One week after Kevin McCarthy (R-Cal.) was ousted as the Speaker of the House of Representatives, the House Republicans have still not found a replacement. The Grand Old Party (GOP) is facing many internal divisions making it difficult to vote for a new Speaker.
A candidate needs to win a majority of the entire House to be elected speaker, which is 217 votes, due to two vacancies. That means a GOP speaker nominee can only afford to lose four GOP Republican votes if there are no absences.
House Majority Leader Steve Scalise was a main player in the speakership bid. In a vote against Scalise and Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), Scalise won 113-99. Although this would not be enough, many Republicans decided to block Scalise’s path to leadership which caused Scalise to withdraw from the race. After meeting with his critics in an attempt to win them over, the list of Republicans against him doubled.
After announcing his withdrawal, Scalise said “there are still some people that have their own agendas, and I was very clear we have to have everybody put their agendas on the side and focus on what this country needs. This country is counting on us to come back together. This House of Representatives needs a speaker, and we need to open up the House again, but clearly not everybody is there, and there’s still schisms that have to get resolved.”
Jordan is the new GOP speaker nominee, but also lacks the 217 votes needed to take full control of the House. Jordan ran many House GOP investigations as the chair of the Judiciary Committee and helped form the House Freedom Caucus.
Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), a main contributor to the ousting of McCarthy, said “Jim Jordan puts us back on a path to fiscal sanity and he gets the Republican party back into the fighting posture we need to be in to win elections and push our policy objectives.”
The House will remain paused until a new speaker is found. There are important upcoming votes that need to be made for the country, so if the House still cannot decide on a speaker, it will push the United States behind. The government funding deadline will need to be voted on in mid-November and crises in Ukraine and Israel may need more support from the U.S. government.
House Representatives are feeling the pressure as they still have no one to fill this role.
“I just think the conference as a whole has to figure out their problem, solve it and select their leader,” McCarthy said.
“This is petty, and I’m getting freaking tired of it,” said Rep. Nicole Malliotakis, a New York Republican. “We’re all in there sharing our feelings, but the reality is we still need to get to 217.”
Jordan and his team will have to “make phone calls to understand why people aren’t there quite yet, and hopefully get them there,” said Republican Rep. Mike Garcia of California.
Some House Republicans are considering giving more power to interim speaker Patrick McHenry of North Carolina. House Democrats have started speaking with Republicans about people that may have interest in working with them, reported by CNN.
Overall, the House of Representatives is still without a speaker as chaos ensues among the U.S. government.