Republicans will hear a final statement from the two announced candidates for speaker on Tuesday before a vote on Wednesday – but now their plans are facing a shift as Kevin McCarthy’s allies push for his comeback.
McCarthyites are expected to nominate him for speaker – even though the ousted House leader has not formally put his name forward as a candidate.
That could delay plans even further as loyalists could throw their support behind McCarthy – even if he doesn’t have the votes to secure a 217-vote majority in the House of Commons.
The path is also anything but clear for Representative Jim Jordan, who chairs the powerful Judiciary Committee, or for the second-largest Republican in the House of Representatives, Majority Leader Steve Scalise.
Republicans will hear a final statement from the two announced candidates for speaker on Tuesday before a vote on Wednesday – but now their plans are facing a shift as Kevin McCarthy’s allies push for his comeback.
They will address their colleagues at a candidate forum on Tuesday evening before an internal vote on Wednesday morning.
Republicans must first vote within the conference for a candidate for speaker. Currently, only a simple majority is required to become the GOP nominee.
But then that candidate must be elected in the full House of Representatives. To achieve a majority in the House of Representatives, Republicans can only afford four defections, assuming all Democrats vote against their candidate.
Without an elected House speaker, the House cannot move on to other legislative priorities — namely passing spending bills to avert a government shutdown next month and taking in aid money to replenish Israel’s defense capabilities in the face of Hamas attacks.
has learned that some Scalise supporters believe throwing McCarthy into the race is a tactic to keep McCarthy’s former deputy out of the job.
McCarthy loyalists are more likely to support Scalise than conservative firebrand Jordan. If McCarthy moves to split the vote between him and Scalise, Jordan could come out on top with a majority of the vote — at least within the Republican conference. Then he could still have trouble getting to 217 in the House.
Tensions between McCarthy and Scalise are an open secret in Washington.
They first came into the public eye when conservatives angry over the Biden-McCarthy debt ceiling deal shut down the House floor and voted in protest against the proposal of deeply conservative gas stove and regulatory rollback bills.
“The majority leader is in charge,” McCarthy told reporters, blaming Scalise for an embarrassing failed rules vote.
And instead of including Scalise in the debt ceiling negotiations, McCarthy had relied on his close friends, Rep. Garrett Graves, R-La., and Speaker Pro Tempore Patrick McHenry, R-N.C., to negotiate with the White House .
But McCarthy may also believe he has a real path to getting his old job back – the former speaker refused to rule out a comeback as he gave a news conference on Monday and made the rounds in television appearances.
The ousted speaker repeatedly said it was up to the conference whether they would recommend him as speaker again during a news conference where he touted his foreign policy skills amid the Israel-Hamas conflict.
“That’s a decision of the conference.” “I will leave it to the conference to make whatever decision is made,” he told reporters about a possible nomination for the speaker’s post. “Whether I am speaker or not, I am a member of this body.”
The path is also far from clear for Rep. Jim Jordan, who chairs the powerful Judiciary Committee, or the No. 2 Republican in the House, Majority Leader Steve Scalise, both candidates in the race
has learned that some of Scalise’s supporters mentioned above believe that throwing McCarthy into the race is a tactic to keep McCarthy’s former deputy out of the job
“Look, whatever the conference wants, I will do,” he told radio host Hugh Hewitt on Monday morning.
“There are a lot of people who believe Kevin McCarthy is the right person to lead us,” Republican Rep. Mike Lawler of New York told reporters on Monday.
“A lot of people” wrote Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida, who led the movement to oust McCarthy, on X. “Math is real. Time to move forward.”
McCarthy opponent Nancy Mace, R-S.C., added: “It’s not at all surprising that people who vote for trillion-dollar deficits, massive omnibus bills and CRs can’t count.”
California Republican John Duarte insisted that Democrats should allow McCarthy to be re-elected speaker.
“What we know is that there is no greater friend of Israel than Kevin McCarthy,” Duarte said.