By Todd J. Gillman and Joseph Morton
WASHINGTON — Republicans tried and failed again Friday to break a logjam that has left the speaker’s job vacant for 10 days and paralyzed the House since the ouster of Kevin McCarthy.
In the afternoon, roughly 55 GOP lawmakers indicated by secret ballot they would refuse to support the leading contender, Rep. Jim Jordan, leaving the U.S. House rudderless as they gave up for the weekend.
They’ll try again Monday.
Jordan, the fiery judiciary chairman from Ohio who has spearheaded the Biden impeachment inquiry, was runner-up to Majority Leader Steve Scalise on a 113-99 vote Wednesday night.
Die-hard Jordan backers refused to rally behind the equally conservative but less combative Scalise. Unable to win over enough holdouts to reach 217 — the magic number in a House with 433 seats currently occupied — Scalise abruptly dropped out Thursday night.
That left Jordan as the only contender, with endorsements from Scalise, McCarthy and former President Donald Trump.
Seven-term Georgia Rep. Austin Scott, a McCarthy ally, then declared a surprise challenge Friday.
Jordan topped him by an anemic 124-81.
Lawmakers in both camps agreed that was not a resounding victory given that Scott spent just a few hours campaigning and is far less prominent.
Hoping to build momentum, Jordan then requested a nonbinding referendum to gauge whether the rest would fall in line — as many of his own backers refused to do behind Scalise, a tactic that fueled the anti-Jordan backlash.
The fact that one in four House Republicans voted no on the “yes or no” question of Jordan as speaker, signaled that trying to close the deal on the House floor would only yield further embarrassment.
“He’s getting closer and closer,” said Rep. Randy Weber of Friendswood, putting a positive spin on Jordan’s tally. “It’s just a matter of time and us having what I call a family discussion.”
That discussion was put on hold until Monday.
Budget Chairman Jodey Arrington of Lubbock said Jordan will need to identify the 55 holdouts and hear their concerns.
“Presumably they’re willing to come over if he addresses them to their satisfaction,” Arrington said.
Some Jordan backers hinted that colleagues who withhold support could face primary challenges from more reliably conservative candidates.
Arrington has praised both Jordan and Scalise throughout the process and supported each after they won the conference majority.
He was upbeat Friday on Jordan’s chances on the House floor, hinting at the hardball tactics for which Jordan and his core supporters are known.
“Jim has an outsider, very credible, conservative brand among the base across the country,” the Texan said. “When you take it to the floor and people are in primaries, I think it becomes more difficult to vote against him.”
Rep. Pat Fallon of Sherman endorsed Scalise before Wednesday’s vote, but reiterated his commitment to support whoever won a majority of the vote in conference. But, he said, other pro-Scalise members did not want to “reward the tyranny of the minority” by making Jordan speaker.
“We had a process and we had a nominee and people stabbing him in the back,” Fallon said.
None of the 25 Texas Republicans in the House openly declared themselves never-Jordan.
Small Business Chairman Roger Williams of Willow Park called it “stupid” for anyone to withhold support despite the way Jordan pushed aside Scalise.
“If you get hurt feelings in politics, get out of politics,” he said.
A trio of Texas Republicans were among the Jordan backers who had refused to back Scalise on the floor even though he’d been nominated by the House GOP: Reps. Chip Roy of Austin, Michael Cloud of Victoria and Keith Self of McKinney.
Cloud indicated he had little patience with those from the Scalise camp who didn’t feel bound by party rules requiring them to support the winner of a nominating contest, even though many Jordan backers had ignored that rule.
“They’ll have to answer to the people in their district for that,” Cloud said. “I would hope we’re making decisions based on what’s best for the American people.”
Self, a Jordan backer, initially threw his support to Scalise after his man lost round 1. He reversed course the next day on the grounds that the rules package conservatives wrung from McCarthy in January appeared to be “null and void.”
That package hobbled McCarthy by allowing a single, unhappy member of the House to demand a snap vote to remove the speaker. Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., did just that after McCarthy cut a deal with Democrats to stave off a government shutdown for six weeks that excluded certain conservative demands.
Roy sought to preclude the public schism that played out all week by proposing a rule requiring 217 GOP votes to nominate a speaker, instead of a mere majority within the conference.
That would ensure victory over the Democrat’s nominee, Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries.
McCarthy endured 15 ballots in January before he managed to overcome a blockade by 20 or so conservative holdouts.
Roy’s idea got little traction. Colleagues shot it down ahead of the Scalise-Jordan balloting Wednesday and tabled it again Friday morning without an up-or-down vote.
The Republican infighting has brought the House to a standstill. The chamber is unable to conduct any business without a speaker, though Congress was scheduled to be on recess this week anyway.
The turmoil also has undermined public confidence in Congress, polls show. Republican voters are evenly split on whether McCarthy’s ouster was a good move.
Many GOP lawmakers fear that even once the crisis has passed, lingering perceptions of a Keystone Kops conference will hand Democrats a golden opportunity to reclaim the majority in next year’s elections.
“That was a concern from the time that the seat was vacated,” Fallon said. “The longer it goes on, the greater that danger grows.”
Some Republicans downplayed the prolonged fight, though, among them Rep. Nicole Malliotakis of New York. “It took five ballots to elect the last pope,” she said during a break in Friday’s closed-door deliberations. “We’re only on our second ballot here.”
Hardly any Republicans expressed any interest in seeking some sort of accommodation with Democrats to break the impasse.
“We’re not going to be doing any type of coalition governments around here. We are not the European Parliament,” said Florida Rep. Byron Donalds. “There will be a new speaker of the House and then we’re going to get back to work.”
Maybe next week.
A number of Republicans left town after the Scalise nomination began to fall apart Thursday.
That made it even more challenging for Republicans to end the limbo right away. With their slim edge over Democrats, a mere five defections can stymie the majority. Gaetz engineered McCarthy’s removal with eight GOP votes.
The absences didn’t sit well with some Jordan supporters, including Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, who’d lobbied against Scalise on the grounds that he’s fighting cancer and isn’t healthy enough for the toughest job in Congress.
“They’re frustrated that we’re missing some of our members,” she said. “They should be here right now so that we can get through this.”
Self, on Facebook, speculated that the 10 or more colleagues absent from Friday’s meetings are trying to stymie the will of the majority’s majority.
“Their absence guarantees that we will not have a vote this weekend on Jim Jordan. Is this a mere coincidence?” he wrote.
Rep. Kat Cammack, R-Fla., said the lack of unity in the GOP conference makes it ungovernable at the moment, though Jordan could still allay concerns about his hardline persona and tactics.
“It doesn’t matter who we put up for speaker, we will not be able to have someone stand up there with the full backing of the conference” at the moment, she said.
This story, originally published in The Dallas Morning News, is reprinted as part of a collaborative partnership between The Dallas Morning News and Texas Metro News. The partnership seeks to boost coverage of Dallas’ communities of color, particularly in southern Dallas.
