Conservative Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio fell well short Tuesday of the majority he needs in the vote for a new House speaker. Twenty Republicans refused to back him — a greater number than some vote-counters had expected — and, with more GOP members reportedly threatening to turn against him in the next round, Jordan was forced to delay a second vote until Wednesday.
As Jordan scrambled to salvage his bid for the gavel, he insisted to reporters that he wouldn’t give up.
“We're going to keep going, have great conversations, great discussions with our colleagues,” he said Tuesday evening. “And no one in our conference wants to see any type of coalition government with Democrats. So we're going to keep working, and we're going to get to the vote.”
It remains unclear, though, whether Jordan can win over a significant number of holdouts, leaving the House of Representatives mired in chaos and unable to legislate.
What it means: The House has now been without a speaker for two full weeks since Kevin McCarthy was ousted from the job by a contingent of hard-right conservatives, leaving lawmakers unable to legislate.
Jordan’s history as a Trump-supporting, election-denying, ideological hardliner with no legislative success to speak of, combined with complaints from some Republicans about what they saw as his hardball tactics in the speaker’s race, have left him with significant opposition to overcome.
Washington Post congressional reporter Marianna Sotomayor notes that the opposition comes from two main blocs: moderates from New York and “appropriators, people who have for years taken the responsibility to fund the government.” Jordan, as a co-founder of the House Freedom Caucus, “has frequently sought to cut spending that even some of his colleagues consider necessary,” the Post reports.
What’s next: The House is expected to vote again Wednesday. If Jordan again fails, some lawmakers have said that they would be willing to expand the powers of Speaker Pro Tempore Patrick McHenry, the North Carolina Republican and ally of former speaker Kevin McCarthy who was named to his post and thus has very limited powers at the moment.
Republican Rep. Mike Kelly of Pennsylvania introduced a resolution Monday night to temporarily expand McHenry's powers until November 17 or until a new speaker is elected, whichever is earlier. That date, one month from today, is when current federal funding expires, meaning that the government would shut down in the absence of new spending legislation.
“By electing Representative McHenry as Speaker Pro Tempore of the House of Representatives, the House will be able to hold votes necessary to fund the government beyond the expiration of our current fiscal year,” Kelly wrote in a letter to colleagues. “Most importantly, and more broadly, we will be able to continue the work that the American people sent us here to do while we continue searching for a Speaker of the House.”
The bottom line: More turmoil ahead.
