Republican Rep. Jim Jordan failed again Wednesday on a crucial second ballot to become House speaker, but the hard-fighting ally of Donald Trump showed no signs of dropping out despite losing support from even more of his GOP colleagues.
Next steps were highly uncertain as angry, frustrated Republicans looked at other options. A bipartisan group of lawmakers floated an extraordinary plan — to give the interim speaker pro tempore, Rep. Patrick McHenry, R-N.C., more power to reopen the immobilized House and temporarily conduct routine business. But that seems doubtful, for now.
What was clear was that Jordan’s path to become House speaker was almost certainly lost. He was opposed by 22 Republicans, two more than he lost in first-round voting the day before. Many view the Ohio congressman as too extreme for a central seat of U.S. power and resented the harassing hardball tactics from Jordan’s allies for their votes. One lawmaker said they had received death threats.
“Why won’t anyone vote for these crazy people that everyone hates? We can’t think of single other candidate to nominate!”
And if they did, there would be 8-10 holdouts the other direction for not being extreme enough.
Next steps were highly uncertain as angry, frustrated Republicans looked at other options.
Anger about their own stupidity to cut down their own speaker? Or about their inability to sell a radical nut as a reasonable choice for an important office?
One lawmaker said they had received death threats.
From the kind of person that voted her party in power. Don’t you like your supporters anymore?
Why do they keep embarrassing themselves by failing vote, after vote, after vote? Don’t they have a majority whip or someone who can go around and count the votes? Do they not understand how disorganized and stupid it makes them look?
The greatest example of this was McCain’s thumbs down vote on them killing Obamacare. There’s an old saying among lawyers that you don’t ask a witness a question that you don’t already know the answer to, and the congressional equivalent should be that you don’t hold a vote you don’t know you’re going to win. The whip and party leadership should have figured out how everyone is planning to vote before even calling the question. Instead, they have to vote 15 times to get the last guy in, and now he’s out again because he had to capitulate to the party’s extremists who are simply lobbing bombs at this point.
A member of the Republican party should be selected at random and ejected from the house each and every day they fail to elect a speaker.
Alternate title: “GOP’s Jim Jordan fails again on vote for House speaker as Democrats watch with amusement”
No one reasonable is watching with amusement as it is bad for the entire country. Unless you hate the US. Do you hate the US?
That’s your fault. I openly acknowledge the numerous atrocities the US has fomented around the world in the last 100 years. But when the alternatives are Russia and China you have to be reasonable about your choices. Having no leadership in the largest economic government in the world only benefits those who deal in chaos. Trust me, you don’t want chaos.
You’re getting downvoted by people who don’t understand what this means for the US right now, or by people who aren’t fans of the US and think your last comment is indicative of US imperialist thinking. Some see this petty in-fighting as the downfall of the horrible GOP, which could be good in the long term. But for today it means that no legislative work can be done, which includes a long term budget agreement. We are currently plodding along under a temporary budget agreement that expires Nov 17. If a speaker doesn’t get elected, then a vote on a budget can’t be held; which means there will be a government shutdown. Millions of federal employees will be furloughed without pay until the GOP decides to actually fucking work at their fucking job.
