The chairman of the House Judiciary Committee and Republican Party candidate for speaker, Jim Jordan, will finally try to win the position in a third vote. Although Jordan himself indicated yesterday that he would support an initiative to keep the current interim president, Patrick McHenry, until January, the conservative conference rejected that proposal and insisted on focusing on the election of a permanent and solid speaker.
There is no path for a GOP-only empowerment of a Speaker Pro-Tem so it will necessarily require Democrat votes. It is, in any event, a fool’s errand - breaking with tradition & setting constitutionally questionable precedent to empower someone… #ShallChuseTheirSpeaker
— Chip Roy (@chiproytx) October 19, 2023
Jordan: "I plan to go to the floor and win this race"
After the new disagreement between the factions of the Republican Party, there are already three weeks that the House of Representatives continues without a president, an unusual situation and at a time when there are critical issues paralyzed -the financing of the Government, the war in Israel, the investigation into the Biden family...- until someone is elected.
However, the final decision cannot be described as surprising after the rejection of this possibility that several congressmen expressed to the proposal throughout the day both in statements to the media and on their social networks. Jordan himself put it this way:
We made the pitch to members on the resolution as a way to lower the temperature and get back to work. We decided that wasn’t where we’re going to go. I’m still running for speaker, and I plan to go to the floor and get the votes and win this race. But I want to go talk with a few of my colleagues.
Radical division between conservative currents
Later, Jordan, Kevin McCarthy, McHenry and Warren Davidson, a key ally, met with 12 of the critics, but the meeting ended in an exchange of reproaches, reports The Washington Post, citing sources who spoke on condition of anonymity. The meeting only served for both parties to ratify their positions. None of the opponents seem to give in their rejection of the president of the Judiciary Commission. For his part, Jordan turned a deaf ear to demands that he step aside and allow another congressman the opportunity to hold the gavel.
