Speaker-designate Steve Scalise (R-La.) is struggling to win the support he will need to be elected to the top spot on the House floor, signaling what could be a sequel to his predecessor’s fight to win the gavel in January.
Scalise scored a victory on Wednesday by defeating House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) in the conference’s internal vote to become the GOP nominee for Speaker. But the tally was a slim 113-99 victory, with around a dozen votes for others or “present” — and even after Jordan swung his support to Scalise following the vote, it was unclear if his supporters would do the same.
At least seven Republicans say they plan to back someone other than Scalise; at least six others say they are undecided; and some have declined to comment on who they will stand behind — enough resistance to deny Scalise the Speakership on the House floor.
Democrats are all expected to unite behind Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) as their preferred Speaker, just as they did in lockstep through 15 ballots in January. That means Scalise, just like deposed Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), can only afford a handful of Republican defections.
But a second floor fight for the Speakership — a sequel to McCarthy’s marathon battle in January — would come with a dangerous backdrop: a war in Israel and a November government funding deadline, both of which loom over the divided GOP conference.
The House is set to reconvene at noon on Thursday, but it is not clear whether it will then move to a floor vote for Speaker.
Rep. Carlos Gimenez (R-Fla.) said he plans to vote for McCarthy for Speaker on the House floor. Republican Reps. Lauren Boebert (Colo.), Bob Good (Va.), Marjorie Taylor Greene (Ga.), Max Miller (Ohio), Nancy Mace (S.C.) and Lloyd Smucker (Pa.) are among those who have said they plan to vote for Jordan.
He just doesn’t have the votes. He can only lose four Republicans on the floor and many more than that are currently publicly opposed to him.”
It definitively looks like it, but GOP tries hard to not admit that.
Reminds me of a pj o’rourke quote
The Democrats are the party that says government will make you smarter, taller, richer, and remove the crabgrass on your lawn. The Republicans are the party that says government doesn’t work and then they get elected and prove it.
It’s sad that so many people say ‘eat the rich’ but don’t know who PJ O’Roark is.
One of the few people on the right I ever had any respect for. In part because he had no qualms about criticizing his own side when they fucked up. And, of course, they fucked up all the time, so he was never short of criticism.
You mean Steve “I’m like David Duke without the baggage” Scalise?
I wonder what the monkey’s paw will do to him if he does manage to pull this out.
Please, let it be “can’t speak.”
That already happened to Moscow Mitch I think the paw is more creative than that.
God DAMN!
Did you know? He became focused on one time that someone spoke 3 minutes over their allotted time (after he was cut off at his time) one time in 1987 and has held a grudge ever since because it was a (D) that allowed it. It’s so serious that I heard about it (from him on C-SPAN in 2021) and won’t let the world forget.
Probably whatever it did to him when he survived being shot.
That just got him more NRA money
The monkey is on his side. All the fingers will go down but one and Scalise will shove it up our collective asses lube-free.
It should be journalistic malpractice to call this shitbag Scalise and not David Duke without the baggage. He said it himself.
Good.
He’s a white supremacist. I actually don’t think he can pull it off. I think that may be a bridge too far for some Republicans. Or at least, I hope it is. And I hope at least 5 feel that way.
I think that may be a bridge too far for some Republicans.
With the way the Republican Party has developed over the past 7-8 years, I wouldn’t bet on it.
The white supremacy is the only thing they like about him.
He is abrasive, weird and profoundly unintelligent. He is simply not one of the cool kids. That is why they don’t like him. Conservatives are much more simple than the public gives them credit for. The racism is the only part about him they actually approve of.
Can’t wait to see most of the Republican caucus in the House vote for a white supremacist as Speaker.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Scalise scored a victory on Wednesday by defeating House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) in the conference’s internal vote to become the GOP nominee for Speaker.
But a second floor fight for the Speakership — a sequel to McCarthy’s marathon battle in January — would come with a dangerous backdrop: a war in Israel and a November government funding deadline, both of which loom over the divided GOP conference.
Republican Reps. Lauren Boebert (Colo.), Bob Good (Va.), Marjorie Taylor Greene (Ga.), Max Miller (Ohio), Nancy Mace (S.C.) and Lloyd Smucker (Pa.) are among those who have said they plan to vote for Jordan.
And some are mad about the successful effort to kill a proposed rule change that would have temporarily raised the threshold to nominate a GOP Speaker candidate from a majority of the conference to 217 members — the number of votes needed to win on the House floor.
Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas), who led that effort to change the rules, said that people who had supported the 217 threshold suddenly flipped after getting pressure from K Street and beyond — and suspected that the whip operation against the amendment came from Scalise’s camp.
“I’ve been very vocal about this over the last couple of days: I personally cannot, in good conscience, vote for someone who attended a white supremacist conference and compared himself to David Duke,” Mace said on CNN.
The original article contains 1,320 words, the summary contains 232 words. Saved 82%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
