House Republican leaders looking to fill the speaker’s chair left empty after the stunning ouster of Rep. Kevin McCarthy quickly maneuvered to fill the position with their next-in-line, Majority Leader Steve Scalise.
Not so fast, Rep. Jim Jordan said Wednesday.
In a letter to rank-and-file lawmakers, Mr. Jordan, a founder of the GOP’s ultra-conservative Freedom Caucus who has spent much of his time in Congress attacking the Republican leadership from the right, threw a bomb into the race by declaring he is running for speaker.
Mr. Jordan’s candidacy is likely to split the House Republican Conference and could throw the battle for the speaker’s gavel into prolonged uncertainty, even as lawmakers scramble to hold an election to fill the position next week.
The House is essentially paralyzed until they elect someone to replace Mr. McCarthy.
It adjourned Tuesday after designating Rep. Patrick McHenry, North Carolina Republican, to serve as temporary speaker. Mr. McHenry could be filling in for a while, Republicans warned Wednesday as uncertainty grew over finding consensus for a new speaker.
“There are scenarios where Patrick McHenry could be in this job for an extended period of time,” Rep. Garret Graves, Louisiana Republican, said.
Under the House rules, Mr. McHenry is limited in his role and cannot conduct legislative business beyond the speaker’s election, tentatively scheduled for Oct. 11.
When he wields the gavel for that vote, Mr. McHenry will be overseeing a battle between two House veterans, Mr. Scalise and Mr. Jordan, and potentially a third candidate, Republican Study Committee Chairman Kevin Hern, of Oklahoma, who has expressed interest in the House’s top job.
“What I’m listening to from people is they want a different face. They want somebody to put policies over personalities,” Mr. Hern said Wednesday.
All three are staunch conservatives.
Mr. Scalise and Mr. Jordan are the prohibitive favorites.
Mr. Scalise, who turns 58 on Friday, has been entrenched in House GOP leadership for more than a decade, much of it as the number-three or number-two Republican.
He served as majority leader under Mr. McCarthy of California and as majority whip under Speaker John Boehner of Ohio, where Mr. Scalise first earned the admiration and respect of rank-and-file Republicans as he twisted arms to pass legislation and built a strong base of support in the conference.
His miraculous recovery from a near-fatal assassination attempt by a left-wing gunman in 2017 elevated him to hero status in the conference.
But Mr. Jordan, 59, has his own loyal following after co-founding the House Freedom Caucus in 2015 and serving as its first chairman. The Freedom Caucus under his leadership, leveraged their numbers to secure conservative wins in legislation or thwart bills put forward by GOP leaders that did not include their conservative priorities or spending cuts.
Mr. Jordan later worked his way up the leadership ladder and is now using his perch as chairman of the Judiciary Committee to aggressively scrutinize the Biden administration over the alleged weaponization of the Justice Department, censorship of conservatives on social media and other issues. He’s also playing a key role in the impeachment inquiry into allegations of corruption involving Mr. Biden and his son’s foreign business deals.
Mr. Jordan wrote to Republicans saying he has “helped deliver the most significant legislative accomplishments this Congress,” among the bills an immigration and border security measure.
“And I have been among the leaders in pushing for fiscal discipline my entire career,” Mr. Jordan wrote.
As he walked into a meeting Wednesday with fellow Republicans at the Capitol, he told reporters that he could unite a GOP conference shattered when a band of eight rogue conservative lawmakers ousted Mr. McCarthy.
“We are a conservative center-right party. I’m the guy who can unite that. My politics are entirely consistent with where conservatives and Republicans are across the country,” Mr. Jordan said.
Mr. Scalise, who began shoring up support for the speaker’s gavel almost as soon as Mr. McCarthy announced late Tuesday that he would not try to win it back, said he, too, can unite fractured House Republicans.
“You know my leadership style I’ve displayed at Majority Leader and Whip,” he wrote to fellow Republicans. “I have a proven record of bringing together the diverse array of viewpoints within our Conference to build consensus where others thought it impossible.”
Mr. Scalise is undergoing treatment for multiple myeloma, a blood cancer that he said was detected early and is responding well to treatment.
His heartfelt letter recalled his time recovering from gunshot wounds in the hospital and longing to return to Congress.
“When I was in the hospital for nearly 15 weeks, it was the possibility of getting back to work with all of you that kept me motivated to get better,” Mr. Scalise wrote.
Both Mr. Scalise and Mr. Jordan are among former President Donald Trump’s staunchest allies in Congress.
Mr. Trump has not endorsed a candidate in the race, and at least one House Republican plans to nominate the former president for the job of speaker.
Among the faction of eight Republican lawmakers who voted with Democrats to force out Mr. McCarthy, there’s no clear preference between Mr. Jordan or Mr. Scalise.
The ringleader of the eight, Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida, said both candidates are an improvement over Mr. McCarthy, who he accused of backing down on pledges to enforce fiscal discipline and other conservative priorities when dealing with the Democrat-run Senate and White House.
Mr. McCarthy was supported by the vast majority of the Republican conference.
“I know this, if it’s Speaker Jim Jordan or Speaker Steve Scalise there will be very few conservatives in the country who don’t see that as a monumental upgrade over Speaker McCarthy,” Mr. Gaetz told Newsmax.
• Susan Ferrechio can be reached at sferrechio@washingtontimes.com.
• Alex Miller can be reached at amiller@washingtontimes.com.
• Kerry Picket can be reached at kpicket@washingtontimes.com.