It’s been over two weeks since the House Republicans ousted Speaker Kevin McCarthy and they have yet to elect a new leader of the chamber.
Following the failure of Majority Leader Steve Scalise to get the support needed from his own party, it’s now up to the man who came up short against Mr Scalise for the nomination – Rep Jim Jordan – to make an attempt.
The House GOP remains divided, dysfunctional and disorganised, with 20 members voting against Mr Jordan on Tuesday (17 October). He can only afford to lose four votes.
The next vote on the speakership bid of Mr Jordan will be held today – Wednesday (18 October) – at 11am ET, the GOP nominee announced on Tuesday.
Critics of Mr Jordan are pushing to torpedo his bid for the gavel once and for all. A number of those who voted for other candidates began to push for an immediate second vote while Mr Jordan huddled with allies on Tuesday afternoon.
“We need to bring this to the floor ASAP and get to the work of the American people,” Rep Steve Womack of Arkansas wrote on X.
The Ohio Republican won a nomination vote on Friday (13 October), receiving 124 votes against 81 for Rep Austin Scott, who put his name in for contention while noting he didn’t actually want to be speaker. Observers noted that the support for Mr Scott revealed the substantial antipathy towards Mr Jordan within the conference.
U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) (C) talks to a staff member and Rep. Warren Davidson (R-OH) (R) while former Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) laughs— (Getty Images)
Mr McCarthy, the ex-speaker, pushed for a second internal vote on Mr Jordan’s nomination, during which 152 members voted yes and 55 said no.
The pressure campaign of Mr Jordan and his allies now appears to have backfired.
Republicans supporting Mr Jordan pushed to bring the vote to the floor as a way to put public pressure on the holdouts. Those backing Mr Jordan have said that the backlash from the Trump wing of the GOP will be fierce against those blocking the Ohioan.
A staff member from the Hannity programme on Fox News wrote an email to holdouts asking why they’re not backing Mr Jordan, but the email is reportedly having the opposite effect, with its pressuring tone possibly pushing members away from the Judiciary chair, according to Axios.
Mr Jordan is also trying to push the House GOP closer to a presidential candidate – former White House incumbent Donald Trump – in the middle of a primary with those not backing him likely supporting other contenders.
Rep Victoria Spartz of Indiana chose to not back Mr Jordan in the first vote on Tuesday.
On Wednesday morning ahead of the second ballot, she wrote on X: “Appreciate many friendly calls, but understand your frustrations. Republicans must govern - not be talking heads on TV!”
She went on to lay out “two points – Jim is elected by members and accountable to members from very diverse districts, so coercion and intimidation is not a good idea”.
“Before you coronate Jim please assess if he was effective for you or for McCarthy as Judiciary Chair,” she added.
Nebraska GOP Rep Don Bacon told KETV on Wednesday, “It is our hope that Jim, Mr Jordan, will realize he cannot win. And we need to move on and select a speaker. We need a speaker ASAP”.
Mr Bacon voted for former Speaker Kevin McCarthy during the first ballot on Tuesday.
Going into the first vote,Mr Jordan had appeared to be turning the tide in terms of garnering support from within his own party.
Over the weekend, he picked up establishment support and, on Monday, also gained allies in appropriators and members of the Armed Services Committee who had initially appeared hesitant to back him because of his legislative record.
But when the vote took place, it slowly became clear that Mr Jordan was still far from taking the gavel.
If Jordan fails, who’s up?
If Mr Jordan is unable to grasp the gavel, a number of Republicans have mentioned Louisiana Rep Mike Johnson as a possible next option. The vice chair of the Republican conference, 51, has been floated alongside Majority Whip Tom Emmer, 62, who has spent the last half-decade in the leadership, with most of his time going to chairing the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC).
While Mr Emmer has some backers on the right of the party, large parts of the Trump wing aren’t as supportive, Punchbowl News notes.
Mr McCarthy may start believing in an unlikely comeback if the speaker race doesn’t come to a resolution this week. This would require at least four of the eight members who voted against him to flip.
Many GOP members have told the press that their party is so divided that no candidate can get 217 votes from the party, meaning that votes from Democrats may be required to get over the line.
But there have been no major discussions between the parties and the Democrats would use their leverage to push for major concessions, and it’s unclear what a deal would look like.
Any member of the chamber could simply step onto the floor when the House opens and put forward a privileged resolution to strengthen and widen the powers of the temporary speaker, Rep Patrick McHenry of North Carolina. The McCarthy ally and famed gavel-slammer could also be elected as the permanent speaker.
Other candidates in the mix include Rep Jodey Arrington of Texas, Rep Mark Green of Florida, and Rep Kevin Hern of Oklahoma, but none of these are likely to get to 217 votes, according to Punchbowl.
The background
The fresh chaos emerged after the initial GOP nominee for speaker, Mr Scalise, declared on Thursday (12 October) that he had been unable to secure the support he needed to take the vote to the House floor.
“If you look at where our conference is, there’s still work to be done,” he said. “Our conference still has to come together. And it’s not there.”
“There are still some people that have their own agendas,” he added at the time. “And I was very clear we have to have everybody put their agendas on the side and focus on what this country needs this country is counting on us to come back together.”
The House GOP met on Friday (13 October), once again rejecting rules changes to how they elect their leaders. Among the proposed changes was a requirement that for a representative to be nominated for speaker, they must get 217 votes within the conference — the number of votes needed on the House floor — to be nominated, not a simple majority, according to CNN.
This would prevent Mr Scalise from having been nominated in the first place, as he received 113 votes to Mr Jordan’s 99 in the first internal vote.
‘Any deal with Democrats would be to elect a Republican Speaker’
Rep Mike Lawler, a freshman New York Republican in a district won by President Joe Biden in 2020, appeared on Bloomberg TV last week saying that all the options must be exhausted before any Republican will turn to Democrats to possibly make a deal on who can become speaker.
“Any deal with Democrats would be to elect a Republican Speaker,” he said at the time amid suggestions that five Republicans could cross the aisle and back Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, a New York Democrat.
Steve Scalise announces he’s out of the speaker’s race— (Getty Images)
Last week, members of both parties appeared to be opening up to a possible bipartisan deal to elect a speaker as a number of Republicans were and continue to be worried that no one can win a House vote with only GOP votes because of the division within their conference.
Rep Dan Kildee, a member of the Democratic leadership in the House, told Axios at the time that “there’s a sentiment building around [a bipartisan deal] among Democrats and Republicans”.
Meanwhile, Rep Maria Salazar, a member of the moderate Republican Governance Group, told the outlet that “we’re open to anything that’s reasonable,” adding that “bipartisanship is not a sin”.
And Rep Don Bacon, a Nebraska Republican who has a reputation for making deals across the aisle, told Axios that “at this point, there are enough Republicans and Democrats saying we’ve got to get this fixed” while Rep Greg Landsman, an Ohio Democrat, said that he “absolutely” is seeing Republicans open up to a deal, saying: “Yes, I mean you’re seeing that.”
A group of 10 lawmakers including members of both parties were having initial discussions last week, according to a moderate GOP member.
“The question is who gets you to the largest minority of the majority,” the lawmaker told Axios. “Is it Don Bacon, who gets 20 [GOP] votes and 200 Democrats? Is it French Hill who gets 100 votes from Republicans? And the fewer Republicans, the more dangerous this is — not just politically, but structurally.”
The lawmaker, who requested to remain anonymous, noted that another issue is how many candidates have to fail before members are open to a deal.
“Kevin, Steve, Jordan, Emmer … how many losses do you have to have to make that an acceptable outcome?” the lawmaker asked.
While coalition government is foreign to Congress, even as it’s common in state legislatures and internationally, the House is “setting precedent every day,” the lawmaker added.
‘Whatever solution we have will be unprecedented’
Before Mr McCarthy’s ouster nearly two weeks ago, a speaker had never before been voted out.
“Whatever solution we have will be unprecedented,” the moderate GOP member said.
Mr Landsman said that Democrats want “institutional reforms, rules changes that allow for bipartisan votes ... not every couple months but every day”.
But heavy scepticism remained last week that any bipartisan deal would be possible after every single Democrat voted to boot Mr McCarthy.
Rep Blake Moore, a Utah Republican, told Axios that “there was no sense of [bipartisanship] when it was the motion to vacate a week and a half ago, so I don’t think anything is credible that could be realistic at the moment”.
Mr Bacon said before Mr Scalise announced his withdrawal that “at some point we’re going to be exasperated [and say], ‘Okay, this is not working’”.
Following Mr Scalise making his failure official, Mr Bacon was asked if Republicans were closer to that point.
“I think we are ... It’s going to be a sort of consensus opinion between a group of us,” he told Axios.
