Who is GOP speaker-designate Tom Emmer?

House Republicans have selected their third speaker-designate since Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) was ousted from the speakership three weeks ago, electing House Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-MN) as their latest nominee.

Emmer will now be tasked with getting to the required 217 votes on the floor of the House of Representatives, something previous speaker-designate Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) failed to do on three ballots last week. Here is a look at who the GOP’s newest speaker-designate is.

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The Minnesota Republican was first elected to the House in 2014, in the state’s 6th Congressional District, after serving in the Minnesota House from 2005 until 2011 and being the GOP gubernatorial nominee in 2010.

He was narrowly elected House majority whip by the Republican conference after the 2022 election, beating out Rep. Jim Banks (R-IN) 115-106 in the final round of voting. Emmer was also expected to run for House majority leader if current House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA) would have won the House speakership.

Emmer is a member of the Republican Study Conference and serves on the House Financial Services Committee.

Jose Luis Magana/AP

Unlike the two previous GOP speaker-designates, Scalise and Jordan, Emmer did not vote to decertify the 2020 election during a special session of Congress on Jan. 6, 2021. At the time, Emmer defended his decision by saying that Congress did “not have the authority to discard” electors.

“Article 2 of the Constitution and the 12th Amendment clearly defines the roles and responsibilities of Congress and the states when certifying the results of the Electoral College. Simply put, Congress does not have the authority to discard an individual slate of electors certified by a state’s legislature in accordance with their constitution,” Emmer said in a statement in January 2021. “Doing so sets a precedent that I believe undermines the state-based system of elections that defines our Republic. If there are competing slates of electors sent to Congress by a state’s legislature, precedent allows Congress to be the arbiter between the two slates, however no state has done this so far in this election.”

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Emmer won the nomination of the House Republican conference, but roughly 20 members did not vote for the Minnesota Republican in a roll vote of the full conference. In a full vote of the House, a Republican speaker candidate can only lose four votes to be elected.

A vote of the full House has not been scheduled as the GOP works to move the holdouts in the conference. Democrats reportedly are open to sitting out a vote on the House floor to allow Emmer to be elected with fewer than 217 votes, with Rep. Dean Phillips (D-MN) saying he would do so if Emmer agreed to certain concessions.