CV NEWS FEED // House Republicans in a Wednesday closed-door conference voted 113-99 to put Rep. Steve Scalise, R-LA, up for the House Speakership.
Backers will likely have a difficult time translating the far-from-unanimous vote into the vote of about 217 members that will be necessary to secure Scalise’s victory. Rep. Jim Jordan, R-OH, has been the other major contender for the House speakership.
Former Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-CA, said Wednesday that he favors Scalise’s candidacy. “I support Steve,” McCarthy told reporters.
Scalise “currently lacks support from a critical bloc of Republicans who mostly favored Jordan after the Ohio Republican received former President Donald Trump’s endorsement,” The Daily Wire reported:
“I think the leader is a really great man, and I’ve committed publicly to voting for Jim Jordan on the floor,” Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) told reporters, according to CNN. “My main concerns are the way this place is run. I think that there’s a problem with leadership in our conference.”
Boebert is a member of the House Freedom Caucus, many of whose members have not pledged to support Scalise and have expressed skepticism about his candidacy. “I was unhappy with the way things unfolded this morning,” said Rep. Chip Roy, R-TX, after the closed-door vote. “We should [have figured] this out behind closed doors as a conference before we started moving towards the floor.”
Roy and others had backed a plan to insure Republicans would not move forward to a House floor vote until they had a guarantee of the necessary 217 votes to cinch their candidate’s victory.
Again, from The Daily Wire:
“There was an effort after we did not agree to do that to start moving towards the floor today, and some of us said, ‘woah woah, let’s all hold your horses,’ let’s figure out where we are because we don’t want to be on the floor until we have 217,” [Roy] said.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) told CNN the Freedom Caucus members would support a Jordan speakership despite him telling them to shift their vote toward Scalise. Greene voiced her concerns over Scalise’s health, who is currently battling blood cancer.
Republicans are slated to meet again in conference today at noon to revisit the conundrum before bringing a candidate to the floor for a vote.