A divided and quarreling House Republican conference will attempt to pick the chamber’s next speaker this week — but whether they will succeed is anyone’s guess.
Two candidates are squaring off to become recently ousted Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s successor: Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA), who was McCarthy’s number two, and Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), a long-time right-wing hardliner who currently chairs the House Judiciary Committee. Yet it’s unclear whether either can build the near-total unity among Republicans that would be necessary.
Scalise and Jordan will make their respective cases to House Republicans during a closed-door forum Tuesday. Then, on Wednesday, the House GOP will take their internal, secret-ballot vote on who should get the job.
But that won’t be the end of the story. To actually win the speakership, a candidate then needs to win a majority in a public vote of the whole House of Representatives. That’s the hard part, because of the GOP’s small majority — if all Democrats oppose a GOP speaker candidate, as is traditionally the case, it only takes a few GOP defections to sink him. This is why McCarthy struggled to win the speakership in the first place back in January, and failed to hold on to it when his speakership was put to another vote last week.
There are currently 221 House Republicans, and a speaker candidate will need to win the votes of 217 of them on the floor (unless they can win some Democrats, which neither Scalise nor Jordan seem interested in or capable of doing).
There are ideological divisions at play, with Jordan favored by hardliners on the right, endorsed by Trump, and feared by some moderates. But there are also personal divisions: Some McCarthy allies reportedly believe Scalise did not do enough to back McCarthy and are not eager to ease the Louisianan’s path to the speakership.
So though Scalise and Jordan are the main names in the running, speculation about other options also continues. Some have wondered…
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