enter into an agreement to avoid a debt default as it had in May.
“More than 300 members of Congress supported that agreement, which included top-line spending numbers, so that we would avert a government shutdown and could lean in to providing for the health, the safety and the economic well-being of the American people.”
