How the House picks a speaker: What happens after McCarthy loses?

Table Of Content

• House speaker race widens to 9 Republicans vying for nomination
• Jordan is no longer nominee for House speaker after a secret vote
• Reporter’s Notebook: Trump tries to keep campaigning during trial
• House fails to pass border security bill backed by Republicans
• Vulnerable House Republicans praise Johnson for handling of foreign aid bills

Republicans had long wanted any additional aid to Ukraine to be tied with border security, but for months those efforts have failed, most notably when a bipartisan effort died in the Senate in February. Far-right Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.) announced he had co-sponsored a motion to vacate Johnson’s speakership after the House teed up a Saturday vote on a $95 billion foreign aid package for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan. Massie said the intention isn't to force a vote to oust Johnson but instead to show their numbers and get the speaker to resign on his own.

House speaker race widens to 9 Republicans vying for nomination

Steve Scalise ends bid to become next House speaker - The Associated Press

Steve Scalise ends bid to become next House speaker.

Posted: Thu, 12 Oct 2023 07:00:00 GMT [source]

The tactics included posting the holdouts’ names and office phone numbers to social media and in some cases running robocalls in their districts. Allies of Mr. Jordan, the co-founder of the ultraconservative House Freedom Caucus and a close ally of former President Donald J. Trump, had initially hoped he would pick up momentum on the second vote. Instead, the number of Republicans refusing to back him grew by two on Wednesday. Mr. Jordan won 199 votes and Representative Hakeem Jeffries of New York, the Democratic leader, won 212 votes.

Jordan is no longer nominee for House speaker after a secret vote

The anti-Jordan lawmakers then found themselves under a withering social media attack from the right and confronting violent threats against them and their families for balking at voting for Mr. Jordan. At the Urbana Brewing Company on Tuesday, patrons gave Mr. Jordan passing marks. Eric Forson, 50, said that when he wrote to his elected representatives during the 2013 government shutdown, Mr. Jordan was the only one who responded. "What we have now is a complete breakdown of what we've done for 200 years," he said.

Reporter’s Notebook: Trump tries to keep campaigning during trial

That waive motion was opposed by nearly all Republicans in the state House majority on Wednesday. But if it ever succeeds, the repeal ban could then go up for a full House vote and would need 31 votes to pass -- a simple majority of legislators in the 60-member chamber. The failure on Saturday of the separate border bill came the same day bipartisan lawmakers later passed the foreign aid proposals that will be sent to the Senate with Biden’s support. House Democrats rallied to Johnson both in committee and on the floor to boost the foreign aid package by wide margins — but over objections from dozens of Republicans, including many in the conservative Freedom Caucus.

House Republicans are back to the drawing board after they dump Jim Jordan for speaker - NBC News

House Republicans are back to the drawing board after they dump Jim Jordan for speaker.

Posted: Sat, 21 Oct 2023 07:00:00 GMT [source]

That would avoid weeks of chaos on the floor, where the House must hold consecutive votes to install a speaker, and instead allow Republicans to meet behind closed doors and choose a new leader before Johnson voluntarily vacates the chair, Massie told reporters. Republican lawmakers met Tuesday night as Jordan and Scalise made their pitches. The situation is so fraught because the tiny House GOP majority means that a candidate for speaker can only lose four Republican votes and still win the gavel in a full House vote.

Like Johnson an era later, Hastert was a relatively quiet member of the leadership who enjoyed goodwill generally in the rank and file. Hastert was speaker through the last two Clinton years and first six of the George W. Bush presidency. But he voluntarily resigned after the GOP lost badly in the 2006 midterms, a defeat Bush called "a thumpin' " at the time. The No. 2 Republican at the time did not have the votes, and the No. 3 declined to run. The chairman of the Appropriations Committee was nominated by the party conference but withdrew after a magazine story accused him of marital infidelity. The House has been paralyzed without a speaker since Kevin McCarthy was ousted on Oct. 3, unable to act on any legislation, including emergency aid for Israel and Ukraine or an agreement to avert an impending US government shutdown on Nov. 17.

House fails to pass border security bill backed by Republicans

The battle for speaker has become a pivotal moment for House Republicans as they look to settle scores related to divisions that have plagued the conference for years. A handful of McCarthy allies were ready to vote for him on the House floor Wednesday — even though McCarthy has publicly and privately told his colleagues not to nominate him for the role — instead of Scalise because of a years-long feud between both leaders. House Republicans were on the verge of open revolt Wednesday after the ideologically fractious conference failed to coalesce around a speaker nominee, leaving the chamber rudderless and leaderless for an eighth day.

A spokesperson for the Judiciary chairman later clarified Jordan would back Scalise and offered to give a nominating speech on his behalf. Neither issue produced enough urgency for Republicans to quickly elect a speaker as many had hoped, again highlighting the conference’s deep divisions. The move by the Senate came after Republicans in the Arizona House, for the second time in a week, blocked attempts on Wednesday to bring a repeal bill to a vote. One Republican joined 29 Democrats in the Arizona House to bring the repeal measure to a vote Wednesday, but the effort failed twice on votes. A foreign aid package passed by the US House of Representatives will “exacerbate global crises,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said in a statement to CNN on Saturday. US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Saturday celebrated the House's passage of a $95 billion foreign aid package for Ukraine, Israel and the Indo-Pacific.

Vulnerable House Republicans praise Johnson for handling of foreign aid bills

"The Chinese Communist Party is the greatest geopolitical threat of our lifetime." Mr McCarthy said recently in a statement. Beyond the history being made in the speaker election process, the 118th Congress is record-breaking in a number of ways. Overnight, speaking to NBC News, the former president said he had not made a decision on supporting Mr McCarthy.

I don’t see him succeeding, even though he had the support of the vast majority of Republicans. While I’m all for people paying more attention to literature, that’s hardly the point here. He added that he had 12 people in mind who could do a better job than Johnson. It also stalls Republican plans to establish committees investigating Mr Biden's family and administration, as well as put into motion their policy agenda for the session. Investigations will commence on the financial dealings of President Biden's son Hunter, the government's handling of migration on the southern border, the COVID-19 pandemic and the Afghan withdrawal. Only 5% of congress members are under the age of 40 but nearly 21% of the newcomers are younger than 40.

Rep. Jim Jordan campaigned for the role last week, but lost a secret vote to remain his party's nominee after House Republicans rejected him on the floor three times, each by a bigger margin. A candidate only needs a majority of votes from their respective party to win the endorsement in the private meeting for leadership. Multiple Republican lawmakers said it was a monumental mistake for Scalise to block a measure that would have united the Republican conference behind a speaker nominee behind closed doors. With a narrow majority, Republicans can only lose four members to allow anything to pass through their ranks. Democrats have no plans to help elect either Republican candidate as speaker and instead will vote for Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (N.Y.) as they did during the 15 rounds of balloting it took for McCarthy to win the gavel this year.

What was clear on Wednesday was that there were still strong reservations among Republicans about Mr. Jordan’s candidacy and deep embitterment over the way he and his allies treated his rival for the speakership, Representative Steve Scalise of Louisiana. Representative Mike Kelly, Republican of Pennsylvania, introduced a resolution on Monday that would force a vote on keeping Mr. McHenry in an empowered role until Nov. 17. That’s when the current stopgap spending measure expires, which would trigger a government shutdown unless Congress acts to extend it.