Speaker-designate Jim Jordan (R-OH) called the bluff of the establishment opposition to his speakership bid on Wednesday by pushing for a vote on a resolution that would permit Speaker Pro Tempore Patrick McHenry (R-NC) to become the permanent acting House Speaker.
McHenry, whom Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) appointed to the job, currently maintains limited authority to oversee the election of a new Speaker while the conference negotiates. To block Jordan’s path to the gavel, his opposition argues that two votes should occur Wednesday: A second round vote for Jordan and a resolution vote for McHenry.
“I think both questions should be called. Let’s get an answer,” Jordan told reporters, calling his opposition’s bluff. “I think we should have that resolution, that question called. Let’s get a vote on that and find out.”
“I think it should be offered,” he continued. “Let’s find out. We’ve got to get an answer one way or another here.”
“I don’t think that’s the right way to go,” he said about McHenry’s resolution. “I think we should get a Republican Speaker. I got 90 percent of the Republicans in the conference supporting me.”
“The fundamental question today is, are we going to elect a Republican Speaker, or are we going to have a coalition government? And I just met with our leadership and said: put both questions to the body today. Let’s find out,” he added.
A source familiar with McHenry’s thinking told the Daily Caller the congressman is not interested in the job. “I can share that he’s not interested in the role, not involved in these discussions, and is focused on getting Chairman Jordan elected Speaker,” the source said. However, the source could be downplaying McHenry’s desire for the gavel so as not to make McHenry appear too eager.
McHenry could work with House Democrats to obtain enough votes to circumvent a lack of GOP support, Breitbart News’s Matt Boyle reported:
Meanwhile, Democrats are increasingly open to entertaining the possibility of voting with Republicans to empower acting Speaker Pro Tempore Patrick McHenry. That would keep McHenry out of the presidential line of succession, and they would likely extract a heavy price from Republicans–on things like impeachment, appropriations, committee structures, and more–for their votes. But a growing number of Republicans are open to the idea as well and it is beginning to become a real possibility.
The threat of that type of a structure might nudge Republicans towards finally picking a GOP Speaker–Jordan seems to be the only one with a pathway to getting there after House Majority Leader Steve Scalise failed last week. Other names floated, like House Majority Whip Tom Emmer or Rep. Mike Johnson (R-LA) or more, would likely face similar problems as McCarthy and Scalise did, and now Jordan is going through.
A huge part of this story seems to be Scalise’s resentment at Jordan after his failure to get there last week. Scalise only mustered 110 votes from voting members in conference, though, which is less than a majority of the 221-member majority. Now, though, Scalise seems to be taking out his anger on Jordan–many of the 19 holdouts are Scalise allies and Scalise refuses to tell them to stand down and refused to give a nominating speech for Jordan on the floor Tuesday–which led to nasty, bitter infighting pouring into the public eye on Tuesday evening between GOP leaders.
Follow Wendell Husebø on Twitter @WendellHusebø. He is the author of Politics of Slave Morality.
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