Still no House speaker as 20 GOP holdouts stymie Jim Jordan, including 3 Texans

WASHINGTON — Three Texans helped sink Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan’s bid for House speaker on the first ballot Tuesday, as 20 Republicans rejected the combative Judiciary chair. Allies worked into the night cajoling holdouts ahead of a second try Wednesday.

Appropriations chair Kay Granger of Fort Worth, one of the most senior and powerful Republicans in the House, cast her vote for Majority Leader Steve Scalise.

Rep. Jake Ellzey of Midlothian was the first Texas Republican to break ranks in the roll call. He cast his vote for “my favorite wingman, Mike Garcia,” a Californian he flew F/A 18 Super Hornet fighter jets with in the Navy. By then, five letters into the alphabet, enough defectors had voted against Jordan to seal his defeat.

Rep. Tony Gonzales of San Antonio also voted for Scalise, whose promotion to speaker was blocked last week by Jordan allies.

Nine of the 25 Texas Republicans in the House had not declared support for Jordan ahead of the vote, though none said they would try to block him, either.

After five hours of lobbying holdouts, Jordan abandoned hopes of calling a second ballot Tuesday. The House will reconvene for that Wednesday morning — Day 15 without a speaker.

All three Texans and four other holdouts serve on Granger’s committee, traditionally among the most bipartisan — with members typically averse to government shutdowns and other hardball tactics Jordan embraces.

With the House in limbo, Granger, Ellzey and others in the anti-Jordan camp demanded a second vote quickly, before Jordan could twist enough arms.

“Today’s central observation: The Defense … and Spending (Appropriators) world does not like to be challenged. Tsk. Tsk.,” Rep. Chip Roy, R-Austin, a strong Jordan supporter, posted on social media.

None of the three Texas holdouts offered an explanation, though none is associated with the far-right hardliners who’d stalled McCarthy’s election and stymied Scalise last week.

Texas Eagle Forum, a conservative group, urged its members to pressure the trio. “If you believe [Jordan] will be a powerhouse for all the issues these representatives claimed they supported when they ran for office please call them and tell them Texas wants Speaker Jordan,” the group said in an email blast.

It takes 217 votes to become speaker, a majority in the 435-seat House thanks to two vacancies that will be filled next month. Democrats control 212 seats and remained united behind Rep. Hakeem Jeffries of New York, the minority leader.

In a major embarrassment, Jeffries led Jordan 212-200, though that is the Democrat’s ceiling.

Scalise ended up with seven Republican votes. McCarthy got six. Four other GOP lawmakers got one vote each and Lee Zeldin of New York, who left Congress in January, got three.

Speaker pro tem Patrick McHenry, R-N.C., then declared the House in recess, one of his very few powers in the interregnum between elected speakers.

Rep. Keith Self of McKinney, part of the pro-Jordan faction that stymied Scalise last week, asserted before Tuesday’s vote that “he’s gaining momentum.”

Jordan spent the weekend allaying concerns and building support. And the 20 defections did amount to an improvement from Friday, when he secured the GOP nomination for speaker on an anemic 124-81 vote over a last-minute challenger with no particular following.

Hoping to consolidate support, Jordan then demanded an up-or-down referendum on his bid, which further revealed his vulnerability when 55 Republicans indicated by secret ballot they would vote against him on the floor.

Scalise had defeated Jordan for the nomination two days earlier. He dropped out a day later, unable to overcome resistance from Jordan-aligned conservatives, including Self, Roy and Rep. Michael Cloud of Victoria.

Many of Tuesday’s holdouts were Scalise backers who didn’t want to reward the hardball tactics of the Jordan camp.

Rep. Marc Veasey, D-Fort Worth, predicted that Jordan and his allies would “send in the thugs … to scare the Never Jordan” Republicans, referring to conservative broadcasters Sean Hannity and Mark Levin.

Republicans had hoped to avoid a prolonged ordeal like the one in January.

Then, McCarthy needed 15 ballots to break a blockade by hard-liners. The concessions he made eroded his authority, including a rule change that made his tenure the third-shortest of any speaker in history: lowering the threshold to trigger an obscure motion to remove a speaker so a single lawmaker could force a snap vote.

Eight GOP dissidents led by Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., used that mechanism to topple McCarthy after nine months, with Democrats agreeing to remove the speaker.

On the first ballot Tuesday, McCarthy and Scalise both voted for Jordan, prompting applause on the GOP side of the chamber.

“Jim Jordan is a patriot,” said House Republican Conference Chair Elise Stefanik in a nominating speech. “He is an America First warrior who wins the toughest of fights, going after corruption and delivering accountability at the highest levels of government on behalf of We The People.”

Democrats erupted in mocking whoops when she mentioned Jordan’s stint as a wrestling coach. Former Ohio State wrestlers have accused Jordan of ignoring sexual abuse when he was their coach, which he has denied.

Rep. Pete Aguilar, D-Calif., nominating Jeffries, offered a scathing takedown, calling Jordan “a vocal election denier” who helped incite the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol by a mob aiming to overturn President Joe Biden’s victory.

He noted that Jordan has opposed military aid for Ukraine during its war with Russia, and blocked a foreign aid bill that included funds for Israel just before the Hamas terrorist attack.

He warned that Jordan wants a nationwide abortion ban and, referring to his role spearheading the Biden impeachment inquiry, accused him of “wasting taxpayer dollars on baseless investigations.”

“Even members of his own party have called him a legislative terrorist,” Aguilar said, mocking Jordan for serving 16 years without passing a single bill and exhorting Republicans to “abandon the extremism that is preventing us from getting things done.”

Several Democrats called Jordan an “insurrectionist” as they declared their votes for Jeffries.

As the GOP tumult played out, Jeffries said it’s time to consider a bipartisan solution and said Democrats have found growing interest across the aisle.

This wouldn’t be “power sharing,” he said, because Republicans did win control of the House last November. But, he said, “the Republicans are unable to function on their own right now. … Either you’re going to continue to bend the knee to the most extreme members of your conference … or you can partner with Democrats to do the business of the American people.”

In theory, just five Republicans could band together with Democrats to install a speaker. Or a few dozen Democrats working with a majority of Republicans could marginalize the extremists.

Neither scenario has gotten any real traction.

Over the past two weeks House Republicans have repeatedly gathered in a room in the basement of the Capitol for meetings described by members as “therapy sessions” or a Festivus-style “airing of grievances.”

They met again Monday night over Italian food. The rigatoni and chicken parmesan received favorable reviews but the meeting ended without unanimity, though Georgia’s populist provocateur Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene predicted that opposition to Jordan would crumble.

“Everything changes on the House floor with the lights and the cameras and everyone’s district knowing who they’re voting for,” she said, alluding to pressure tactics decried by anti-Jordan Republicans.

Some of the holdouts have personal beefs with Jordan that go back years. Others represent swing districts and have reason to worry about their reelection prospects under a far-right speaker known for brass-knuckle politics.

Budget Chairman Jodey Arrington of Lubbock rejected the idea that Jordan was having a harder time than any other nominee would. Given the slim majority, he said, lining up 217 votes is “almost an exercise in impossibility.”

Austin Rep. Michael McCaul, the foreign affairs chairman, was the last Texan to express support for Jordan before Tuesday’s session.

Hours before voting began, he told CNN the whip count didn’t look good, though he predicted the “tenacious” Ohioan would eventually prevail.

McCaul also said Jordan had assured him he’s “amenable” on aid for Ukraine and Israel.

“He has to respect the will of the conference,” McCaul said.

With Republicans spinning in circles, he also floated a backup plan if Jordan couldn’t close the deal: “Maybe we ought to look at Kevin McCarthy again.”