“It’s not about governing, it’s about pontificating and advocating an extremist point of view.”ĭemocratic Rep. “The stream of continuity here is extremism, elements of Trumpism, norms don’t matter,” says Democratic Rep. Now some have felt trapped in the same chamber by the repeated, fruitless votes for speaker and House business is held up for this week and perhaps longer. They held up national business for hours that day. Then, the insurrectionists trapped some lawmakers in the House chamber but never breached it. Pramila Jayapal of Washington, one of the lawmakers who fled the rioters two years ago. The chaos of the speaker’s election “is about destruction of an institution in a different way,” said Democratic Rep. Some Democrats see a throughline from Jan. Everything from national security briefings to helping their constituents navigate the federal bureaucracy is on pause because the members-elect can’t yet take their oath of office. The protracted struggle leaves the House leaderless, unable to pass bills and powerless to do much more than hold vote after vote for speaker until a majority is reached. Trump’s 2024 candidacy has been slow off the starting blocks, but his war chest is full and some would-be rivals for the Republican presidential nomination have channeled his false claims about the 2020 race.Īs well, several lawmakers who echoed his lies about a stolen election at the time are central in the effort to derail McCarthy’s ascension to speaker - unswayed by Trump’s appeals from afar to support him and end the fight. 6 continue to serve and are newly empowered. Yet many of the lawmakers who brought baseless claims of election fraud or excused the violence on Jan. In the midterms, candidates who denied the outcome of 2020’s free and fair election were defeated for many pivotal statewide positions overseeing elections in battleground states, as were a number of election deniers seeking seats in Congress. “We must say clearly with a united voice that there is no place … for voter intimidation or election violence.” We stand here today with our democracy intact because of those officers.”Īt the White House ceremony, Biden described the violence in evocative and at times graphic detail - the officer speared by a flagpole flying the American flag, the beatings, the bloodshed and racist screams from rioters who professed to be pro-law enforcement as they overran police and hunted for lawmakers. Jeffries said 140 officers were seriously injured and “many more will forever be scarred by the bloodthirsty violence of the insurrectionist mob. The event was focused on the Capitol Police officers who protected the building that day and families of law enforcement officers who died after the riot. Nancy Pelosi and Hakeem Jeffries - and none from the GOP. 6, 2021, assault on it drew mostly Democrats, with brief remarks from Democratic leaders past and incoming - Reps. Kevin McCarthy flipped more than a dozen colleagues to support him in his quest to lead the chamber, finally showing progress but still short of a majority.įriday morning’s moment of silence at the Capitol to commemorate the Jan. Yet democracy’s vulnerability was equally on display at the Capitol as Republicans struggled to break their stalemate over the next House speaker, leaving that chamber in limbo for what should have been the first week under a GOP majority.Ī resolution to the immediate crisis may be near as GOP leadership continued negotiations to appease its hard-right flank.
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