“If you see smoke, it’s not a speaker. Someone just set the place on fire,” Ronny Jackson (R-Texas).
House Republicans have gone 10 days without a Speaker and seem even further from electing their next leader. House Republicans are meeting again this morning after Representative Steve Scalise (R-Louisiana) announced at a Republican conference meeting Thursday night that he is pulling out of the race to become speaker. The announcement came after a day full of lengthy meetings with fellow Republicans that several described as very unproductive. Scalise had narrowly edged Representative Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) in a Wednesday conference vote to be named speaker-designate but had made little progress getting to the 217 votes he would need in a floor vote to win the gavel.
This morning, minutes after convening the House at 9 A.M., Representative Patrick McHenry (R-North Carolina), the speaker pro tempore, announced that the chamber would go into recess with no set time to return. Republicans are now expected to go behind closed doors to consider next steps for the speakership. There were no changes to the House Republican conference rules today, after several proposals were put forth but eventually were withdrawn including rejecting — for the second time this week — a proposal designed to help ensure their pick for speaker has the support needed to prevail on the floor. GOP lawmakers voted to table a plan to require 217 of the 221 House Republicans to agree on their next leader before any speakership vote on the floor, where Democrats are set to remain united in support of Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-New York). While there is support for Representative Jordan, and Republicans plan on nominating him and voting at 1 P.M., even if Jordan clinches the majority today, he still actually has to get 217. Jordan has been meeting and having calls with holdouts as he attempts to lock down the 217 votes, but there are already signs Jordan will encounter resistance to his bid as several lawmakers have said they would not vote for him and it’s unclear if Jordan will have any better chance at success than Scalise. Moderate Republicans have felt it is particularly risky to vote for him as he is closely aligned with former president Donald Trump and members do not know on what kind of policy prescriptions Jordan would make the House vote on. Further, swing-district Republicans worry that his MAGA bona fides, past issues and name recognition nationally could hurt their own reelection chances. There also are growing calls from centrists to extend the powers of Speaker Pro Tempore McHenry so that the House can begin to address critical pieces of legislation after being frozen for almost two weeks. But such a move is unprecedented and would require changing the House rules — and might need Democratic support to do so. Current rules state that the temporary position exists only to facilitate and oversee the election of a speaker. A group of Republicans are also circulating a letter asserting that McHenry should have more temporary power, a sign of desperation as the GOP scrambles to coalesce around a speaker.
As of noon, Members have been told to stay in Washington, in case a vote on Speaker happens on the House floor this weekend.
