The hard-line conservative from Ohio is likely to be defeated when the House holds another speaker vote on Friday, the third one this week.
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Representative Jim Jordan emphasized the need for the House to elect a new leader.
Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio made it clear on Friday morning that he was not giving up in his faltering campaign to be House speaker just ahead of a 10 a.m. vote in which he was expected to fail for a third time.
At a brief news conference, Mr. Jordan emphasized the need for the House to elect a new leader so the chamber could resume its business, including providing assistance to Israel as it responds to the attacks by Hamas.
“We need to get to work for the American people,” he said, adding, “We need to get a speaker as soon as possible.”
The House has been in a state of chaos for 18 days after hard-right rebels ousted Speaker Kevin McCarthy. The Republican conference’s initial nominee to succeed him, Representative Steve Scalise of Louisiana, failed to muster enough support to move forward. Mr. Jordan then received his party’s nomination to be speaker, but he failed to win the post in votes by the full House on Tuesday and Wednesday.
A favorite of former President Donald J. Trump, Mr. Jordan has seen his bid for speaker blocked by a group of mainstream Republicans harboring a litany of complaints against him. And a pressure campaign Mr. Jordan’s allies have waged against them has produced an intense backlash.
Mr. Jordan met Thursday with some of the 22 holdouts against him. But they remained dug in and encouraged him to drop out of contention.
Allies of Mr. Jordan have urged him to force votes on his nomination throughout the weekend, even though opposition against him was expected to grow.
The vote planned for Friday morning will cap a tumultuous 24 hours for House Republicans, who spent Thursday fighting among themselves in closed-door meetings, trading blame and insults, and casting about for a way forward as they failed again to coalesce around a speaker candidate. By Thursday evening, Mr. Jordan appeared no closer to winning the post.
“He needed to know there is no way forward for his speakership,” Representative John Rutherford of Florida, one of the holdouts, told reporters after meeting with Mr. Jordan.
Earlier Thursday, in the face of unyielding opposition, Mr. Jordan proposed to hit pause on his candidacy and support a plan being floated by centrist lawmakers in both parties that would temporarily give the interim speaker, Representative Patrick T. McHenry of North Carolina, explicit power to conduct legislative business.
That proposal met with furious backlash from rank-and-file Republicans, including many of Mr. Jordan’s far-right supporters, who said empowering Mr. McHenry — a stand-in appointed to his post after the ouster of Mr. McCarthy — would effectively cede control of the House floor to Democrats and set a bad precedent.
“It’s a giant mistake to give the Democrats control of a Republican majority,” said Representative Jim Banks of Indiana, who backs Mr. Jordan. He added: “What they’re doing right now is walking the Republicans off the plank. We don’t deserve the majority if we go along with a plan to give the Democrats control over the House of Representatives. It’s a giant betrayal to Republicans.”
Within hours, Mr. Jordan reversed course again and said he would move forward with his bid to try to win the post quickly.
“We made the pitch to members on the resolution as the way to lower the temperature and get back to work,” Mr. Jordan said on Thursday. “We decided that wasn’t where we were going to go. I’m still running for speaker. I plan to go to the floor and get the votes and win this race.”
Luke Broadwater covers Congress. He was the lead reporter on a series of investigative articles at The Baltimore Sun that won a Pulitzer Prize and a George Polk Award in 2020. More about Luke Broadwater
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Source: nytimes.com
