The GOP Just Nominated a New Speaker, but for How Long?

The Republican Caucus narrowly elected House Majority Whip Tom Emmer of Minnesota as its candidate for speaker.

Emmer received 117 votes for speaker to 97 for Rep. Mike Johnson of Louisiana, but he’s fully 100 votes shy of becoming speaker of the House, and there’s absolutely no guarantee he can get the necessary votes to win.

In fact, in a roll call vote after Emmer was nominated, fully 20 Republicans refused to vote for him.

Emmer is seen by the wing of the party that wants to blow s**t up as being insufficiently loyal to Trump.

Emmer voted to certify the election of Joe Biden in January 2021. That heresy was only the beginning. According to the Washington Post:

• Emmer encouraged candidates running for House seats in 2022 to distance themselves from Trump and focus on the issues important to their districts, which Trump allies viewed as a slight.
• When a Trump donor in Chicago met with Emmer, he refused to say he’d endorse Trump. The donor refused to give him money.
• Emmer has not defended Trump enough on his indictments, they say.

Emmer served as chairman of the National Republican Campaign Committee, overseeing candidates and campaign cash for the 2020 and 2022 elections. Many Republicans are upset with Emmer for the disappointing results in 2022, where it was thought that Republicans might have won many more seats.

But there are many more Republicans in Congress who are grateful for his help in steering resources their way. Emmer’s stewardship of the GOP campaign arm is judged by many observers as a modest success, albeit a mixed bag.

The media like to talk about former Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s “Five Families” as holding power in the House. In truth, there are only two “families”: those who want to govern and those who want to blow s**t up.

Emmer is a member of the governing wing of the party. Even among the most conservative elements in the House Freedom Caucus, there is a recognition that we need some kind of government going forward. In fact, Emmer got many Freedom Caucus members elected and has always had cordial relations with them. How that plays out on the floor when it comes to the vote is unknown.

Emmer learned some lessons from Kevin McCarthy’s speaker race, including transparency.

“Tom’s addressing everyone’s concerns, and we’re doing it in an open setting. No backroom deals, that’s important,” said Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-N.Y.).

It may not be enough.

“There’s a lot of hope that we will, but we are often reminded that hope is not a method,” said Steve Womack (R., Ark.). “There are divided loyalties, there are separate agendas, there are personalities involved…. Threading the needle on coalescing is very difficult,” he said.

Nevertheless, there wasn’t as much anger in the room, according to Rep. Nick LaLota of New York.

“It seems like there’s less emotion in the room. There’s less stubbornness. There’s more reasonability,” LaLota, who had also voted against Jordan. “Many of us went home to our constituents this week and, whether they were in love with McCarthy, or not, Scalise or Jordan, most of our constituents with respect to either being Republican, Democrat or independent want us to move forward with business. We heard a lot of that and it’s going to lead to people being a little more reasonable here the next couple of days.”

The vote for the speaker will be on Wednesday. Will the wing that wants to blow s**t up prevail? If they do, it will be back to the drawing board for the Republican Caucus.