Kevin McCarthy
Just after 1:00 a.m. on January 7th of this year, Republican Representative Kevin McCarthy was elected the 55th Speaker of the House of Representatives succeeding Nancy Pelosi. This came after several holdouts where his own party refused to vote for him. However, after several concessions, including the Motion to Vacate, they ended up voting present, allowing him to secure the gavel. In June McCarthy worked across the aisle to raise the debt ceiling so the U.S. did not default on its debt; this came with criticism from his far-right colleagues. In the fall, McCarthy worked to pass a bill to fund the government to prevent a government shutdown; he ultimately passed a “Continuing Resolution” with more Democrats voting for it than Republicans. Then, Representative Matt Gaetz of Florida filed a motion to vacate the Speaker’s chair and was successful with all Democrats and eight Republicans joining to oust McCarthy. On December 6th, Speaker McCarthy announced his resignation from the House and is set to leave at the end of 2023.
Classified Documents
In 2023, three high profile public officials were involved in investigations regarding classified documents. President Joe Biden was found to have had classified documents in his garage at his Delaware residence and at the Penn-Biden Center. Vice President Mike Pence turned over boxes of classified documents as a result of a Biden investigation. President Trump was also indicted on charges related to classified documents as well, and at this time, a verdict has not been delivered.
George Santos
Freshman Representative George Santos (R-NY) was elected to the House of Representatives last year as part of the Republican takeover of the House. He was sworn in on January 7th of this year and the scandals started from there. From the time after Santos won his election, there were some questions about several claims he had made about himself, including about his education, past jobs, family history, athletic career and more. Officials later discovered that Santos lied about them all. One of the key highlights of his time in the House is his argument with Senator Mitt Romney (R-UT). Right before the State of the Union Address, Romney reportedly said “You don’t belong here”. Santos was also indicted for using his campaign funds for botox and adult websites, which would later lead to his bipartisan expulsion on December 1.
Bob Menendez
Senator Bob Menendez (D-NJ) has been New Jersey’s senior senator since he was appointed in 2006 by Governor Jon Corzine. Since then he has been plagued with controversy, such as when he was indicted but never convicted in 2015 on federal corruption charges. In September of this year, Senator Menendez was indicted once again on federal corruption charges, this time surrounding accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars from Egypt in exchange for Menendez using his position to benefit the Egyptian government. Several politicians, both from the right and left, have called on him to resign, but he has since declined to resign. Senator Jon Fetterman has also called for the expulsion of Menendez from the Senate.
President Biden
Since the Republicans took control of the House Of Representatives, the party went full steam ahead on investigating the President. In September, the House even went as far as declaring an unofficial impeachment inquiry into the President’s foreign business dealings. On December 13, the House Of Representatives voted to formalize the impeachment. As for Biden himself, he announced he will seek reelection in 2024 with Kamala Harris returning as his running mate. Biden is likely to win the Democratic nomination with little competition for the nomination.