A new fighter has entered the ring for the speaker’s gavel.
Georgia Republican Rep. Austin Scott, a member of the House Intelligence Committee, announced his candidacy for the lower chamber’s speaker’s gavel.
Scott threw his hat into the ring for House speaker on Friday after Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., the original nominee for the gavel, pulled out of the race Thursday night.
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The Georgia Republican’s communications director Alex Enlow confirmed Scott’s speaker candidacy to Fox News Digital.
Scott’s candidacy puts him up against House Judiciary Committee chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, who narrowly lost to Scalise for the initial nomination.
“I have filed to be Speaker of the House,” Austin tweeted Friday. “We are in Washington to legislate, and I want to lead a House that functions in the best interest of the American people.”
Scott called Jordan his “good friend” while talking to reporters and that he doesn’t “necessarily want to be the speaker of the House.”
“I want a House that functions correct, but the House is not functioning correctly right now,” Scott said.
The Georgia Republican said if the GOP is “going to be the majority party” they “need to act like it.”
Scott said Rep. Frank Lucas, R-Ok., the chairman of the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee, would be nominating him for speaker.
The Georgia Republican said he also cares more about the GOP conference and he and his colleagues doing their jobs than who is the speaker.
“When I woke up this morning, I had no intention of doing this,” Scott said. “It took me a long time to even get to my wife to tell her, ‘Call our friends, be in prayer, because we haven’t done any preparation or any whipping or anything for this.”
“But I believe if we as Republicans are going to be the majority, we have to do the right things the right way,” Scott said. “And we’re not doing that right now.”
Scott also…
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