The vote on the Speaker was delayed by G.O.P
A Fractal Conference with a Tea Party Man: Steve Scalise’s U.S. House Representative Candidate Houchin
The congressman went to an event for House Republicans to hear from candidates for Speaker of the House.
The House G.O.P. chose Representative Houchin as its poster child for the opening months of the 116th Congress because they viewed him as a fresh, friendly and broadly appealing face for their party.
The congressman was nominated by a slim majority of House Republicans as the next speaker. His nomination marks a narrow win over Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan, whose bid had been endorsed by former President Donald Trump.
She is part of a group of lawmakers who are centrists, but who are now aligned with Mr. Jordan and his right-wing leanings.
The chairman and vice-chair of the Main Street Caucus have not said who they are supporting. But they pushed unsuccessfully for a rule change that would have made it more difficult for Representative Steve Scalise of Louisiana, the No. 2 House Republican who is viewed as the more traditional choice to succeed Mr. McCarthy, to prevail over Mr. Jordan in the race.
They are also close allies of Mr. McCarthy. The Main Street group’s stated purpose is to develop common sense, pragmatic legislation and promote kitchen-table policies in Congress. Mr. Jordan was branded by former Republican Speaker John A. Boehner as a “legislative terrorist,” but forged a deal with Mr. McCarthy that moved him from the fringe to the epicenter of politics on the Hill.
The alignment is an example of how much of what takes place on Capitol Hill is dictated by what group of people you are in and who you’re friends with.
The candidates themselves were both presenting themselves on Wednesday as men who could unite their fractious conference, and move beyond the personal pique that has come to define much of the Republican-on-Republican warfare in the House.
Still, it is unclear whether Scalise can garner enough support to succeed McCarthy. In the Republican conference nomination vote on Wednesday, Scalise defeated Jim Jordan, his opponent, by a narrow 113-99 margin.
The congressman from New Orleans is from the conservative and wealthy suburban areas of the US House of Representatives. He has represented Louisiana’s 1st District in Congress since 2008 after winning a special election to replace Bobby Jindal. In January he was the House Majority Leader.
Scalise’s candidacy is expected to head next to a full House vote though it’s unclear when that vote will take place and whether Scalise can garner enough support from his own party to be elected speaker.
One-sixth of the country’s oil supply is supplied from Port Fourchon, which is in the district of Scalise. A supporter of onshore and offshore drilling, Scalise celebrated the House passage of H.R. 1 earlier this year, a GOP-backed energy bill, arguing it would increase U.S. energy production and lower costs for consumers. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said the legislation was “dead on arrival” in the Senate and the White House threatened to veto the bill, saying that it would “empower big companies to skirt the Clean Air Act.”
But in a letter sent earlier this month to his GOP colleagues asking for their vote to nominate him as speaker, Scalise touted the bill’s House passage as an example of his priorities and leadership style.
He mentioned in the letter that he has a track record of bringing together viewpoints that others thought was impossible to build consensus.
During that time, he spoke as a guest at the European-American Unity and Rights Organization, which was founded by David Duke. The incident haunted him in Congress. He eventually apologized for ever speaking to the group, saying he wasn’t aware of its controversial history.
His time with the group, and his adjacent association with Duke, has been dredged up again as he looks to move into the No. 1 role in the House. In one column that has received new attention on X, formerly known as Twitter, Louisiana politics writer Stephanie Grace recalls a young Scalise describing himself as “David Duke without the baggage.”
Grace pointed out in her column that Duke is from the same area as Scalise. Grace noted at that time that Duke had lost in a Louisiana governor’s race, and it was likely that the comment was reflective of his effort to appeal to a conservative voter group.
According to Grace, the guy who wants to be speaker is a conservative who supports many of the conservative policies, including opposing affirmative action and trying to keep same-sex marriage illegal.
Scalise’s relationship with Cedric Richmond, a former Democratic Congressman from New Orleans, is often cited as an example of this bipartisanship. Richmond and Scalise served in the Louisiana Legislature and in Congress together and have often been called “the bayou brothers.” Richmond, who now serves as a senior advisor for the Democratic National Committee, declined to comment for this story. It wasn’t long after he talked to a white supremacist thatRichmond defended the congressman, saying that he doesn’t have a racist bone in his body.
But Scalise is no stranger to adversity. In 2017, the congressman was shot by a gunman at a congressional baseball team practice in Alexandria, Va. He drew upon that experience in his letter to colleagues asking for their support of his nomination saying, “I firmly believe this Conference is a family. The Members of this conference saved my life after I was shot. When I was in the hospital for nearly 15 weeks, it was the possibility of getting back to work with all of you that kept me motivated to get better.”
He has been diagnosed with a form of blood cancer. He said that the cancer had dropped dramatically as a result of treatment.
