Jim Jordan vows to ‘win this race,’ drops plan to empower temporary speaker

Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, is vowing to go to the floor for a third speaker ballot and “win this race.” He said he first wanted to speak with the 20 Republicans who voted against him on Wednesday, Oct. 18. The GOP speaker nominee needs at least 18 of them to flip to win the election.

The announcement came after Jordan backed out of a plan to give Speaker Pro Tempore Patrick McHenry, R-N.C., the power to run the House floor until Jan. 3. The proposal fell apart during a heated, hours-long meeting of the Republican conference.

“We made the pitch to members on the resolution as a way to lower the temperature and get back to work,” Jordan told reporters. “We decided that wasn’t where we were gonna go. I’m still running for speaker and I plan to go to the floor and get the votes and win this race.”

The position of speaker pro tempore was created after 9/11 to ensure continuity of government. Former Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., said he believes McHenry already has the power to run the floor.

“When I put McHenry’s name down it was my belief that if I, if something happened to me, then McHenry could run the floor until we elected a new speaker,” McCarthy said. “It was not my intention, when I put a name down, that they couldn’t do anything. So why would you put a name down?”

McCarthy compared naming a speaker pro tempore to the president naming a designated survivor for the state of the union.

There are multiple schools of thought in the Republican Party about empowering McHenry.

Some argue it’s unconstitutional and criticize the fact that it would need the backing of Democrats.

“In order to expand his powers, you’d have to work with Democrats to do that,” Rep. Michael Waltz, R-Fla., told reporters. “If you’re having a compromise with Democrats, is that what the majority of our voters elected us to do?”

Others contend the House desperately needs to reopen.

“When did bipartisanship become bad? It didn’t. We are rapidly running out of friends around the world. And if you don’t read the news, maybe you should look into it,” Rep. Derrick Van Orden, R-Wis., told Straight Arrow News.

There’s also those who said if McHenry is such a good candidate, then he should officially enter into the running.

There are some moderate Democrats who support empowering McHenry. Four of them wrote him a letter offering to expand his power in exchange for allowing Democrats and Republicans to introduce an equal number of bills.

Democrats are fully united against Jordan. They call him an insurrectionist who is the poster child for MAGA extremism.

After leaving a House Democratic Caucus meeting, Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said, "it was a triumph for democracy in our country that an insurrectionist was rejected by the Republicans again as their candidate for Speaker." pic.twitter.com/uHnU2XfZtV

— CSPAN (@cspan) October 18, 2023

“It was a triumph for democracy in our country that an insurrectionist was rejected by the Republicans again as their candidate for speaker,” Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said after the second failed speaker vote Wednesday.

The House Chaplain Margaret Grun Kibben summed up the feeling on Capitol Hill in her morning prayer.

“Compassionate God.” Kibben said. “Overwhelmed, overwrought or just plain over the circumstances in which we find ourselves in today, would that we heed your counsel not to be anxious about anything?”