The House Republicans will be locked behind closed doors, without their phones or their staff, to vote to nominate a new speaker just over a week since former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) was removed.
Before they start voting on the two speaker candidates — House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA) and House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) — the conference is expected to first vote on how to elect their nominee.
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Currently, it takes a simple majority of the Republican Conference to advance a speaker candidate to the full House. The alternative is to adopt a proposal led by hard-line conservative Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) that would require 217 votes within the conference in order to avoid the type of protracted fight that unfolded in January.
But Roy’s proposal is more complicated than what was originally thought.
The first round of voting would be by secret ballot. If nobody reaches 217 votes in the first round, then the conference will begin questioning the candidate who received a majority of the votes. Following the Q&A portion, there will be another secret ballot vote. If a candidate still doesn’t have 217, then there will be an open roll-call vote. If, after this third round, somebody still doesn’t have 217, then there will be another open roll call vote where members can nominate any candidate even if they are not running. If, after the fourth round of voting, a candidate does not receive the necessary amount of votes, then the process starts back over again.
Scalise and his supporters have been whipping against adopting this rule change, whereas Jordan and his supporters are in favor of the rule change.
Whether or not the rule is adopted today will have a huge impact on how long it takes to elect a speaker.
If it only requires a simple majority to advance a candidate out of conference and onto the floor, then a candidate could be voted on come Thursday. But, if this rule is adopted, then it could take days or even weeks before a nominee can be brought to the floor.
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Once they settle on how they will elect a speaker, then the voting will begin.
Each candidate will have one member give a nominating speech for them, and then voting will begin. Information will be sparse until they break due to there being no phones or staff allowed in the room. Once a nominee is chosen, they will go to the floor and start the process of voting them in as their next speaker.