Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call via AP Images
Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) leaves a House Republican Conference Speaker of the House meeting in Longworth Building on Capitol Hill, October 13, 2023.
House Republicans have scheduled a vote for the next Speaker of the House for today at noon. After ousting Kevin McCarthy two weeks ago—the first Speaker to be subject to a motion to vacate since 1910, and the only one to be successfully removed ever—it seemed for a time that no Republican could possibly assemble the necessary 217 votes.
But that appears to be changing. Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), the third potential Speaker this session, only received 124 votes in the first round of voting last week, and 155 on a second vote seeking member support on the House floor. But the squeeze is on with those remaining dissenting Republicans, a combination of backers of failed Speaker hopeful Steve Scalise (R-LA), Appropriations and Armed Services Committee Republicans who are wary of budget implications, and moderates representing Biden seats.
One by one, those House Republicans are starting to lean Jordan’s way. Representatives like Mike Rogers (R-AL), Vern Buchanan (R-FL), Ken Calvert (R-CA), and Ann Wagner (R-MO) have come out in support of Jordan. That last one is wild: As recently as last Thursday, Wagner, a key Scalise ally, said she was a “HELL NO” (all caps hers) on the Jordan question.
There are two main dynamics driving Jordan’s apparent success. The first is an abject lack of courage on the part of (slightly) less extreme Republicans, particularly when it comes to conflict with the bug-eyed lunatics in their own party like Reps. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), Paul Gosar (R-AZ), and of course Donald Trump.
Over and over again, Republicans have failed to rein in Trump’s deranged whims, downplayed his extremism, and hoped that if they just pretend to ignore everything he does and says, he will go away somehow. “What is the downside for humoring him for this little bit of time? No one seriously thinks the results will change,” a senior Republican official infamously told The Washington Post on November 9, 2020. “It’s not like he’s plotting how to prevent Joe Biden from taking power on Jan. 20.”
This dynamic didn’t change even when Trump’s minions sacked the Capitol on January 6th, putting the lives of Republican members of Congress and Vice President Pence in danger. McCarthy himself yelled at Trump in a call: “They’re trying to fucking kill me!” Yet within days, House Republicans overwhelmingly voted to overturn the election and install Trump as president-for-life, and all but a handful of senators voted to acquit him after he was impeached a second time. And in 2022, McCarthy was back groveling before Trump’s feet to get his blessing for Speaker.
Any five Republican representatives could wield tremendous power by deciding to ally with Democrats. If they agreed to some modest concessions—say, taking impeachment off the table and holding to the budget agreement that McCarthy struck with Biden in May—they could get whatever modest-sized goodies they wanted. Tax breaks for favored businesses, personally snatching bread out of the mouth of a disabled war widow, or heck, just $10 million in cash each—Democrats would take that deal. But that would require a slight spark of independence.
The second dynamic is the tremendous disciplining power of the right-wing propaganda machine. Jordan has deputized the reliably bootlicking Sean Hannity to conduct a whip operation against moderate holdouts; his producer is sending emails demanding to know why members won’t vote for Jordan for Speaker “during a war breaking out between Israel and Hamas, with the war in Ukraine, with the wide open borders, with a budget that’s unfinished.”
I should emphasize that this propaganda push includes, and to some extent relies on, at least implicit if not explicit threats of violence. Those who speak out against Trump or his favored cronies have faced a deluge of harassment and death threats—Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT), who voted to impeach Trump twice, is reportedly spending $5,000 per day on security to protect his family. That of course ties in with the aforementioned lack of courage. Members of Congress swear to protect the Constitution; there is no stipulation in there about “unless I get scared by a MAGA hat guy.”
All this adds up to a disastrous lack of strategic acumen. Even if he doesn’t become Speaker, Jim Jordan is not exactly someone that the GOP wants in the national spotlight. For one thing, the past scandal in which he was alleged to have ignored reports of sex abuse from an Ohio State University wrestling team doctor is sure to get new attention. For another, he’s intimately tied to January 6th and Republican extremism more generally; he authored a bill for a nationwide abortion ban, for example. Democratic strategists are lighting up at the prospect of tying Jordan to every swing district in the country.
That would damage the very moderate Republicans who have the choice of whether or not to empower Jordan by making him Speaker. The survival instinct should dictate a full-on rejection. But with Republicans, often their power within their institution matters more than their overall power. A representative who votes against Jordan could be tossed out of Republican politics, including the post-government trough of lobbying and consulting gigs. Playing along, even at the cost of a seat in Congress, could set that representative up for life. The incentive systems all favor shutting up and going along with Jordan, even if it leads to life in the House minority at best and life out of Congress at worst.
Meanwhile, Jordan solves none of the problems that toppled McCarthy—namely, that the Republican majority cannot negotiate with the Senate or President Biden, or indeed pass its own messaging bills, because the balance of power is held by a group of bug-eyed bomb-throwers whose sole desires are to own the libs and go on Fox News.
Jordan, though he didn’t vote to oust McCarthy, is part of that caucus. Should he take the Speaker’s gavel, in November, when the current government funding bill expires, he will have to cut a deal with Democrats, in which case he’ll be lambasted as a traitorous RINO and probably removed, or shut down the government indefinitely. We may just go through this whole song and dance again in a month’s time.
