The U.S. House of Representatives has been somewhat of a mess since the recent vote to remove former speaker Kevin McCarthy. The vote came down to eight Republicans and the entire Democratic Party to vote out McCarthy.
Since then, the House has been in a frenzy, attempting to pick a new speaker and get the House back to some sense of normalcy. Until a new speaker is chosen, the House cannot vote on any bills that come through its doors, meaning the federal government is currently halted from passing legislation.
For now, this won’t be a major issue as with a slight majority Republican House, a majority Democrat Senate and a Democrat President, it’s unlikely much legislation will be passed with how polarized both parties have become.
The major issue looming over this debacle with the Speaker of the House is the U.S. was nearing a government shutdown before McCarthy was removed. This happens when an appropriations bill isn’t passed that would allocate funding to certain programs. This causes many federal employees to go without pay or no longer work if their position is not essential.
This would mean those non-essential agencies would cease to function until the shutdown has ended.
While the shutdown was averted, it was only temporary and will last until mid-November. At the rate of progress for a new Speaker of the House, it’s uncertain if the shutdown will be fully avoided.
So far, there were two votes in the House for Republican Representative Jim Jordan, with his third attempt at a vote falling through after losing a secret vote to be the Party’s nominee. Jim Jordan is a founding member of the Freedom Caucus, which makes up some of the most conservative members of Congress.
To win the role of Speaker, Jordan would have to acquire 217 votes. He was unable as he struggled to gain the support of some Republican holdouts who wanted other candidates to win.
There are different reasons why some Republicans refused to vote for Jordan. One group is Republicans from New York who refused to vote for Jordan until he supported a state and local tax deduction called a SALT tax cap. Other Republicans, such as Representative Don Bacon from Nebraska, are moderates fed up with extremist Republicans taking control.
On the topic of voting for Jordan, Bacon said it would reward “bad behavior” to vote for a conservative hardliner when it was them who got McCarthy removed against the wishes of the majority of the Republican Party.
Before voting for Jordan, there was a vote for Republican representative Steve Scalise, who failed to gather the number of votes required. He later dropped out once it became clear that several Republicans were never going to vote for him.
The major issue for any House Republican looking to win the Speaker role is only four Republicans can refuse to vote for the nominee and have the nominee still win. With Jordan out of the race, nine Republicans are running to be their Party’s nominee.
