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(Trends Wide) — The failure of House Republicans to pick a House speaker after days of voting has frozen business in the chamber, and some GOP members now warn the deadlock has implications for sessions. information and oversight related to national security.
The position of the Speaker of the House is traditionally filled on the first day of a new Congress, followed by the swearing in of members. But with the floor fight over Kevin McCarthy’s presidential bid stretching until Thursday, the third day of the new Congress, members-elect have yet to be sworn in.
That’s a critical issue at a standstill, say several top Republicans who want to see McCarthy elected as president.
“The Biden administration is now out of (political) control and there is no oversight from the White House, the State Department, the Defense Department or the intelligence community. We cannot allow personal politics to put the security of the United States at risk,” the incoming chairmen of various committees, including those on foreign affairs and the armed services, said in a statement released Thursday morning.
Rep. Mike Gallagher, a Wisconsin Republican, said he was denied entry to a meeting with the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff because House security told him he did not yet have clearance.
“I am a member of the House (Intelligence) Commission. I’m on the Armed Services Commission and I can’t meet in the (Sensitive Information Sharing Center) to conduct essential business,” Gallagher said at a news conference Wednesday, referring to the place used by the military and national security officials to process sensitive and classified information.
“We have a third (proxy), one of our three branches of government, offline right now. That’s a very dangerous thing for our country and it can’t go on much longer,” Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, a Pennsylvania Republican, told Trends Wide on Wednesday.
He added: “I sit on the House Intelligence Committee. We oversee all 19 intelligence agencies. We are currently offline.”
However, the incoming chairman of the House Oversight Committee, James Comer, played down the delay in addressing committee business.
“One or two days will not be the end of the world. I would prefer that we get to 218 (votes) yesterday,” said the Kentucky Republican. “Unfortunately, we didn’t.”
Other issues of the Chamber paralyzed
Each new Congress must pass a new set of House rules, so without a president in charge to oversee the adoption of those rules, none technically exist.
Without a House Rules package approved by the end of business on Jan. 13, committees will also be unable to pay staff, according to a letter sent last week by the committee in charge of administrative affairs, a letter Politico reported on. for the first time and which got Trends Wide.
The same memo warned that student loan payments for commission staff will not be disbursed unless a package of rules is adopted by mid-January.
However, based on House precedent, the pay period for elected members begins on January 3, even if the first session of Congress begins after that date, provided their credentials have been filed with the House clerk. .
For committees whose chairmen are not known, they will be chaired in the interim by the ranking Republican on the committee who also served on the panel in the last Congress, according to the letter sent last week.
But without fully functioning committees to amend and pass bills before they reach the plenary for a vote, there will be no legislating. That means Republicans may also have to wait before tackling some of their most pressing priorities, including investigations into President Joe Biden’s administration and family.
Outside of the role of the president effectively running the House, they are also in the line of succession for president of the country, raising questions about what happens if there is no one in the position who is second in line for the presidency after the vice president
President for the time of the Senate is third in line. Sen. Patty Murray was elected to that position Tuesday, making the Washington Democrat the first woman to serve in the position.
With reporting from Trends Wide’s Zachary B. Wolf, Ali Zaslav, Ted Barrett, Melanie Zanona, Lauren Fox, Clare Foran, Manu Raju, Morgan Rimmer, Andrea Cambron, Shawna Mizelle and Kaanita Iyer.
