Jim Jordan still facing opposition on eve of House speakership vote

Table Of Content

• House Republicans reject Jim Jordan a third time for speaker as opposition deepens
• Members complain about Jordan's aggressive pressure campaign
• Jordan appears to fall short on votes in third round of voting for speaker
• JUST IN: Jordan again fails to win speakership in third round of voting
• Key things to know about Jordan's failed House speaker vote on Tuesday — and what is expected to happen today

A GOP source familiar with the plans tells NPR that there is a plan to introduce resolution to officially augment what McHenry can do in the temporary role. Some members and GOP aides are speculating Jordan will lose more votes as a result of the pressure campaign. For Rep. Steve Womack, R-Ark, the targeting campaign "has not helped one iota." Any effort to empower McHenry would require a House vote needing the same majority vote as electing a speaker. Some Democrats have suggested they would want assurances that McHenry would allow votes on bipartisan spending bills, aide to Ukraine, and other measures that could pass. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., told reporters Tuesday he was open to discussions with Republicans who were interested in governing.

House Republicans reject Jim Jordan a third time for speaker as opposition deepens

Others, like Rep. Jen Kiggans, R-Va., and Kay Granger, R-Texas, have talked vaguely of threats and warned Jordan and his allies to back off. Friday’s vote was 194 for Jordan, his lowest tally yet, and 210 for Jeffries, with two absences on each side. McHenry himself has brushed off attempts to take the job more permanently after he was appointed to the role after the unprecedented ouster of McCarthy more than two weeks ago. Republicans are loath to partner with the Democrats in a bipartisan way on the arrangement, and it’s highly unlikely Republicans could agree to give McHenry more powers on their own, since their hard-liners don’t like it. And, you know what, it’s messy,” Gaetz said later, saying he had no regrets over the past weeks of havoc.

Members complain about Jordan's aggressive pressure campaign

He would need to convince at least five Republicans to cross the aisle and cast their vote for the Democratic representative. Whether that’s a stable and sustainable solution for the House speaker, who said earlier this week he was willing to risk his speakership to do “the right thing” and advance aid, remains to be seen. The foreign aid package, which now advances to the Senate as a single bill, has required a virtually unprecedented degree of Democratic support at every stage to advance over opposition from the far right. The Israel portion of the bill also included $9 billion in humanitarian aid for Gaza and other theaters, support for U.S. military operations in the Middle East and $400 million in Nonprofit Security Grant Program funding. Johnson forcefully pushed back against arguments from some in his party that the humanitarian aid was effectively a giveaway to Hamas, noting it includes a ban on funding to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency and strict oversight provisions for aid. Pelosi cited Banks and Jordan’s opposition to certifying the 2020 presidential election and their criticism of the select committee’s investigation in her decision, according to USA Today.

Jordan appears to fall short on votes in third round of voting for speaker

Jordan has denounced the threats and harassment some of his detractors are facing, and has denied any involvement in the right-wing intimidation tactics. But CPI is very closely tied to the Freedom Caucus, which even holds their weekly meetings at CPI’s headquarters. ET Wednesday, where the Ohio Republican and his allies hope to see his support increase even in the face of entrenched opposition. Conservative Republican Rep. Jim Jordan called off a second speaker’s vote Tuesday evening while he scrambled behind the scenes to try to win over 20 Republicans who voted against him earlier in the day. Jordan fell short of securing the speakership during the first round of voting yesterday with 20 Republicans voting against him.

As Rep. Jim Jordan meets with a number of allies in hopes of swaying key holdouts to his speakership bid, GOP sources say his opposition could grow if the votes continue over multiple rounds of ballots. During the first round of voting on Tuesday, 20 House Republicans voted against Jordan. On Wednesday, that number rose to 22, showing that the opposition against the candidate has grown. There were four new Republican votes against Jordan and two that flipped into his column.

Jim Jordan loses second vote for House speaker amid steep GOP opposition - WSIL TV

Jim Jordan loses second vote for House speaker amid steep GOP opposition.

Posted: Wed, 18 Oct 2023 17:25:07 GMT [source]

"I don't either of them have many detractors if that's the correct word for it," Murphy told reporters. House Republicans once again voted to reject the nomination of Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, to be the next speaker of the House. Elevating McHenry to an expanded speaker’s role could be a possible off-ramp for the crisis, but it would not be as politically simple as it might seem. There is a real possibility that McHenry does receive expanded powers, according to one GOP member. This would happen by bringing a resolution to the floor and having the full House vote on it. There is also the idea of giving Speaker Pro Tempore Patrick McHenry (R-NC) more power by taking a vote on the House floor to extend his time in the position and expand his powers.

JUST IN: Jordan again fails to win speakership in third round of voting

Given the narrow House GOP majority, Jordan can only afford to lose a handful of votes and the high number of votes against him puts the gavel far out of reach. He predicted that there would be a "pick up" in the number of votes of GOP members voting for other people on the second ballot. Seven members of the House Appropriations Committee – which has fought Jordan’s opposition to spending bills for years – voted against Jordan. After Scalise dropped out of the race and Jordan went on to become the nominee last week, Scalise immediately committed to voting for Jordan and encouraged his supporters to do the same.

"We're working on it," Jordan told reporters ahead of the vote, even as it was clear that momentum for his effort to gain the gavel had shifted. Others complained that their staff received phone calls from Fox News host Sean Hannity pressuring them to vote for Jordan. Hannity originally characterized those calls as his attempt as a journalist to ask members questions about their position on the speakers race. However, he followed up after the second round of voting with a post on X, formerly known as Twitter encouraging viewers to call members.

The House remains in paralysis after the Ohio congressman fell significantly short of winning the speaker’s gavel on a first ballot Tuesday, with 20 Republicans opposed to Jordan. Jordan fell significantly short of winning the speaker’s gavel on a first ballot Tuesday, leaving the House in paralysis after 20 Republicans opposed the Ohio congressman. Republican Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks of Iowa said in a statement that she has “received credible death threats and a barrage of threatening calls” after flipping her speaker vote Wednesday, instead casting a ballot for House Appropriations Chairwoman Kay Granger. Jordan is a polarizing figure in the speaker’s fight, a complicating factor in his effort to lock down votes.

“My hope is he continues to be a leader within our conference,” Bucshon wrote. In a statement exclusive to IndyStar, Banks said he believes Jordan will pass a conservative agenda. "I wish [McCarthy] would take a deeper policy look at some of these issues that we've come together on, understanding they may want to make changes," she told Politico. "Just unilaterally being against? I'd rather get things done, put it that way."

Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan's loss on his first ballot for House speaker Tuesday and his effort to win the gavel despite facing 20 holdouts from within his party, has begun to expose cracks forming within the leadership of the House GOP. As the speaker battle drags on, tensions and frustration have risen among House Republicans. Some of the lawmakers who have voted against Jordan in the speaker’s race have railed against what they have described as a pressure campaign against them.

Fourteen Republicans had voted earlier this year against Israel funding without spending cuts. As a sign of the extent to which Democratic support for Israel has waned since the start of the war, just eight Democrats opposed funding for the Iron Dome missile defense system in 2021, although that bill did not include offensive weapons. Disinformation experts, for example, have said Jordan's crusade has had a chilling effect on their work. And now that he has undermined the researchers, he's putting pressure on private industries to acquiesce to conservatives' will, too. Rogan’s podcast is quite popular among conservatives — and with conservative men, in particular — and Jordan seems to think Coca-Cola is part of some corporate conspiracy to censor Rogan by denying ad revenue to his parent company, Spotify. At least, that’s the claim the Ohio Republican makes in a letter to Coca-Cola’s CEO demanding documents from the company.

The House Republican majority appears to have no idea how to end the political turmoil and get back to work. In all, Jordan lost 25 Republican colleagues, leaving him far from the majority needed. The Republicans have no realistic or workable plan to unite the fractured GOP majority, elect a new speaker and return to the work of Congress that has been languishing since hard-liners ousted Kevin McCarthy at the start of the month. For example, the New York Republicans who voted against him want a commitment to focus on state and local tax deductions, and the appropriators who voted against him are worried about Jordan’s position on government spending. In the third round of voting, Rep. Jim Jordan appears to again fall short on votes.

“To my knowledge we’re probably gonna pick up three or four more no votes second round. GOP Rep. Don Bacon believes that more Republicans will join the holdouts and vote against Jim Jordan in this morning’s vote series, adding that he supports the resolution to give more power to interim Speaker Patrick McHenry. Every time they take five steps forward they end up taking twenty steps backward. Overall, the vote showed that strong majorities of both parties still support Israel, but this many votes against Israel would have been unlikely prior to Oct. 7.

Banks quickly expressed his support for Jordan on Wednesday after thanking McCarthy for his service in a post on X, formerly Twitter, Tuesday night. Banks was among seven Hoosier Republicans in the House that voted against removing McCarthy as speaker. Some Republicans resent being pressured by Jordan's allies and say they are being threatened with primary opponents if they don’t support him as speaker.