Rep. Jim Jordan, a longtime budget hawk who’s consistently voted against farm bills, won the GOP nomination for House speaker on Friday, but like Steve Scalise before him, he still has to win over dozens of his Republican colleagues.
Supporters of Jordan, including former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., and House Agriculture Committee member Dusty Johnson, R-S.D., predicted the Ohio Republican would eventually prevail on the House floor.
But Jordan clearly has a lot of work to do before the floor debate that’s expected on Tuesday.
During a private conference meeting Friday, House Republicans voted for Jordan 124-81 over Rep. Austin Scott, a Georgia Republican and House Ag subcommittee chairman who offered himself as an alternative to Jordan at the last minute Friday, lawmakers said. Scott’s candidacy allowed GOP colleagues to cast something of a protest vote.
The GOP conference then held a second round of secret balloting to gauge how members would vote publicly on the House floor. Lawmakers said Jordan won that vote, 152-55, leaving him still well short of the 217 he will need on the floor, assuming all 212 Democrats vote against him.
“I think Jim Jordan is going to be given the opportunity, as he should, to take this to the floor, and I have every expectation that he's going to get to 217,” said Johnson, who gave a nominating speech for Jordan.
Johnson attributed the opposition to Jordan to continued anger among his GOP colleagues about McCarthy’s ouster as speaker Oct. 3. “There’s going to be a hangover from that vote for kind of a long time,” said Johnson, who chairs the centrist Republican Main Street Caucus.
Scalise, the current majority leader, won the speakership nomination over Jordan on Wednesday, 113-99, but withdrew from consideration Thursday night after it became clear to him he could not get 217 votes on the floor.
McCarthy, who is backing Jordan, needed 15 rounds to win the position in January even after relenting to a rules change that ultimately led to his ouster; a single member was allowed to force a vote on removing the speaker.
“I don't think it’ll take 15” to elect Jordan, McCarthy said. Jordan is in a “much stronger position” than Scalise, McCarthy said.
Jordan, who co-founded the right-wing House Freedom Caucus and who now chairs the House Judiciary Committee, is a favorite of the party’s most conservative members and strongest budget hawks.
Although Jordan represents a heavily agricultural district in central Ohio, he has repeatedly frustrated state farm leaders with his opposition to farm bills and resistance to federal biofuel policy. During a recent debate on the fiscal 2024 spending bill for USDA, he voted for deep cuts in food aid and other programs.
He told GOP colleagues that if he’s elected speaker he will move a long-term continuing resolution that will trigger a 1% across-the-board cut in federal spending in 2024. The move is intended to force the Democratic-controlled Senate and White House to negotiate spending levels lower than what was agreed to in this spring’s debt-ceiling agreement, according to Jordan ally Rep. Tom Massie, R-Ky.
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The new speaker's to-do list also includes moving a new farm bill or passing an extension of the 2018 law, portions of which expired Sept. 30.
Several House Ag members, including Chairman Glenn “GT” Thompson, said Friday they would be comfortable with Jordan as speaker. Thompson said he supported both Scalise and Jordan, “and that’s saying a lot from an agriculture perspective.”
Whoever is the next speaker first has to bring the GOP conference together.
“There's a lack of trust, a lack of transparency, a lack of communication and a lack of strategy. And until we address those, it doesn't matter who we put up for speaker, we will not be able to have someone stand up there with the full backing of the conference,” said Rep. Kat Cammack, a Florida Republican on the House Ag Committee.
Scott quickly endorsed Jordan.
“We need to get a speaker in the chair and Jim Jordan is the Republican nominee,” Scott said. “The longer this goes on, the worse it is for the Republican Party and for and for the United States.”
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