Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) confirmed Thursday he will not seek a third vote to become Speaker of the House and will back a plan to grant Speaker Pro Tempore Patrick McHenry (R-NC) more powers.
Jordan had lost two votes for Speaker after facing swift opposition from New York Republican moderates and many members of the House Appropriations Committee.
Breitbart News has documented how 22 House Republicans have denied Jordan the ability to serve as Speaker of the House despite overwhelming grassroots support for the Ohio Republican:
- Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE) voted for former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA)
- Rep. Vern Buchanan (R-FL) voted for Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL)
- Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer (R-OR) voted for McCarthy
- Rep. Anthony D’Esposito (R-NY) voted for former Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-NY)
- Rep. Mario Díaz-Balart (R-FL) voted for House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA)
- Rep. Jake Ellzey (R-TX) voted for Rep. Mike Garcia (R-CA)
- Rep. Drew Ferguson (R-GA) voted for Scalise
- Rep. Andrew Garbarino (R-NY) voted for Zeldin
- Rep. Carlos Giminez (R-FL) voted for McCarthy
- Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-TX) voted for Scalise
- Rep. John James (R-MI) voted for former Rep. Candice Miller (R-MI)
- Rep. Mike Kelly (R-PA) voted for former Speaker John Boehner (R-OH)
- Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R-IA) voted for Rep. Kay Granger (R-TX)
- Rep. Granger voted for Scalise
- Rep. John Rutherford (R-FL) voted for Scalise
- Rep. Mike Simpson (R-ID) voted for Scalise
- Rep. Pete Stauber (R-MN) voed for Bruce Westerman (R-AR)
- Rep. Ken Buck (R-CO) voted for House Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-MN)
- Rep. Jen Kiggans (R-VA) voted for McCarthy
- Rep. Nick LaLota (R-NY) voted for Zeldin
- Rep. Steve Womack (R-AR) voted for Scalise
- Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY) voted for McCarthy
Breitbart News senior legal contributor, Ken Klukowski, has explained how elevating McHenry could also empower House Democrat Caucus Chair Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY):
If something happens to both the president and vice president, then federal law at 3 U.S.C. § 19 says that the Speaker of the House becomes Acting President “until the expiration of the then current Presidential term.” After the Speaker, it goes to the president pro tempore of the Senate, then Cabinet secretaries in the order that Congress created their departments, starting with the secretary of state and ending with the secretary of homeland security.
But it can only be a person with the true title of Speaker, not Speaker Pro Tempore or Acting Speaker. So if McHenry – or anyone else – is sitting in the Speaker’s chair as anything other than the true Speaker elected by a roll call vote of the House, then after Biden and Harris the powers of the presidency would bypass the House altogether, going to Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) as president pro tempore of the Senate, then to Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, then Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, and all the way through Biden’s Cabinet, to Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas. Everyone in that lineup is a Democrat, aside from a Speaker duly elected by the Republican-majority House.
“This would be a total sellout of the conservative agenda that won us the House majority,” says former U.S. Ambassador Ken Blackwell, chairman of the Conservative Action Project. “Republican members need to see through this plot by the uni-party establishment to block an America First agenda that would save our constitutional republic by stopping the Biden agenda and paving the way to elect a new president in 2024.”