Rep. Chip Roy Endorses Byron Donalds for Speaker

Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) has endorsed Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL) for Speaker of the House, a big victory for the Floridian as he assembles a regional and ideological bloc of support.

Roy and Donalds are members of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, where Roy serves as the policy chair. Among House conservatives, Roy is among the most consistent voices on conservative networks and has served as a spending deal negotiator inside the Republican conference.

Donalds has also garnered endorsements from fellow Floridians, Reps. Carlos Gimenez and Mario Diaz-Balart, moderate voices inside the conference whose endorsements demonstrate Donalds’ broad appeal.

Roy’s statement is below:

“Since being elected to represent Texans in Washington, I have been unequivocal that we need to fundamentally change this town.  It’s why the first thing I did upon being elected to Congress in 2018 was nominate Jim Jordan for Minority Leader.  While I still believe Jim would have been a strong choice for Speaker, Republicans will now coalesce around another strong leader.

I believe that candidate is my friend from Florida, Byron Donalds.

Last January, I nominated Byron for Speaker when I joined with 19 colleagues to demand an end to the status quo and to fight for transformational change.  Over the past 10 months, Byron and I worked with Speaker McCarthy to take significant steps to reopen the legislative process, pass the strongest border security bill this body has ever produced, work to cut spending through the Limit, Save, Grow Act, move individual appropriations bills, pass a conservative defense reauthorization bill, and more.

Now, we must finish the job.  As Speaker of the House, Byron will build upon and cement these victories for America by empowering the entire GOP Conference to:

• Cut spending from FY 2023 to FY 2024 below the FRA levels by finishing the appropriations process and paying for all supplemental funding out of Biden’s IRS expansion and other damaging so-called Inflation Reduction Act policies;

• Secure the border as outlined in the strong House-passed HR2: The Secure the Border Act of 2023 – leveraging every moving legislative vehicle possible to get the job done;

• Ensure not one dollar goes to Ukraine absent 1) the necessary border security policy changes in H.R. 2 signed into law, 2) a full accounting of all Ukraine funding & a clear mission, 3) a decoupling from other spending (including Israel), and 4) being limited & fully paid for;  

• End the woke cancer at the Pentagon by fighting for the provisions in the House-passed NDAA and ensure the US is not mired in never-ending foreign entanglements; and

• Honor the transformative changes we secured in January to open the People’s House and maintain appropriate ideological representation at the decision-table.

Byron is a strong communicator backed by a conservative voting record who has simultaneously played a central role in bringing together members from across the Republican conference to advance conservative priorities.  To that end, I plan to hold Speaker Donalds just as accountable to those priorities as I did Speaker McCarthy, just as Byron would expect me to do.

The American people deserve to win again.  They deserve someone who can finish the job we started back in January.  They deserve a change and Byron Donalds is the man to deliver that change.”

Republicans will hold a candidate forum Monday night and are scheduled to vote Tuesday.

Follow Bradley Jaye on Twitter at @BradleyAJaye.