On Friday, Republicans in the House of Representatives chose to nominate Ohio Congressman Jim Jordan to be their nominee for the Speaker of the House during an internal vote, after Louisiana Republican Rep. Steve Scalise failed to get the support necessary to cinch the position and thus dropped out the race for the seat.
According to Newsmax, the next order of business for Jordan, who is currently the Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, which is leading several major investigations into President Joe Biden, including an impeachment inquiry, will not have to focus on finding a way to bring Republicans together ahead of his floor vote.
“Frustrated House Republicans have been fighting bitterly over whom they should elect to replace the speaker they ousted, Rep. Kevin McCarthy, and the future direction of their party. The stalemate, now in its second week, has thrown the House into chaos, grinding all other business to a halt,” the report said.
“I think Jordan would do a great job,” McCarthy went on to say about his potential replacement ahead of the vote. “We got to get this back on track.”
“Attention swiftly turned to Jordan, the Judiciary Committee chairman and founder of the hard-line Freedom Caucus, as the next potential candidate after Majority Leader Steve Scalise abruptly ended his bid when it became clear holdouts would refuse to back him. But not all Republicans want to see Jordan as speaker, second in line to the presidency. Overwhelmed and exhausted, anxious GOP lawmakers worry their House majority is being frittered away to countless rounds of infighting and some don’t want to reward Jordan’s wing, which sparked the turmoil,” Newsmax added.
“If we’re going to be the majority party, we have to act like the majority party,” Rep. Austin Scott, R-Ga., who attempted to provide Jordan with one more last-ditch challenge, later explained.
However, while there are quite a number of detractors in the House against the idea of Jordan becoming the next Speaker of the House, many have stated it would be a bad move to publicly vote against him since he’s a big supporter of former President Donald Trump and is well liked and known among Republican voters.
As he headed into the morning meeting, Jordan told the press, “I feel real good.”
Check out more details on this developing story from Newsmax:
The House, without a speaker, is essentially unable to function during a time of turmoil in the U.S. and wars overseas. The political pressure increasingly is on Republicans to reverse course, reassert majority control and govern in Congress.
With the House narrowly split 221-212, with two vacancies, any nominee can lose just a few Republicans before they fail to reach the 217 majority needed in the face of opposition from Democrats, who will most certainly back their own leader, New York Rep. Hakeem Jeffries.
Absences heading into the weekend could lower the majority threshold needed, and Republicans said they were down about a dozen lawmakers as of midday Friday. No floor votes were scheduled as attendance thinned before the weekend.
When Scalise was asked whether or not he would be supporting Jordan for the speakership he answered by saying, “It’s got to be people that aren’t doing it for themselves and their own personal interest.”
Horrible answer. Just say yes or no. This sort of answer is nothing but playing politics.
Jordan has been endorsed for the position by Trump, which will go a long way in helping to raise support from Republicans ahead of the vote.
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