Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) has now suffered two failed ballots for Speaker of the House, and the votes appear to be slipping away from him as more and more Republicans defect.
This whole enterprise that began with Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) being ousted as speaker is barreling toward defeat for Jordan, wrote Jake Sherman and John Bresnahan for Punchbowl News — and the far-right Republicans who advanced a Jordan speakership in the first place are not going to like what comes next.
"Jordan hates to lose," they wrote. "His entire brand is wrapped up in fighting liberals and being a winner. That’s why Jordan doesn’t want to go through a third roll-call vote on the floor, especially when he could lose even more votes, according to more than a half-dozen sources involved in the talks. Jordan’s office denies this, saying he plans to move forward with trying to become speaker."
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The most plausible escape hatch for Republicans now is to give temporary powers to Speaker Pro Tempore Patrick McHenry (R-NC), allowing the House to conduct business at least for a couple months.
"House Republican leaders feel as if they can no longer hold back members who want to elect McHenry speaker pro tem for the next roughly 80 days," they wrote. However, "Conservatives are going to freak out," with Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) already posting — incorrectly — that such a move would be "unconstitutional."
Ultimately, a plan to empower McHenry would almost certainly pass on a bipartisan basis, with the far-right faction of the GOP voting against it, but Democrats joining with the rest of the GOP.
"The plan we’ve described would make for some incredibly fascinating dynamics inside the GOP leadership," continued Sherman and Bresnahan. "Jordan will be the Republican speaker designate — as meaningless as that is — while McHenry would be the speaker pro tem. McHenry will be a useful foil for Jordan under this scenario. McHenry can do what needs to be done legislatively while Jordan dumps all over it."
