The House of Representatives remained without a speaker on Thursday, as the fractious Republican majority refused to unite behind their party’s chosen nominee, congressman Steve Scalise of Louisiana.
A day after narrowly becoming House Republicans’ candidate for speaker in a secret ballot vote, Scalise moved no closer to overcoming the entrenched divisions on Thursday.
Facing an imperiled quest for the gavel, Scalise withdrew from the contest later that evening, telling colleagues that the Republican majority “still has to come together and is not there”.
The fate of the speakership remains uncertain and congressional business is at a standstill.
Supporters of the congressman Jim Jordan, the chair of the judiciary committee, who challenged Scalise for the nomination, said they would continue to push for his candidacy. Other members fumed that a small disaffected faction had once again plunged their conference – and the chamber – into chaos following the sudden and historic ousting of the former Republican speaker Kevin McCarthy last week.
“Time is of the essence,” McCarthy told reporters upon arriving at the Capitol on Thursday. He added that Scalise, his former deputy, still faced a “big hill” to secure the 217 votes needed to claim the speakership.
House Republicans raised a number of concerns with Scalise’s candidacy, among them, that, as the number-two House Republican, he doesn’t represent institutional change, that he lacks a unifying vision for the conference or that his battle with blood cancer would make it difficult for him to lead the chamber.
Tensions were high after a lengthy closed-door session provided ample time for Republican lawmakers to air their grievances but brought them no closer to solving the central question of who should lead the House.
“I don’t know what we accomplished other than we know we have a lot of divisions,” Republican congressman Troy Nehls of Texas told reporters as he left the meeting.
Nehls suggested the party nominate Donald Trump to be speaker if they are unable to unite around someone in the conference. The House speaker does not need to be a member of the chamber.
Trump, the frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination who endorsed Jordan for the speakership, weighed in on Thursday to argue that Scalise should focus on his health instead of trying to lead the House.
“Steve is a man that is in serious trouble, from the standpoint of his cancer,” Trump said on Fox News host Brian Kilmeade’s radio show. Scalise, who is undergoing chemotherapy treatment, told Republicans on Thursday that his prognosis was good and that he feels up for the job.
For his part, Jordan had encouraged his allies to support Scalise and offered to give his nominating speech on the House floor.
“We need to come together and support Steve,” Jordan told reporters on Thursday, before Scalise withdrew. So far those entreaties have done little to help Scalise, whose path to the speakership seemed to be narrowing by the hour.
Florida congresswoman Anna Paulina Luna, who was part of a hard-right coalition that triggered a messy floor fight over McCarthy’s speakership in January, said on Wednesday night that Scalise had won her over after promising that her committee would be empowered to pursue its investigations into Biden. Hours later, during the private meeting with Republicans on Thursday, she said it had become clear Scalise could not form a consensus coalition and “no longer” had her vote.
Among Scalise’s other detractors are South Carolina congresswoman Nancy Mace, one of the Republicans who voted to oust McCarthy. On Wednesday, she pointed to Scalise’s past as a reason she would not vote for him on the House floor.
“I personally cannot in good conscience vote for someone who attended a white supremacist conference and compared himself to David Duke,” she said in an interview on CNN Wednesday. “I would be doing an enormous disservice to the voters that I represent in South Carolina if I were to do that.
Scalise apologized in 2014 for attending the conference, saying he was unaware of the group’s political views. He represents the Louisiana congressional district once held by Duke, the former leader of the Ku Klux Klan.
Far-right congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia said concerns over Scalise’s health were the reason she would not support him.
Meanwhile, embattled congressman George Santos, of New York, who is now facing expulsion from Congress, said he would not vote for Scalise “come hell or high water”.
The chaos has infuriated many House Republicans who feel Scalise’s objectors had not stated a clear rationale for their opposition.
“Your vote is for your constituents, not your personal grievances,” said Republican congressman Dan Crenshaw of Texas.
As the House sat leaderless, some Republicans began to discuss other solutions, such as tapping an alternative candidate or fully empowering Republican congressman Patrick McHenry of North Carolina, who was named the interim speaker after McCarthy’s ouster.
Without a speaker, the House is effectively at a standstill. Democrats, many Republicans and the White House have implored the House GOP to move swiftly to elect a new speaker so Congress can resume consideration of pressing matters, among them providing support to Israel in its war with the Palestinian group Hamas, which has claimed thousands of lives on both sides, including 27 Americans.
The minority leader Hakeem Jeffries told reporters on Thursday that his caucus was willing “to find a bipartisan path forward out of the chaos and dysfunction”. But Democrats are unlikely to find either Scalise or Jordan palatable choices for speaker, as both voted against certifying the 2020 electoral college vote and are now using their House majority to pursue investigations into Joe Biden and his administration.
The White House press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, called the Republicans’ struggle to elect a speaker “shambolic chaos” and said the American people have never seen a majority party “behave this way”. The White House is expected to soon ask Congress to appropriate additional funds for Israel and Ukraine, while the threat of a government shutdown looms next month if lawmakers fail to act.
With their ability to govern in question, Republicans are loath to repeat the ugly floor battle that triggered 15 rounds of balloting before McCarthy was elected. But others argue that the only way forward is to move to a floor vote.
“Stop dragging it out,” far-right congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia wrote on X, formerly Twitter. “If Kevin McCarthy had to go 15 rounds then the next Speaker should be able to do the same or more if they have to.”
• This article was amended on 12 October 2023 to correct a misidentification of Steve Scalise as the House majority whip. He is currently the House majority leader.
