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      Republicans fail to find consensus for US House speaker at candidate forum

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      Republicans, whose party infighting has stymied the US House of Representatives for three weeks, tried on Monday to find consensus on a new speaker to lead the chamber and address funding needs for Israel, Ukraine and the federal government.Nine speaker candidates, including No 3 House Republican Tom Emmer, made their pitches to fellow Republicans at a closed-door forum, and answered questions about how they would handle the job, which has become a flashpoint for factional strife between rightwing hardliners and more mainstream Republicans.The field quickly dropped to eight when one of the candidates, Dan Meuser, used his presentation to announce he was withdrawing. He told reporters it was time for the party to get its act together.“People are angry, people are frustrated, people are blaming us for the dysfunction, and they are kind of right. So we need to respond. We need to get this done,” Meuser said.The House has been rudderless since 3 October, when former speaker Kevin McCarthy was ousted. Infighting later derailed leadership bids by two would-be successors: No 2 House Republican Steve Scalise and prominent conservative Jim Jordan.After Monday’s candidate forum, Republicans are due to meet at 9am ET on Tuesday to begin choosing a nominee behind closed-doors through a series of secret ballots.Monday night, Representative Matt Gaetz told CNN he thinks the House GOP “might” have a speaker Tuesday night. “We had some great candidates in there. And we’ll go from this current group down to our designee and I hope it’s a productive endeavor,” the Florida Republican said leaving the GOP’s candidate forum.McCarthy has endorsed Emmer, stressing his experience in working to marshal party votes on major legislation since January, when Republicans became the majority party. But Emmer could face an uphill battle if hardliners oppose him.The leadership vacuum of the past three weeks has stymied congressional action, as Congress faces a 17 November deadline to avoid a government shutdown by extending federal agency funding, and a request from President Joe Biden to approve military aid for Israel and Ukraine.House Republicans are concerned that none of the declared speaker candidates will be able to get the requisite 217 votes on the House floor needed to claim the speaker’s gavel.Michael McCaul, the House foreign affairs committee chair, told CNN: “It’s going to be very difficult, but we have to get there.”Any candidate nominated by the party conference can afford to lose no more than four Republicans when the full House votes. Meanwhile, the conference is split over spending cuts, Ukraine funding and other hot-button issues.Jordan tried and failed three times to win a floor vote in the House. He had been endorsed by the former president Donald Trump, who is a clear favorite to win the party’s nomination to run again as president in 2024.Democrats, who backed their own House leader Hakeem Jeffries for the speaker position, described Jordan as a dangerous extremist and opponents inside his own party were angered by a pressure campaign from his supporters that resulted in death threats.Six of the eight new candidates for speaker – Jack Bergman, Byron Donalds, Kevin Hern, Mike Johnson, Gary Palmer and Pete Sessions – voted to overturn Trump’s 2020 loss to President Joe Biden on the day that Trump supporters assaulted Congress on 6 January 2021.The two remaining candidates, Emmer and Austin Scott, did not vote to block the certification of the election results.House Republicans have been embroiled in chaos all year. McCarthy needed an agonizing 15 votes to win the speaker’s gavel in January, and along the way had to make concessions that enabled a single member to force a vote for his removal.That happened this month when eight Republicans forced him out after he passed legislation with Democratic support that averted a partial government shutdown.Investors say the tumult has contributed to market turbulence and Biden has urged Republicans to sort out their problems. More

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      The California town that could hold the key to control of the House in 2024

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      When customers come in for a cut and a conversation at Miguel Navarro’s barbershop, there’s one topic they raise more than any other: gas prices.A gallon of regular goes for about $5 in Delano, a farming town in California’s Central Valley where in 1965, grape pickers staged a historic strike over bad pay and working conditions that led to the creation of the United Farm Workers (UFW) union, led by Cesar Chavez. Today, everyone in the city who can afford to do so drives, which means feeling the pain of California’s pump prices, the highest in the nation.“You kind of think about it twice before you go out,” said Navarro as he cut a customer’s hair in his eponymous barbershop on Delano’s Main Street. His shop sits among a strip of tax preparers, taquerias and leather goods stores, in an area that also happens to be some of the most fiercely contested political territory in the nation.The city of nearly 51,000 is in the middle of a California congressional district where registered Democrats outnumber Republicans, Joe Biden won overwhelming support in 2020, but despite its apparent blue lean, voters have repeatedly sent the Republican David Valadao to be their voice in the House of Representatives over the past decade.Next year, Democrats hope to change that as part of their campaign to seize back control of Congress’s lower chamber, which hinges on flipping 18 districts won by Biden in 2020 that are represented by Republicans like Valadao, a dairy farmer who is one of just two Republicans who voted to impeach Donald Trump and managed to keep their seats.That battle, which will play out alongside Biden’s re-election campaign and Senate Democrats’ defense of their small majority in the chamber, may well be the easiest for the party to win in 2024.Though the numbers appear to favor Democrats in California’s 22nd congressional district, several hurdles stand between the party and victory. Nearly a year and a month before the general election, the down-ballot races that are crucial to deciding the balance of power in Washington DC are far from the minds of many in Delano.“People here are just living day by day, and if you do not remind them about elections, they might not remember,” said Susana Ortiz, an undocumented grape picker who lives in Delano and has campaigned for Rudy Salas, Valadao’s unsuccessful Democratic opponent in last year’s election.Democrats must gain five seats to win a majority in the House, and Valadao’s district – encompassing dozens of farming communities and half of Bakersfield, California’s ninth most-populous city – is one of 33 targeted by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in 2024.Beyond campaigning, Democrats are expected to benefit from a supreme court decision that has forced Alabama, and potentially Louisiana, to redraw its congressional map. The party also has a good shot of gaining a seat in New York City’s Long Island suburbs, where voters are reeling after discovering their Republican congressman George Santos is a fabulist who is now facing federal charges.The GOP has its own redistricting advantages, particularly in North Carolina, where new congressional maps could knock at least three Democrats out of their seats. The National Republican Congressional Committee is targeting Democratic lawmakers in 37 seats, five of whom represent districts that voted for Trump three years ago.“I think the House is going to come down to redistricting fights, candidate recruitment and, probably, most importantly, the top of the ticket and what that does to down-ballot races,” said David Wasserman, an election analyst who focuses on the chamber at the Cook Political Report with Amy Walter.No race has a dynamic quite like the contest to unseat Valadao, whose spokesperson declined to comment. The 46-year-old won election to the California state assembly in 2010, and then to the US House two years later. Valadao defeated successive Democratic challengers in the years that followed, until TJ Cox ousted him in a close election in 2018, a historically good year for the party.Valadao triumphed over Cox two years later. The January 6 attack on the Capitol occurred just as he was to take his seat in the House, and a week after that, Valadao joined nine other Republicans and all Democrats to vote for impeaching Trump.“Based on the facts before me, I have to go with my gut and vote my conscience. I voted to impeach President Trump. His inciting rhetoric was un-American, abhorrent and absolutely an impeachable offense,” Valadao said at the time. The decision ignited a firestorm among Republicans in his Central Valley district.“It was ugly, man. I mean, it was really, really, really ugly,” said James Henderson, a former GOP party chair in Tulare, one of the three counties that make up Valadao’s district. Donors threatened to withhold their funds, but Henderson said arguments that Valadao was uniquely able to hold the vulnerable seat, and crucial to representing the county’s agriculture interests, prevailed.“The alternative is, if you lose this seat, you lose this seat forever,” Henderson said. It was nonetheless close: styling himself as a Trump-aligned conservative, Chris Mathys, a former city councilman in the Central Valley city of Fresno, challenged Valadao in the primary, and came within 1,220 votes of beating him.Mathys was assisted by the House Majority Pac, which was linked to the then Democratic House speaker Nancy Pelosi and spent $127,000 on television advertisements boosting his candidacy and attacking Valadao, according to the analytic firm AdImpact.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionIt was one of many instances across the country in which Democratic groups channeled dollars to rightwing Republicans in their primaries, betting that they would be easier to defeat in the general election. Valadao would go on to triumph over state assemblyman Salas, and make an unlikely return to the House.Valadao’s re-election fight is shaping up to be a repeat of what he faced the year prior. Mathys is running again, and has once more put Valadao’s vote against the former president at the center of his campaign. Trump is the current frontrunner for the GOP presidential nomination, and California Republicans will vote in primaries for both races on the same ballot.“The big issue, clearly, is the impeachment issue. It looms very large. People remember like it was yesterday,” Mathys told the Guardian in an interview. “With President Trump being on the ballot, it’s going to even resonate stronger, because he’ll be on the same ballot that we’re on.”CJ Warnke, the communications director for the House Majority Pac, said the committee would “do whatever it takes” to defeat Valadao and Mathys, but did not say whether that would include another round of television advertisements supporting the latter.Salas is also challenging Valadao again, and another Democrat, the state senator Melissa Hurtado, is in the primary. Salas believes that next year will be when Valadao falls, due to the presidential election driving up turnout in the majority Latino district.“The fight is making sure that people actually get out to the polls, vote, or that they turn in their vote-by-mail ballots,” Salas said in an interview. “That’s what we fell victim to last year and something that we’re hoping to get correct going into 2024.”Then there is the ongoing mess in the House, which could have direct effects on Valadao. He’s referred to Kevin McCarthy, who represents a neighboring district, as a “friend”, and opposed removing him as speaker. Valadao three times voted to elect the Republican Jim Jordan as his replacement, unsuccessfully, but also supports giving the acting speaker, Patrick McHenry, the job’s full powers.Jordan is a rightwing firebrand, and an advocate of Trump’s baseless claims of fraud in the 2020 election. Wasserman said Valadao’s support for him could undercut the reputation he has built for himself as an “independent-minded farmer”, while the downfall of his ally McCarthy may affect Valadao’s ability to benefit from his fundraising.Delano has a reputation as a pivotal community in Valadao’s district, and winning over its voters may come down to money and messaging.A member of the UFW, Ortiz has for several years campaigned for Salas in the spare time she has when she’s not picking grapes for minimum wage. She knocks on doors in Delano’s sprawling neighborhoods, believing Salas is the kind of politician who can bring solutions for undocumented people like herself: she has not seen her father in Mexico since leaving the country 18 years ago, and her oldest son is also undocumented but, for now, protected from deportation by the legally shaky Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (Daca) policy.Among the voters who open their doors for her, disillusionment is high, and there’s one phrase Ortiz hears repeatedly: “I don’t even vote because after, they do not help you.”Meanwhile, as an independent, Navarro, the barber, said he would probably vote for Trump next year, as he had in the past, citing his hope the former president would bring, among other things, lower gas prices.“I think we were a little bit more peaceful with him,” Navarro said. But he’s not sure whom to support for Congress, and would probably go for whichever candidate he hears from the most: “We’re meant to vote for whoever has more to offer.” More

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      The People Who Broke the House

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      When it comes to Congress, Americans have come to expect a certain baseline of dysfunction. But I think most of us can agree that the current House Republican majority is something special. Overthrowing a speaker for the first time in history. Rejecting multiple nominees to replace him. Members publicly trashing one another. One faction’s supporters threatening opposing members.And so here we languish, with the government’s most basic functions held hostage by a conference divided over everything from ideological differences to petty personal slights: Candidate X broke his promise! Candidate Y ignores me! Candidate Z never votes for my bills! It’s like watching a pack of middle-schoolers hopped up on hormones and Skittles.To help make sense of this dark farce, it is useful to dig into the warring factions that have already destroyed the speaker dreams of multiple colleagues. Boiling down the action so far: A tiny gaggle of eight Republicans, mostly hard-right extremists, took down Kevin McCarthy. Then a larger group of hard-liners quashed the candidacy of Steve Scalise, the majority leader, before it even came up for a floor vote, with an eye toward elevating one of their own, the chronically belligerent Jim Jordan. But a coalition of moderates, institutionalists and members who just can’t stomach Mr. Jordan struck back, voting him down again and again and again — and again, if you count Friday’s closed-conference ballot effectively stripping him of the nomination.The Republicans Who Blocked Jordan and McCarthy From the SpeakershipAcross four votes in the House, both conservative and moderate Republican holdouts ousted Kevin McCarthy and denied Jim Jordan the speaker’s gavel. The colored dots show where those holdouts fall on the ideological spectrum, based on their voting records. More

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      Who are the Republican candidates for House of Representatives speaker?

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      After more than two weeks of failing to choose a speaker, Republicans in the US House plan to reconvene on Monday to begin the process of nominating a third candidate to try to get the 217 votes needed to secure the speakership.So far, Steve Scalise, the No 2 Republican in the House, and Jim Jordan, the far-right congressman, have both failed in their bids.Here’s a look at the nine candidates who signed up to run ahead of a noon deadline Sunday.Tom EmmerEmmer was first elected to the House in 2014 and forms part of the chamber’s leadership. He is the majority whip and responsible for counting and marshaling votes on key issues. He narrowly won that job in 2022 in a closely contested race. Kevin McCarthy, who was removed as speaker on 3 October, has endorsed Emmer’s bid for the post.He previously served as the chairman of the House Republicans’ campaign arm – the National Republican Congressional Committee – in 2020 and 2022. He helped Republicans win back control of the House in 2022 but won fewer seats than was expected.Emmer also reportedly advised candidates on the campaign trail that year to avoid talking about Trump, according to CNN. Emmer has denied he offered such advice.Donald Trump and his allies are already reportedly marshaling support against Emmer, whom the ex-president has said has not defended him strongly enough. Unlike Scalise and Jordan, Emmer voted to certify the 2020 election, though he signed an amicus brief urging the supreme court to throw out electoral votes from key swing states. He was also one of 39 Republicans who voted to codify federal protections for same-sex marriage.Emmer previously served in the Minnesota legislature for six years and lost the 2010 governor’s race by a razor-thin 9,000 votes.Mike JohnsonThe Louisiana congressman was elected in 2016 and has twice been chosen by his colleagues to serve as vice-chairman of the Republican conference, a leadership position.Johnson helped organize efforts to object to the 2020 election results, getting his House colleagues to sign on to an amicus brief at the supreme court urging the justices to throw out electoral votes from key swing states. The New York Times described him as “the most important architect” of the legal strategy to get members of Congress to object to the electoral college vote. Specifically, Johnson pushed the idea that changes to election rules during the pandemic gave Congress the right to second-guess the election results, the Times reported.A former lawyer for the powerful and anti-LGBTQ+ group Alliance Defending Freedom, Johnson is a close ally of Jordan.Kevin HernHern, an Oklahoma congressman, is the chairman of the Republican Study Committee, a powerful caucus including most GOP members in the House which helps devise conservative policies. Well-known Republicans, including former vice-president Mike Pence, Scalise and Jordan have led the group.He had no political experience before getting elected to Congress in 2018. Previously, he was an aerospace engineer and owned several McDonald’s franchises in Oklahoma. He voted against certifying the 2020 election and signed on to a supreme court brief urging the justices to throw out votes from key swing states.Byron DonaldsA second-term congressman from Florida, Donalds earned 20 votes for speaker across a few of the 15 rounds of voting earlier this year that ultimately resulted in McCarthy winning the speakership.In September, Donalds drew scrutiny when he displayed a purported screenshot at a hearing as part of Republican efforts to impeach Joe Biden that was lacking important context. The image Donalds displayed appeared to be a screenshot of a text message exchange between Hunter and the president’s brother, James Biden. But the content had been edited to omit key passages.He previously served in Florida’s legislature and has picked up support in his speakership bid from other members of the state’s delegation. If chosen by his colleagues, he would be the House’s first ever Black speaker.Austin ScottScott represents Georgia’s eighth congressional district, which stretches from the Florida border to the center of the state. He was first elected in 2010.Scott launched a last-minute bid to challenge Jordan for the House speakership earlier this month but lost. “I care more about the conference and that it’s doing our job than I care about who the speaker is. I truly do,” he said when he launched his previous effort. “If we as Republicans are gonna be the majority, we have to do the right things the right way. And we’re not doing that right now,” he said.Scott signed an amicus brief urging the US supreme court to throw out electoral votes from key swing states but ultimately voted to certify the 2020 election.Jack BergmanBergman, who represents Michigan’s first congressional district, has said he would only serve as speaker until the end of the current congress. “I have no special interests to serve; I’m only in this to do what’s best for our nation and to steady the ship for the 118th Congress,” he said in a statement announcing his candidacy. He voted against certifying the last election and signed on to an amicus brief urging the US supreme court to throw out valid electoral votes.Pete SessionsSessions, a Texas congressman, is the longest-tenured member in the speaker’s race. He served in Congress from 1997 until 2019 and then returned in 2021. He has been the chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee and the powerful House rules committee.Gary PalmerPalmer has represented Alabama’s 6th congressional district since 2015 and joined the race for speaker shortly before Sunday’s deadline. He is the chairman of the Republican Policy Committee, a House leadership position. He was the founding member of the board of directors of the State Policy Network, a group of rightwing thinktanks backed by the Koch brothers and other influential conservatives.He voted to overturn the 2020 election and signed on to an amicus brief asking the supreme court to throw out electoral votes from key swing states.Dan MeuserMeuser is a third-term congressman from Pennsylvania who previously backed Jordan but said he would enter the race if Jordan couldn’t muster enough votes. “I’m considering it because I’m not gonna let this kindergarten continue. I’ll do it,” he told the National Review Online last week after Jordan’s first failed vote.He voted against certifying the 2020 election and signed on to an amicus brief urging the supreme court to throw out valid electoral votes. More

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      Speaker fiasco lays bare ungovernable dysfunction of House Republicans

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      Death threats. Screaming matches behind closed doors. A futile cycle of votes that put internecine warfare on full public display. The Republican party this week sank into new depths of disarray and dysfunction – with no remedy in sight.Never before has America gone so long without a speaker of the House of Representatives and, critics say, not for a very long time has a major party appeared so broken. It has left a branch of the US government leaderless at an extraordinary moment of peril in the Middle East and Ukraine.“When you look at the damage to the party’s image, its reputation, its ability to do anything substantive or serious, this is a week of unmitigated disaster for the Republican party,” said Rick Wilson, co-founder of the Lincoln Project, a pro-democracy and anti-Trump group.The latest setback came on Friday when Jim Jordan, a rightwing Ohio congressman endorsed by former president Donald Trump, lost a third vote to become speaker and was then unceremoniously dumped by Republicans as their nominee. The majority leader, Steve Scalise, said they were going to “come back and start over” on Monday.This followed a week of turmoil remarkable even by the fractious standards of the Trump era, with ideological disagreements merging with personal vendettas in a combustible mix. After Kevin McCarthy was ousted on 3 October and Scalise failed to garner enough backing, Jordan, a bare knuckle rightwinger and election denier, had made an unlikely effort to unite the party.In the first floor vote on Tuesday, the House Republican conference chair, Elise Stefanik, formally nominated Jordan and aimed high by quoting the Bible (Esther 4:14) to claim that Jordan would be America’s speaker “for such a time as this”. But 20 Republicans holdouts denied him the gavel.A day later, Jordan tried again but this time 22 Republicans opposed him. There was a sense of absurdity as some called out alternative names such as John Boehner, a former speaker who quit eight years ago.Meanwhile it emerged that Jordan’s allies in the “Make America great again” (Maga) movement had deployed a hardball pressure campaign. Every member who voted against him said they had received a barrage of angry phone calls and messages.Congressman Don Bacon said he received death threats and his wife slept with a loaded gun near her bedside one night. Others said their families had been threatened – indicative of dangerously violent undercurrents in American politics that Trump’s recent rhetoric has only encouraged.But the intimidation tactics had the opposite effect of that intended by hardening the resolve of the holdouts. Congressman Drew Ferguson said the death threats against his family were “unacceptable, unforgivable and will never be tolerated”. Congresswoman Mariannette Miller-Meeks added: “One thing I cannot stomach or support is a bully.”On Thursday, tragedy turned to farce. Jordan agreed to suspend his campaign in favor of a resolution that would temporarily expand the powers of the acting speaker, Patrick McHenry, to get the House moving again. But that went down like a lead balloon at a closed-door meeting of Republicans where tempers flared.McCarthy yelled at Matt Gaetz, the Florida congressman behind his ousting, when Gaetz tried to seize a microphone. The former speaker explained to reporters later: “I told him to sit down, and he sat down. I think the entire conference screamed at him. Listen, the whole country, I think, would scream at Matt Gaetz right now.”After the meeting, Jordan announced that the McHenry plan would be scrapped and that he would fight on after all. “I’m still running for speaker,” he declared. “I plan to go to the floor and get the votes and win this race.” But on Friday the opposition grew to 25 Republicans, an election result that not even Jordan could deny.Soon after he lost the party nomination in a secret ballot, putting Republicans back to square one. Critics saw it as the awful spectacle of a party – held together by the glue of grievance, “owning the libs” and a cult of personality – coming apart at the seams.Kurt Bardella, a Democratic strategist, said: “We are seeing the inevitable outcome of years of neglect, years of lack of leadership, years of lack of courage culminate with what is a completely ungovernable and dysfunctional Republican party. The fact that there isn’t a single Republican right now who can get 217 votes is illustrative of deep schisms within the party and these deep wounds that there is no healing from.”Bardella, a former spokesperson and senior adviser for Republicans on the House oversight committee, added: “Time and again the bad actors in the Republican party have been rewarded for their bad behavior. They get rewarded with television time. They get rewarded with raising millions of dollars in contributions.“They get rewarded with plum committee assignments. Whether it’s Jordan or a Matt Gaetz or Marjorie Taylor Greene, who time and again we’re told represent the fringe of the party, they continue to be elevated and empowered by the leadership that’s in charge.”Now ending its third week without a leader, the House cannot act on a $106bn national security package unveiled by Joe Biden on Friday that would bolster US border security and send aid to Israel and Ukraine. Congress also faces a 17 November deadline to pass funding to keep the government open.Jeffries has said Democrats are “ready, willing and able” to partner with centrist Republicans on a path to reopen the House. In the meantime the chaos should, in theory, present a campaign gift to Democrats in next year’s elections, contrasting Biden’s steady wartime leadership with a party at war with itself.Wendy Schiller, a political scientist at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, said: “It’s a slow drip. People are still going to work and living their lives so they’re not worried about it. But independent voters who have been uncomfortable with the very right wing of the Republican party, whether it’s Trump or anybody else, will get more uncomfortable because this is threatening the stability of the federal government to function at all.“It’s one thing to be chaotic if you’re Trump – but it’s another to not be able to pass any legislation at all.” More

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      Why do Republicans oppose Jim Jordan as speaker and what’s next?

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      Ever since Republicans ousted Kevin McCarthy as House speaker on 3 October, the Republican conference has been mired in chaos. Friday marked an escalation as that dysfunction as Jim Jordan, the far-right congressman from Ohio, lost his third vote on the House floor to be speaker and his status as the GOP nominee.Here’s a look at what transpired this week:How did we get here again?There are currently 221 Republicans and 212 Democrats in the US House (there are two vacancies), giving the GOP a very slim majority. That means that any Republican who wants to be speaker has to have the support of nearly all of the Republicans in the House, something that is increasingly harder since individual members need less institutional support than they did in the past because of politically uncompetitive districts and the ability to raise huge sums of money online.When McCarthy negotiated himself into the speakership earlier this year, one of his key concessions was allowing any House member to file a motion to vacate, or remove him from speaker. Representative Matt Gaetz, a far-right Republican from Florida, filed such a motion earlier this month and enough Republicans – eight in total – voted against McCarthy to oust him.That vacancy essentially brought the House to a standstill. The speaker runs the business of the House and controls the floor schedule and which bills come to the floor. Without one, the House cannot operate.After McCarthy’s ouster, Steve Scalise of Louisiana and Jordan entered the speaker’s race. Scalise won a private vote among the Republican conference, but withdrew his name from contention after it became clear he could not get enough votes.What happened with Jim Jordan this week?Jordan, a far-right Ohio Republican who co-founded the House Freedom Caucus, earned the nomination to be the conference’s next speaker on 13 October. He won the nomination with 124 of the House Republican conference’s 221 votes. In order to become speaker he needed to get 217 votes from all house members.Things went from bad to worse when Jordan went to the House floor for formal votes on his speakership. On Tuesday, 20 Republicans voted against him, putting him far below the threshold he needed to be speaker. Twenty-two Republicans voted against him in a second vote on Wednesday. Twenty-five Republicans opposed him in a third vote, putting him even further from the speakership.After the third failed vote, Republicans took a vote by secret ballot on whether Jordan should remain the nominee. He lost that vote handily, losing his status as the Republican nominee for speaker.New Republican candidates can now declare next week, when Republicans will start the process all over again.Why did Republicans oppose Jordan?Several of the members who are opposed to Jordan are members of the House appropriations committee, who are reportedly opposed to the way Jordan has embraced a hard line on spending cuts and shutting down the government.Members also reported receiving death threats and outside pressure to vote for Jordan, a position that has only hardened their opposition to him. “The last thing you want to do is try to intimidate or pressure me, because then I close out entirely,” Mario Diaz-Balart, a Florida Republican who opposes Jordan, told reporters earlier this week.There is also reportedly bad blood over the way Jordan and his allies treated Steve Scalise. Scalise previously beat Jordan to win the conference’s nomination to be speaker, but withdrew his bid after it became clear he couldn’t get enough votes to win in the House. Some Scalise allies think Jordan didn’t do enough to rally Republicans around Scalise.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“He missed his moment of leadership when he failed Steve Scalise,” John Rutherford, a Florida congressman who voted against Jordan, said earlier this week.What happens next?No one knows. Even as it was clear that Jordan had no clear path to becoming the speaker, no Republican emerged to seriously challenge him. Republicans currently have a Sunday noon deadline to announce their candidacy ahead of another round of speakership talks.Who is Patrick McHenry and what is the speaker pro tempore?After Republicans ousted Kevin McCarthy as speaker, Patrick McHenry, a North Carolina Republican, became the speaker pro tempore. McCarthy chose McHenry to take on that role should the speakership ever be declared vacant.There has never been a similar situation, so it’s unclear exactly what the scope of McHenry’s power is. It has been widely understood to be extremely narrow so far, limited to the authority to oversee a vote for the next speaker. As Republicans stalled in picking a new speaker, there has been chatter about temporarily expanding McHenry’s power so that the House can conduct some limited business. The majority of the GOP conference seems opposed to that kind of action.Could Democrats cut a deal with Republicans on a new speaker?Democrats have all voted for their leader, Hakeem Jeffries of New York, in each of the speakership elections. Jeffries has said there have been “informal talks” with Republicans, but Democrats have been quiet about any negotiations. A pre-condition for any Democratic support for a speaker appears to be that they would allow any bipartisan bills come up for a vote. More

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      Jim Jordan forced out of House speaker race after losing secret ballot

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      Jim Jordan of Ohio was forced out of the House speakership race on Friday after his Republican colleagues voted against his continued bid for the seat in a secret ballot after his third failed attempt to corral enough support to win the gavel.Jordan’s lost bid followed a contentious week on Capitol Hill, during which he and his allies attempted to cajole more moderate Republicans into backing Jordan.After his loss, Jordan told reporters he was “going to go back to work” and that it was “time to unite”.It is not clear who Republicans could elevate as a next nominee. There’s a deadline of Sunday at noon for candidates to announce interest in the speakership. The conference is expected to return on Monday evening to hear from candidates for the speakership, with voting set for Tuesday. By that time, the House will have been without a speaker for three weeks, hamstrung on conducting the work they were elected to do.Some moderates want to see a consensus candidate, while the far-right flank that ousted former speaker Kevin McCarthy previously said they would be “prepared to accept censure, suspension or removal from the conference” to get Jordan the speakership.A handful of Republican House members have either said they’ll seek the speakership or are considering the idea. Most prominent among them is Minnesota’s Tom Emmer, currently the majority whip, the No 3 Republican in the chamber, who has McCarthy’s backing. Others in the mix include Oklahoma’s Kevin Hern, Georgia’s Austin Scott, Florida’s Byron Donalds, Louisiana’s Mike Johnson and Michigan’s Jack Bergman.In the first floor vote of the speakership election, on Tuesday, 20 House Republicans opposed Jordan, leaving him far short of the 217 votes needed to capture the top job. Because of Republicans’ razor-thin majority in the House, Jordan could only afford four defections within his conference and still ascend to the speakership.Even as Jordan tried to assuage moderates’ concerns, a second floor vote held on Wednesday revealed that opposition had only grown, as 22 Republicans opposed Jordan’s candidacy. By the third vote, on Friday, Jordan lost more support, with 25 House Republicans voting against him.As long as the House remains without a speaker, the chamber cannot advance any legislation, leaving members unable to pass critical bills like a stopgap government funding measure or an aid package for Israel and Ukraine. Government funding is set to run out in less than a month, raising the threat of a federal shutdown next month.Jordan’s announcement came two weeks after the historic ouster of McCarthy, after eight House Republicans joined Democrats in supporting a motion to vacate the chair. Following McCarthy’s removal, the House majority leader, Steve Scalise of Louisiana, initially won his conference’s nomination for speaker, but he dropped out of the race last week due to entrenched opposition among hard-right lawmakers.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionAs of Friday, it remained unclear how Republicans could end the standoff and resume the business of the House. One idea floated by centrist Democrats and embraced by some of Jordan’s critics involved expanding the powers of the acting speaker, the Republican Patrick McHenry of North Carolina, but the plan fizzled. Such a solution would raise serious constitutional questions, as the powers of an acting speaker are murky.With Republicans embroiled in conflict, the House Democratic leader, Hakeem Jeffries of New York, has repeatedly called for the creation of a bipartisan governing coalition between Democrats and more moderate Republicans. Even Jordan’s staunchest opponents have rejected the idea of teaming up with Democrats, although that could change if the House remains at a standstill.On Friday, Jeffries, who has received the most votes in the speakership votes but would not be able to get enough support to take the spot since Democrats are in the minority, called on his Republican colleagues to get to work. “Embrace bipartisanship and abandon extremism,” Jeffries said. More

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      in Elections

      What the Republican Votes Against Jim Jordan Mean

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      “Is this a crack in the MAGA armor?” a reader asks.To the Editor:Re “Jordan Loses Secret Ballot to Remain G.O.P. Nominee for Speaker” (nytimes.com, Oct. 20):Although Representative Jim Jordan does not have the reputation for being a consensus builder, it appears, with his losing yet another vote to become House speaker, he has fostered a coalition against himself that combines experienced legislators, principled conservatives and what passes these days for moderate Republicans, especially those representing congressional districts that President Biden won in 2020.But what may well be the glue holding these factions together is the prospect of the tone of a Jordan speakership. Reports of intimidating phone-call campaigns to congressional offices, as well as threats of primary challenges directed at those Republicans withholding their votes from Mr. Jordan, may have solidified the opposition to him.Opposite of what his allies intended, these efforts in defense of Mr. Jordan may have triggered fears of the hard-edge tactics that could become common in a Jordan speakership. Mr. Jordan appears to be the victim of what amounts to a political autoimmune response from a decisive part of the House body.Chuck CutoloWestbury, N.Y.The writer formerly worked on Capitol Hill, including as legislative director for Senator Carl Levin, Democrat of Michigan.To the Editor:I cannot help but to think (optimistically) that the failure of Jim Jordan’s speaker bid is a proxy for the 2024 presidential election.It appears that a small, but growing, number of Republican representatives have finally discovered their backbones and are rejecting election denial and insurrection promotion as anti-democracy ideas. Further, they are no longer succumbing to threats and blackmail from within their ranks. Finally, they seem to be seeking leaders with integrity.Is this a crack in the MAGA armor? Are we getting back to the real business of our elected officials? Is the nightmare nearly over? We can only hope.Steve SaxtonMinneapolisTo the Editor:Re “Finger-Pointing and Vocal Jabs, but No Speaker” (front page, Oct. 20):The Times has it exactly backward when it refers to the 22 Republican members of Congress who opposed Jim Jordan’s candidacy for speaker of the House in Wednesday’s vote as “mainstream” Republicans.The 199 Republican members of Congress who voted for Mr. Jordan, a man whom former Speaker John Boehner described as a “legislative terrorist,” represent the G.O.P. mainstream. The 22 who opposed Mr. Jordan are the outliers.In today’s G.O.P., the radical and the reactionary have become the mainstream.Richard KaveshNyack, N.Y. More