by Alexis Simendinger & Kristina Karisch
House Republicans on Wednesday nominated Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) to be the next Speaker, sending his candidacy to the House floor amid a backdrop of internal division, congressional paralysis and international crisis.
A week after Rep. Kevin McCarthy’s (R-Calif.) stunning ouster, Scalise secured the nomination by a vote of 113-99 in a closed-door GOP conference meeting, defeating House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) in a close race that did not have a clear frontrunner.
The 58-year-old Louisianan is a longtime member of House leadership who sits to the ideological right of the GOP center. His tenure has been marked by an often-icy relationship with McCarthy and personal battles on and off the floor. Scalise was shot during a congressional baseball practice in 2017 and recovered after intense medical care. This year, he was diagnosed with multiple myeloma, a form of blood cancer.
I’ve got a long history of bringing people together, uniting Republicans, focusing on the issues that we’ve got to do to address the issues we came here to do to get our country back on track,” Scalise told Fox Business in an interview Tuesday.
Now, Scalise must prevail on the House floor, where he’ll need at least 217 lawmakers to support his candidacy. With a slim Republican majority — and Democrats expected to nominate Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) to the post, as they did during January’s Speakership elections — the House’s second-ranking Republican faces an uphill battle.
At least six lawmakers announced Wednesday they wouldn’t support Scalise’s candidacy, all but guaranteeing the chamber could face another protracted Speaker vote akin to McCarthy’s 15-ballot ordeal at the start of the year. Others, like Rep. Barry Moore (R-Ala.) told reporters “I just don’t think Steve’s got the votes,” despite voting for him during the closed-door meeting. Jordan, however, said he offered to deliver a nominating speech on Scalise’s behalf (The Hill and Politico).
There has been speculation that Jordan could be offered the majority leader post — even though other GOP members are already jockeying for that leadership job. Regardless, would Jordan want to be Scalise’s deputy and give up his Judiciary Committee gavel? Remember: Jordan rejected the House GOP bill that kept the government open late last month while Scalise backed it.
- The Hill: Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) and Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) are among the pro-Jordan holdouts.
- The Hill: CNN’s Jake Tapper to Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.), a Jordan supporter: “Name one Democrat who trusts Jim Jordan.”
- Vox: How Congress stumbled on the worst combination of representative government.
Scalise, who pitched himself as a unity candidate who can bring together the House GOP conference, will be tested today. Any Republican Speaker is challenged to navigate the same dynamics that made the party ungovernable under McCarthy. A small faction of House Republican renegades balk at compromise with Democrats who control the Senate and the White House and they offer varying definitions of leadership they want to see from a Speaker (The New York Times).
IF HE GETS THE JOB, SCALISE INHERITS a race against the shutdown clock from his predecessor. Lawmakers have until Nov. 17 to fund the government or risk another shutdown, and multiple members, including Scalise, have said in recent days that Congress may need to once again rely on a stopgap spending bill to keep the lights on.
Politico: The Senate is a problem in the Israel crisis. Democrats are fed up.
There’s also the question of congressional aid to Ukraine and Israel, where attacks by the militant group Hamas reached a flashpoint this week. NBC News reports that administration officials have privately told lawmakers that the White House is preparing a supplemental funding request to submit to Congress that includes money for Israel, Ukraine, Taiwan and U.S. border security.
President Biden said Tuesday that “when Congress returns, we’re going to ask them to take urgent action to fund the national security requirements of our critical partners.”
