Third ballot in speaker’s race unlikely to bring clarity as Jordan lacks public progress

Oct 20, 2023

It’s Friday morning, do you know where your House Speaker is? After 17 days, House Republicans don’t either.

Rep. Jim Jordan is set to speak to reporters at 8 a.m., and his team has pledged it won’t be an announcement that he’s dropping out.

The House is scheduled to meet at 10 a.m. for a potential third roll call vote on Jordan’s speakership bid, despite him losing support from Republicans between the first and second ballot.

The pace is glacial. With no votes at all on Thursday, the speaker election process is moving at a crawl of less than one vote per day. Conference meetings have yielded little beyond shouting matches, and Jordan opponents are still complaining of threats and intimidation tactics against them and their families.

New York state of mind: Jordan has “made progress” with New York Republicans who have been in vocal opposition to him, according to a person familiar with recent discussions. But none have publicly announced they’d flip to back Jordan. And Rep. Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.) told POLITICO he was unmoved and he will continue voting no.

“I think he’s probably going to lose a handful more votes,” Lawler told Playbook.

Rally team: On Thursday night Scott Fitzgerald (R-Wis.) said he was given calls to make to colleagues during a meeting with Jordan on Thursday night: “Some shoring up and a few calls to people who maybe could get there.” Reps. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) and Warren Davidson (R-Ohio) also met with Jordan on Thursday night.

Warren warns: Davidson, one of Jordan’s closest allies, announced that “Additional votes are expected through the weekend,” which signals that even close allies think Jordan will lose again and require further ballots.

Zoom out: House Republicans are in crisis. No one in the conference has the 217 votes to be speaker. The effort to empower speaker pro tempore Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.) withered and died after a nearly four-hour-long conference meeting Thursday. The Texas delegation are slated to meet Friday morning to pursue a potential Rep. Jodey Arrington (R-Texas) speakership.

The Senate on Thursday passed a resolution “standing with Israel against terrorism,” a goal of the House that they will be unable to accomplish until they emerge from this speaker mess of their own making. President Joe Biden is expected to send his request for supplemental aid to Israel and Ukraine to Congress on Friday, another agenda item out of reach for the speakerless House.

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