Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) dropped out of the race for House speaker on Friday, and the quest for a new House speaker continues. We now have nine candidates in the Republican caucus seeking the gavel, with seemingly no end in sight for this drama.
The recently ousted speaker, Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), blasted his party’s inability to elect a new speaker.
“This is embarrassing for the Republican Party, embarrassing for the nation,” McCarthy said in an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
Hopefully, this will get resolved soon. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich thinks House Republicans need to get serious about ending this stalemate.
“They should go into a conference, not come out, bring food in and stay there,” Gingrich told “Fox News Sunday.”
“They shouldn’t bring anybody out until they have 217,” he added.
Is unity possible? It certainly seems that this next round of voting will be a long process, but there may be a way around it. According to a report from Politico, Rep. Mike Blood (R-Neb.) is pushing a unity pledge to ensure that whoever wins the House Republican conference vote will be supported in the full House vote.
A majority of the House Republicans vying for the speakership signed a pledge Saturday aimed at saving the GOP’s next pick from the vote-counting trap that sank Reps. Steve Scalise and Jim Jordan’s bids.
Seven lawmakers have launched campaigns for the gavel ahead of a Sunday deadline, as House Republicans scramble — yet again — to select their new speaker, nearly three weeks after Rep. Kevin McCarthy was ousted from the top post. And five of the announced candidates have committed in writing to a plot to ensure the next speaker-designate can rally 217 votes on the floor.
The pledge reads as follows:
House Republicans need to elect a Speaker as soon as possible in order to return to work on behalf of the American people. It is time to put politics and personalities aside and unite behind the next Republican Conference choice for Speaker.
I, _________, hereby pledge to support the Speaker Designate duly elected by the House Republican Conference—regardless of who that candidate is–when their election proceeds to the House Floor. Further, I pledge to vote for the Speaker Designate on the House Floor for as long as they remain the Speaker Designate.
The House of Representatives has been without a speaker since October 3, and the urgency of electing a speaker is not lost on many members, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t some opposition to the pledge. So far, Reps. Austin Scott (R-Ga.), Mike Johnson (R-La.), Pete Sessions (R-Texas), Jack Bergman (R-Mich.) and Kevin Hern (R-Okla.) have signed the pledge, while Rep Byron Donalds (Fla.) and Majority Whip Tom Emmer (Minn.) have not–which is concerning. However, the real issue isn’t the candidates as much as it is the members of the House GOP who have refused to support the speaker designate. It’s hard to see how such a pledge could make a difference if the entire caucus isn’t on board with signing it.
