Lawmakers take to the House floor Tuesday to try to resolve their ongoing speaker standoff that has left the chamber without a leader for two weeks since Kevin McCarthy’s ouster.
House Republicans nominated Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio for the post after their initial nominee bowed out of the race amid deep divisions within the conference. While he picked up significant new support since he won the nomination Friday, it remained unclear if Jordan has the necessary backing heading into the floor vote slated for Tuesday afternoon. But the House Judiciary Committee chairman forged ahead anyway, as lawmakers grew impatient about the stalemate.
The former conservative firebrand, who has bowed to leadership in recent years, gained a handful of key endorsements on Monday from lawmakers who had previously opposed a Jordan speakership. Typically, some lawmakers pledge their vote in the first round as a good-faith show of support to their party’s speaker nominee. But it’s not clear that those votes will remain in place if the nominee does not prevail on an initial ballot. So whether Jordan’s newfound backing dominoes into enough support to grant him the gavel remains to be seen.
The new support came after a pressure campaign over the weekend by Jordan’s allies, as lawmakers face the threat of possible primary opponents should they deny Jordan their support. The strategy was a stunning departure from Majority Leader Steve Scalise’s tactics to secure support days earlier, with hours-long meetings where lawmakers aired their grievances aimed at bringing the conference together.
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Nevertheless, Jordan made a pitch for unity in a letter to colleagues on Monday, writing that “the country and our conference cannot afford us attacking each other right now.”
“The role of a speaker is to bring all Republicans together,” Jordan said. “That’s what I intend to do.”
With a razor-thin GOP majority in the House, Jordan can afford to lose the support of only a handful of lawmakers, making a win on the first round of votes unlikely. Many moderate Republicans in competitive districts face the difficult choice of casting a vote against Jordan to keep a hard-liner from leadership or voting for him in order to restore functionality to the chamber. And adding to the narrow margin is at least one expected GOP absence on Tuesday.
Jordan, who was elected to Congress in 2006, is a top ally to President Donald Trump and has amplified his false election claims. His level of involvement in the events around Jan. 6 remains unclear, since he refused to testify before a congressional committee investigating the insurrection, which characterized him in its report as a “significant player in President Trump’s efforts.” He’s considered to be one of the most conservative members of Congress, setting an all-time record for voting with a conservative group and being among the founding members of the House Freedom Caucus.
Trump, who returned to Manhattan for his civil fraud trial on Tuesday, again expressed his support for Jordan, writing on his social media platform that Jordan “will be a GREAT Speaker of the House” and reiterating his “Complete and Total Endorsement.”
In January, it took McCarthy 15 rounds of voting to secure the gavel, though he had the support of around 200 Republicans throughout, as a small group of GOP rebels withheld their support until concessions were made. Jordan, though he’s popular among conservatives, could run into similar troubles on Tuesday.
Meanwhile, House Democrats were expected to back Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries for speaker, as they did in January, remaining united as a minority while House Republicans try to coalesce behind a speaker. But Democrats also continued to tout their willingness to forge a bipartisan path forward with Republicans heading into the vote on Tuesday, leaving the door open for a surprise ending to the speaker standoff.
