GOP lawmakers hear from candidates for speaker, but no clear winner in sight

House Republicans are set to begin the process of choosing their next speaker this week, but the party doesn’t appear to be any closer to zeroing in on one candidate that can win the majority of their conference when the full chamber comes together for a vote.

GOP lawmakers emerged from a closed-door candidate forum on Tuesday evening as the conference gathered to vet their top two speaker candidates before putting the matter to a party vote on Wednesday morning. While the two declared candidates, Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA) and Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH), have garnered support from several GOP lawmakers, they both fall short of the majority threshold needed to secure the speakership when the matter comes before the full House.

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“Obviously tomorrow we’ll be doing our private ballots, where each of us have to write a name and that’s kept private,” Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) said after the forum. “But in my opinion, I don’t think anybody has 217.”

Lawmakers met for two and a half hours to question Scalise and Jordan on how they’d lead the GOP conference moving forward, with much of the conversation focused on the government shutdown deadline next month.

After being ousted from the speakership last week, former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) opened up the forum by reading a Mother Teresa quote, giving a prayer, and asking members not to nominate him for speaker, according to multiple sources familiar his comments.

“People are often unreasonable, illogical, and self-centered. Forgive them anyway,” McCarthy said, quoting Mother Teresa. “If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives. Be kind anyway. If you are successful, you will win some false friends and some true enemies. Succeed anyway. If you are honest and frank, people may cheat you.

“Be honest and frank anyway. What you spend years building, someone could destroy overnight. Build anyway. If you find serenity and happiness, they may be jealous. Be happy anyway,” he added. “The good you do today, people will often forget tomorrow. Do good anyway. Give the world the best you have, and it may never be enough. Give your best anyway. You see, in the final analysis, it is between you and your God. It was never between you and them anyway.”

He received a standing ovation.

Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), who led the charge in ousting McCarthy, said he doesn’t know who he is supporting yet and that he will “pray about it” Tuesday night.

(Graeme Jennings / Washington Examiner)

“I’m very confident that both of these men would represent an upgrade over Speaker McCarthy,” Gaetz said. “So I’m not concerned that things that really imperiled his speakership would would be baggage carried by either a Speaker Jordan or Speaker Scalise.”

Rep. Kat Cammack (R-FL) said she asked each candidate if any “backroom deals” had been made for members’ support as they were under McCarthy to win the speakership. Jordan said the only deal he made was to “fight for you all,” while Scalise didn’t answer the question, she said. This interaction was confirmed by another source familiar with the questioning.

One of the top issues on members’ minds is how they are going to keep the government open once the current continuing resolution expires.

Congress passed a stopgap measure at the end of last month to keep the government funded until Nov. 17, after which the government will shut down if a new budget is not approved for fiscal 2024. That leaves lawmakers with a tight deadline to advance their appropriations bills, which some Republicans are already predicting won’t be possible before the new deadline.

“I think we’re voting for two things at once here: We’re voting for a speaker and for a plan to get through the next several days on the appropriations,” said Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), who has endorsed Jordan. “It’s not fair for us to vote for a speaker and then vote against his plan. So [I asked] what is your plan?”

Both Scalise and Jordan floated plans to push for a continuing resolution, although lawmakers who left the meeting said they differed slightly on what legislation they’d pursue. Jordan offered a proposal that would include a long-term CR that would last well into next year while implementing a 1% spending cut.

“That forces everybody who thinks that 1% across the board cut is a terrible idea,” said Rep. Kelly Armstrong (R-ND), who endorsed Jordan. “By the way, 1% across the board is a terrible way to cut. It’s better than not cutting at all, but it’s still a terrible way to cut that forces everybody to know that we’ve acted, we forced it, we’ve avoided a shutdown. We are not getting jammed with a minibus when there’s a Christmas tree in the Capitol.”

Scalise also expressed support for some sort of CR, but the majority leader did not have a specific plan on how he’d implement it, Massie said.

Rep. Pat Fallon (R-TX), who has endorsed Scalise, asked both speaker candidates about whether or not they would commit to supporting the other candidate if they were to be the nominee. According to Fallon, Scalise said he would support Jordan, whereas Jordan “didn’t really answer directly.”

A spokesman for Jordan pushed back on this representation and said the Ohio Republican did in fact commit to supporting Scalise if he becomes the nominee.

“Mr. Jordan said yes to that question,” said Russell Dye, a spokesman for Jordan.

House Republicans will reconvene for another closed-door meeting on Wednesday morning to vote for their preferred candidate via secret ballot. It’s unclear how long that process may take, but several lawmakers expressed a desire not to bring the matter to the full House before a candidate has at least 217 votes in support.

“I think there’s a real appetite in there not to go to the floor until we have 217,” Massie said, adding he thinks there’s a “2% chance” the House will be able to elect a speaker when lawmakers meet on Wednesday.

The decision could come down to who centrist members support, especially as they comprise a large portion of the conference.

Jordan, a hard-line conservative and a member of the House Freedom Caucus, impressed some of the more centrist members of the Republican Conference, including Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE), who said that Jordan was speaking “very pragmatic” during the candidate forum.

Bacon represents a district won by President Joe Biden in 2020 and is constantly a front-liner and target of House Democrats. While Bacon stopped short of endorsing him, his praises of Jordan could go a long way in winning over some centrist members.

“I thought [Jordan] did a very good job,” Bacon said. “They both did. I mean, I don’t want to take anything away from Steve, but I thought Jim handled himself in a way that he’s going to represent the entire conference. … He didn’t come off as the Freedom Caucus guy. He came off as ‘I can represent everybody,’ and he had a, I would say, straightforward reasonable plan.”

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Other members echoed similar sentiments, noting they think the process could drag well past the weekend.

“No one at this point is even remotely close to a majority,” Cammack said. “So I think that we’re not just going to be here for a couple extra days. My money says weeks.”