Representative Jim Jordan (R., Ohio) is leaning toward pursuing a third speakership vote after the GOP plan to empower the interim speaker until January stalled Thursday afternoon.
Jordan is aiming to court the 20 holdouts who doomed his first two bids for the gavel before his nomination comes to the floor for a third vote.
“I’m still running for speaker, and I plan to go to the floor and get the votes and win this race,” Jordan said, according to CNN. “But I want to go talk with a few of my colleagues, particularly want to talk with the 20 individuals who voted against me, so that we can move forward and begin to work for the American people.”
The House GOP conference, following a three-hour closed door meeting, decided to abandon a resolution to temporarily empower speaker pro tempore Patrick McHenry (R., N.C.) to preside over the chamber, multiple outlets confirmed.
Representative Byron Donalds (R., Fla.) said Thursday that the conference would not proceed with the plan to expand McHenry’s powers. The plan would have allowed the House to move resolutions related to the war in Israel and attend to other business while giving Republicans more time to unify around a long-term successor to Kevin McCarthy.
“No. It’s not going to happen,” Donalds told CNN, following three hours of discussion with colleagues. “That is the decision, as I understand it, and I think even Patrick, to his credit and to his fidelity to the US Constitution, understands that we cannot just drop powers in the lap of somebody. The House has to elect the speaker. And then from that, everything else flows.”
Donalds said not enough members would endorse the plan.
“And to my colleagues who wanted to support it, I understand why they wanted to support it. Because look, time is of the essence because (of) a lot of things that we have to do. But the No. 1 thing that this body must do was elect a speaker before you conduct any business,” he told the outlet.
Jordan corroborated Donalds’s update, saying the plan to empower McHenry would not move forward.
“We made the pitch to members on the resolution as a way to lower the temperature and get back to work,” Jordan said. “We decided that wasn’t where we’re going to go. I’m still running for speaker and I plan to go to the floor and get the votes and win this race.”
Representative Kat Cammack (R., Fla.) also said the plan had fallen flat, with many Republicans and Democrats refusing to collaborate to keep McHenry until the new year.
“That’s a path that nobody wants to go down. But I think people recognize that they’re playing with fire,” she said.
The position of speaker pro tempore was created after the attacks of September, 11 2001 to ensure continuity of government and the lawmaker who holds the title is technically limited to presiding over the selection of the next speaker. It was unclear whether McHenry’s expanded role would have passed constitutional muster given that it would be historically unprecedented.
Heritage Action, the advocacy arm of the Heritage Foundation, sent notice on Thursday to Capitol Hill GOP offices advising against empowering McHenry, threatening to make the resolution a “key vote” that will apply to the organization’s legislative scorecard for members.
“Cutting a deal with Democrats on control of the Floor activities concedes a conservative agenda that Americans elected a Republican majority to advance,” the think tank wrote in a statement obtained by the Hill. “The move amounts to denying the will of Americans to right the wrongs of this current administration and show a better path forward.”
On Tuesday, Jordan lost a first bid to become speaker after a significant number of Republicans defected from the hardline Ohio congressman. A few more Republican colleagues withdrew support for Jordan on the second ballot, which came up short again on Wednesday.
Last week, some Republicans nominated House Majority Leader Steve Scalise by secret ballot to be speaker. One day later, the Louisiana Republican withdrew his nomination for the position after it became clear that he could not win over detractors and secure the requisite 217 votes to become speaker. Before that, Jordan had already lost a head-to-head vote to Scalise by a 113–99 vote.
Earlier this month, the House narrowly voted to oust McCarthy on a motion to vacate introduced by Representative Matt Gaetz of Florida, who claimed McCarthy had reneged on promises he made to the GOP holdouts who dragged McCarthy through 15 rounds of voting in January.
Democrats joined a small group of Republican rebels to vacate the speaker’s chair for the first time in history. McCarthy bowed out from a House speakership rerun after he was expelled, saying that he “might” endorse a replacement candidate.