Jim Jordan nominated for speaker by conservative hardliners amid GOP infighting for House leadership
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Jim Jordan nominated for speaker by conservative hardliners amid GOP infighting for House leadership
onservative hardliners nominated Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio on Tuesday to be speaker of the House during the chamber’s second and third votes amid the floor fight for House leadership.
Jordan, in an effort to show party unity, nominated GOP leader Kevin McCarthy in the second round of voting. Speaking on the House floor Tuesday, Jordan said the the differences among Republican lawmakers “pale in comparison” to the differences between Republicans and Democrats.
“We need to rally around him,” Jordan said of McCarthy.
Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida nominated Jordan in the second round where he earned 19 votes. Republican Rep. Chip Roy of Texas, who already voted twice against McCarthy, nominated Jordan for speaker in the third round.
Jordan’s nomination by another member marks a new layer of leadership drama as Republicans take control of the House. The first order of House business as the 118th Congress convenes is the selection of a new speaker, but McCarthy is being stonewalled by a group of conservative hardliners. Because the GOP holds only a narrow majority, those hardliners hold more influence in the conference and have already denied McCarthy the votes necessary to secure the gavel on initial rounds of balloting.
A majority of at least 218 votes is needed to be elected speaker. The tally for the first ballot in the speaker vote was 203 for McCarthy, 10 for Rep. Andy Biggs and six for Jordan – with three Republicans voting for other candidates.
For McCarthy to reach 218, he can only afford to lose four GOP votes – and his initial failure to do so marks the first time in a century that a party will have to take multiple ballots to elect the chamber leader.
Jordan is a high-ranking conservative and a founding member of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, serving as its first chair from 2015 to 2017, and as its vice chair since 2017. He was the ranking member of the House Oversight Committee from 2019 to 2020. He vacated that position to become the ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, where he is expected to become chairman in the newly GOP-held House.
Jordan is a close ally of former President Donald Trump. After Joe Biden won the 2020 presidential election and Trump refused to concede while making claims of election fraud, Jordan supported lawsuits to invalidate the election results and voted not to certify the Electoral College results.
CNN’s Annie Grayer and Jessica Dean contributed to this report.
Ohio’s Jim Jordan nominated to be Speaker of the House
Story by Sabrina Eaton, cleveland.com
WASHINGTON, D. C. – U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan, an Ohio Republican, was nominated Tuesday to serve as the next Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives moments after Jordan delivered a speech to support the candidacy of California’s Kevin McCarthy.
“Maybe the right person for the job of Speaker of the House isn’t someone who wants it so bad,” said Florida Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz, as he urged colleagues to back Jordan. “Maybe Jim Jordan is the right person for Speaker of the House because he is not beholden to the lobbyists and special interests who have corrupted this place and corrupted this nation under the leadership of both Republicans and Democrats.”
The drive for Jordan came after McCarthy failed to win the 218 votes needed to get the job on the first ballot. All the legislative body’s 212 Democrats voted for New York’s Hakeem Jeffries.
The Republican majority split its votes between McCarthy, who got 203 votes, Arizona’s Andy Biggs, who got 10, Jordan, who got six, with single votes for Indiana’s Jim Banks, former New York Rep. Lee Zeldin and Florida’s Byron Donalds.
All of Ohio’s Republicans backed McCarthy and all the state’s Democrats supported Jeffries.
Jordan, who will chair the House Judiciary Committee, rose to nominate McCarthy on the second vote, describing him as “the right guy to lead us,” so Congress can do what the people elected Republicans to do.
He said he and McCarthy both joined Congress 16 years ago.
“We haven’t always agreed on everything, but I like his fight, I like his tenacity,” said Jordan. “Kevin told me, he said ‘The toughest times in life are when you get knocked down, the question is can you come back?’ and I’ve always seen him be able to do that. We need to rally around him.”
Related video: Source to CNN anchor: McCarthy’s alliance with Jordan was his ‘best shot’ (CNN)
Gaetz argued that Jordan himself was best positioned to lead Republicans in oversight over the Democratic presidential administration and said he wouldn’t fight priorities like term limits, balancing the federal budget and wouldn’t support legislation that increases inflation and diminishes “the prospects of a better life for our fellow Americans.”
“I rise to nominate the most talented, hardest working member of the Republican conference who just gave a speech with more vision than we have ever heard from the alternative,” Gaetz said before the second round of votes.
House Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar of California noted that Jeffries got the most votes during the first balloting round, and urged people to unite behind him.
“Despite the chaos on the other side, Madam Clerk, we are going to stay here to get this done,” said Aguilar. “We will be unified once again in our support for him.”
As members of Congress voted for a second time, most Republicans – including Jordan – cast ballots for McCarthy with a handful backing Jordan. Jeffries got 212 votes, McCarthy got 203 and Jordan got 19. Jordan’s backing came from members of the House Freedom Caucus, which Jordan co-founded.
Jordan’s showing didn’t dissuade another colleague from nominating him again on the third voting round.
“I have no personal animus towards Kevin,” said Texas Republican Chip Roy. “But we do not have the tools or the leadership yet to stop the swamp from rolling over the American people. Jim has a track record of doing it. And for those reasons, I am nominating Jim Jordan from Ohio for Speaker of the House of Representatives.”
Jordan got 20 votes that time, with 212 for Jeffries and 202 for McCarthy. After that, the House voted to adjourn until Wednesday.
The Republican Congress member who switched from voting from McCarthy to Jordan on the third ballot, Florida’s Byron Donalds, posted a statement on Twitter that said he’d only committed to voting for McCarthy twice. He said that no Congress member currently has the 218 votes needed to secure the job.
“Our conference needs to recess and huddle and find someone or work out the next steps, but these continuous votes aren’t working for anyone,” said Donalds. “When the dust settles, we will have a Republican Speaker, now is the time for our conference to debate and come to a consensus.”
Sabrina Eaton covers the federal government and politics in Washington, D.C., for Cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer. Read more of her work here.
©2023 Advance Local Media LLC. Visit cleveland.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
Watch Rep. Matt Gaetz nominate Rep. Jim Jordan for House Speaker
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